The Trials of Ted Haggard

I remember the first news story that appeared on the Denver local news when I was still living in Colorado.  Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship in Colorado Springs, a church of 15,000 members, advisor to President Bush, and spokesperson for conservative Evangelical Christians all over America, was accused of having sex with a male prostitute.  I watched him deny it.  Then, over the next few days I watched him backpedal.  It was like watching a car accident.  He gradually admitted to more and more, and by that Sunday, Haggard resigned from his church, and had been removed from every position of influence that he held.  It had become clear that Haggard had in fact engaged in extra-marital homosexual encounters with another man as well as drug use and other offenses.

I watched in amazement as the whole thing unraveled.  I remember feeling angry.  Funny story . . .

Maybe two weeks earlier, while I was working at a church in the Denver area our church received a phone call.  I answered, and who was on the other end of the line?  The pre-recorded voice of Ted Haggard asking me to rally the troops in my church to vote for an amendment to the Colorado constitution permanently restricting homosexuals from being married.  I remember thinking at that time, "Gee.  I know I don't endorse the homosexual lifestyle.  But I do feel alittle empathy for homosexual people.  I guess I could see why they'd feel hurt by evangelicals trying to prevent them from enjoying certain rights as a couple when they aren't approaching life wiht a Biblical tool kit, even if I disagree with their choice.  So at the time, while I agreed with Haggard in principle, the issue was not as cut and dry for me.  And in a way, I sort of envied the guy for being so convinced in his convictions.  I felt kinda guilty that I wasn't as solidly "anti" gay relationships as Ted Haggard.  Then two weeks later . . . well, you know the rest.

So I was alittle bitter toward Mr. Haggard.  I was angry that such a gifted leader and man of God could screw up like that.  I was angry that he so hypocritically preached against homosexuality while he secretly practiced it behind closed doors.  And I felt sorry for him.  I felt sorry for him because I knew he had a powerful internal struggle warring inside of him that was difficult to stomp out.  I also felt empathy for him because I knew I was perfectly capable of making just as big of a boob of myself as he did . . . it probably wouldn't involve a male hooker, but I could certainly be tripped up by a host of other temptations, sexual and otherwise.

I hadn't thought much about Ted Haggard since that time except when someone wouold make a passing references to him as a cautionary tale (i.e., "Make sure you're keeping your sexual temptation under control.  You don't want to end up like Ted Haggard!")  But I hadn't thought much about him.  I never wondered how his life was going.  I never wondered about his relationship with his family or his church or friends.  Well, tonight, HBO aired a documentary called "The Trials of Ted Haggard," which followed his life for the year and a half after his sexual scandal and subsequent move from Colorado.  After seeing this film, I felt genuinely sorry for Ted Haggard.  He screwed up very bad, and he knows he screwed up bad, but this film shows the Haggard family (Ted, his wife, his kids)being treated like toxic hazardous waste.  Toward the beginning of the film, here's one interaction:       

Haggard: So, we're calling this stage in our life our exile.  We've been exiled permanently from the state of Colorado and instructed to take me and my wife and our children outside of the state of Colorado permanently [to] put down roots someplace else.

Pelosi:  And how does it feel to be an exile?

Haggard: [Long pause] We're miserable. 

Later in the film, Haggard talked about his feelings of lonliness and abandonment:

Pelosi: It's just weird to me that it's been a year and you're still living with this every day

Haggard: Oh yeah.  And it's because . . . See, the reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me and abandon me and kick me out and that the church would exile me and excommunicate me.  And, that happened and more.

Of course, I'm not excusing Ted Haggard's behavior, but I find it strikingly unbiblical that a church would be as dismissive of a brother as Haggard's church was to him.  Churches are called to discipline those who sin in their midst (a very sensitive subject, and a difficult thing to do), and I know leaders are supposed to be above reproach and held to a high standard.  But those realities are always tempered with the intention of restoring a fallen brother back to fellowship within that church.  Permanent exile with no hope of restoration, is not a Biblical concept . . . at all . . . at all . . .at all!  Now, I recognize that documentary films are inherently slanted/biased and by their very nature they do not tell the full story.  So I want to be fair enough in my judgment to assume that perhaps New Life Fellowship has reached out to the Haggard family in certain ways that were not recognized by the film.  But if the film is fairly accurate in it's portrayal of Ted's relationship with his former church, I find that a tragedy.

I also find it a tragedy, that throughout Ted's minstry life as a leader, and as he wrestled with these internal demons, he never had a single person in whom he could confide.  He lived in constant fear that if his friends knew how screwed up he was, they'd abandon him, his wife would divorce him, and everyone would simply pretend he didn't exist.  I don't care who you are . . . that's a scary proposition (and nearly completely true).  It's no wonder he fell with such a "thud."  It doesn't matter what position you have, how many presidents you advise, how many people attend your church, how perfect your family is, or how big your house is, everybody, EVERYBODY, has to have at least one person on whom you can unload all of your dirt to help you process it.  No one can let themselves get so isolated in a moral vacuum that they can no longer share their secrets with people.  It's only a recipe for disaster.

Comments

[Brian Lilley]

Good article...Very well thought out. Reminds me of the Jimmy Swaggert scandal...This guy takes the cake though. An evangelical leader who is secretly an active homosexual and drug addict. Like the secular progressives needed any more ammo...I really believe there is a spiritual war going on and those who are higher profile (ie more in the public eye) are the ones most under attack by the evil one. If you're going to go into battle and stand up for Christ, you'd better have on the full armor of God. Satan found a chink in these guy's armor and got the best of em...