It was really wrong of me to ask whether all the megachurch “pastors” gay, or only some of them. Christianists, can you ever forgive me? Because some of the megachuch pastors are child abusers, too (via memeorandum):

Pastor Paul Williams, who directs prayer programs and special projects at the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis, has been forced to take a leave while a church committee investigates charges that Williams sexually molested a family member 17 years ago. Williams has been at Bellevue for 34 years, reports Agape Press, a news service run by the American Family Association.

All these incidents are probably consequences of a reading from Haggard 1:1 from the pulpits. But sex scandals have a long and glorious history in the evangelical movement; some of the consequences charisma are all too earthly. But surely there are deeper factors at work?

There are probably a lot of important subtleties [snicker] that I’m missing in this brutal simplification, but looking at them from the outside, Christianist social relations seem like authoritarian social relations (although I wouldn’t go so far as to label them D/s, if only because the notions of play and stop-words are utterly missing. The “D” never stops. Although the religionist paraphernalia obviously serves as fetish object, vide that creepy snuff flick, The Passion).

God the Father is placed in authority over the Father of the Family, the Father of the Family is placed in Authority over the wife and the children… And it’s no wonder, human nature being what it is, that the Fathers abuse their God-like power over those in their charge in all too earthly ways. (The similarity to the abuses of authority in the Catholic heirarchy is obvious.)

So, we may expect these scandals to the faithful to persist, since they are part and parcel of the authoritarian social relations that the Christianist ideology is all too successful in reproducing.

Of course, one aspect of this sad case is curiously, or not, under-reported in the press: Paul William’s Church, Bellevue Baptist Church—not to be confused with the other Bellevue in Manhattan—is a highly politicized church, and very influential in today’s Republican Party. The Memphis Flyer:

Bellevue Baptist Church, a currently Cordova-based congregation which, much more so than most predominantly white churches, is known for its political consciousness and involvement.

That tilt — which is the conservative side of most issues, social and economic — owes much to the active involvement in political controversies of its late, legendary pastor, Dr. Adrian Rogers. Rogers, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was a pivotal figure in his denomination’s purging of social moderates from positions of influence, and his political allegiances were best indicated by the eulogistic ceremony he convened at the church after the death of former President Ronald Reagan.

Bellevue has also been highly influential in driving the Republican’s Rapture-based Middle Eastern policy. The Wall Street Journal:

How Israel Became a Favorite Cause of the Conservative Christian Right
Advocates for Israel, who once looked to liberal Democrats as the bulwark of U.S. support, now find equally conspicuous support from conservative Christian Republicans they once suspected of intolerance or even anti-Semitism.

That shift is having far-reaching consequences. More than any other single factor, it explains why there has been so little pressure from a Republican White House on Israel to curb its crackdown on Palestinians.

Ed McAteer, a congregant at Bellevue Baptist Church and a Colgate-Palmolive Co. marketing executive, would play a significant role in the realignment of the GOP through his work nationally in the conservative Religious Roundtable. Mr. McAteer is a Christian [SIC] for whom support for Jews is a biblically based family tradition. … [McAteer] had discovered Israel years earlier through his wife, Faye, who was active in a fundamentalist “country church” outside the city.

In Washington, [McAteer] joined lobbyists for Israel in trying to win over the Republican right. They worked on leaders such as Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, whom the pro-Israel lobby didn’t consider an ally. Mr. Helms, who survived a 1984 election challenge from a Democrat who had extensive Jewish financial support nationally, traveled to the Holy Land the following year. A picture from that visit, of Mr. Helms and Mr. Sharon, hangs in the senator’s office. Aides say he was deeply moved by the trip, and since then, says AIPAC, his voting record has been consistently pro-Israel.

Mr. McAteer eventually traveled to Israel with hundreds of prominent Christians, ranging from religious-broadcasting executives to John Ashcroft. Another was the Republican congressman who represented Memphis through most of the 1980s, Don Sundquist.

Former Sen. Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota, an unusually conservative Jewish lawmaker, encouraged support from others on the right by pointing out that Israel provided invaluable security assistance to the U.S. What’s more, he said, supporting Israel could produce valuable campaign donations. In numerous trips, he introduced local Jewish activists and donors to Republican members of Congress.

“We serve the same Holy God,” said Holly Coors, a brewery heiress and conservative benefactor, to the Israeli ambassador at a recent gathering in Washington. “It is the enemy who goes against our God.”

Well, splendid. Hey, let’s put on a crusade!

Of course, the same authoritarian social relations drive child abuse in the Christianist heirarchy operate with the Republican Party as well. They share a common bond. And, as Shakespeare’s sister points out, the same Winger Project Syndrome as well.

It’s the abuse of power, stupid!

NOTE It would be interesting to see a theodicy that framed the Holocaust as an instance of what happens to the children of an abusive God (if any)).