I watched the video of Stephen’s September, 2004 sermon (a link is posted towards the bottom of the SBMinistries home page) and it struck me that he frequently describes himself as a victim of circumstances.
Samples which stuck with me:
- Being devastated by ridicule from his family after they found love notes from his girlfriend in 6th grade.
- Having his first alcoholic drink morph into heavy drinking, and his first gay sex, all within a few hours.
- Jettisoning his college career just a couple months into freshman year because the end of his first relationship left him in emotional shambles.
- Returning home, finding his high school buddies were all gay, freshly out, and eager to lead the way to bars, sex, and drugs.
- Living contentedly as a gay man in a long-term relationship until challenged by a Bible from a newly-converted friend.
The same theme — being picked up and carried away by circumstances beyond his control — plays out as he describes his successes, as well.
- Prior to his dad’s funeral, he hadn’t sung much, but a pastor who heard him there asked him to do music ministry, paving the way to song-writing, recording, and performing.
- When Irene answered a phone call from an anti-gay fundraiser by saying something to the effect that “we can’t donate, but my husband used to be gay,” they were happily running a sign business, wanting nothing more or different from life. The phone call led to a national TV appearance a few weeks later.
- The TV appearance triggered an avalanche of phone calls which catapulted Stephen and Irene into international ministry.
In that context, it doesn’t surprise me that someone else was to blame when he pressed the wrong button and erased the hard drive of a critical computer a few days ago.
I wanted to watch the video to get a sense for what a casual conversation might be like with him. He seems affable, able to laugh at himself, and has solid creative and dramatic intuition with his music.
So, I can only imagine that he saw the humor in kicking off an exciting new writing project — his first book — on April Fool’s Day.
I wish him the best on the book-writing project. I certainly know what it’s like to have faced challenging circumstances and to have made decisions that don’t make sense in hindsight. I do my best to emulate folks I respect, who have been victimized at times yet insist on being survivors more than victims, understanding how their choices (good, bad, or other) have shaped their lives, and take active responsibility for good decision-making as they move forward.
I hope the writing time gives him the chance to be introspective about the ways the ways in which his exercise of critical thinking and free will (abilities and responsibilities given by God, perhaps) contributed to making his life good, and the ways in which less-than-optimal decisions, not Satan, have contributed to valuable lessons learned.
…when he pressed the wrong button and erased the hard drive of a critical computer a few days ago.
You know, I thought about this when I read it. There isn’t a button I know of that you can press to “erase” a hard drive. In fact, it takes several steps and even then it gives at least two very strong warnings. On top of that, I don’t think Windows (which is what I believe he is using from previous snippets, though I could be wrong) won’t let you format the system drive of the computer running it. I guess he could have formatted a separate partition or external drive, but still you can’t do it by “pressing the wrong button”. And as much as people like to complain about outsourced support, the one thing they don’t have in their scripts is any procedure for doing something that stupid.
Again, it’s personal opinion and I can’t absolutely prove it but the more I read the more I am convinced that Stephen has a problem telling the truth, even on seemingly small issues.
David
Yup, I agree that wiping a hard drive is not that easy a thing to do. In the early days of Windows there was a format button within all-too-easy reach, but that’s a few years back for anyone who is keeping their mission-critical machines current and patched.
Perhaps, in deference to non-technical readers, Stephen took a bit of story-teller’s license and left out a more detailed explanation. Being imprecise and speaking in hyperbole (like the title of Stephen’s $99 CD set, “Complete Change is Completely Possible”) makes it difficult to build credibility, though.
There are always options for erring on the side of humility — “Ooops, I should have known better” — or personal responsibility — “Wow, I have not done a goood job of setting up basic office procedures” — both of which do earn respect from me.