Hypocrisy, Our Lord and Savior
Ted Haggard- Evangelical pastor, founder of the New Life Church, infamously known for condemning homosexuality. Caught with male prostitute whom he had been paying for sex with and purchased and used crystal meth with.
Pastor Ernest Angley- Anti-gay televangelist and author who claims AIDS/HIV can be cured by “God’s Healing Power”. Admitted to having a forced same-sex sexual encounter with one of his staff members in a recording.
Jim Bakker- Televangelist best known for the PLT Club and the Jim Bakker Show. Embezzled from his own church group of donations, which he served 5 years for, and raped his church secretary and tried to pay off said secretary with hush money.
Bishop Eddie Long- Extremely anti-gay pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Pressured and sexually abused his male practitioners when they were teenagers.
David Matheson- Notorious Mormon gay conversion therapist. Now identifies as gay and wants to start dating men.
Jimmy Swaggert- Pentacostal televangelist behind the Jimmy Swaggert Telecast and A Study of Words broadcast programs. Involved in a sex scandal with a prostitute. TWICE.
Ken Ham- Australian-born Christian fundamentalist young earth Creationist and president of Answers in Genesis, a creationist apologetics organization that operates the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. Has no science degree, continuously lies to the public (specifically impressionable children) with no real evidence to back up his claims, and used tax-payers money to build arc replica.
Joel Osteen- Televangelist with a big-ass megachurch and a bigger-ass mansion. Turned away people who have lost their homes from flooding during Hurricane Harvey from his church, which is big enough to house over 16,000 people to serve as a shelter.
The list could go on. Hell, I could list the numerous child sexual abuse cases made by members of the Catholic Church, but I think I’ve made my case.
Honestly, I could say that religion is nothing but a breeding ground for hypocrisy, but it’s far too easy and just a very broad and untrue statement. The real, cold truth is that the people that I’ve listed off are some of the biggest hypocrites of all time, and there are like-minded individuals who are doing the exact same thing around the world. What’s worse is that they’re using their faith as a means to justify their actions while at the same time causing so much harm to others. This my friends, is the true definition of hypocrisy.