On the New Life Church’s web page, Ted Haggard has released this letter in .pdf format where he tells some of what has happened.

He has finally admitted that his statements were inconsistent.

He has finally admitted that “The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem.”

He never mentions the meth issues that were admitted after he lied about it the first time.

It was needed to be admitted long before Haggard and the church tried to deny and drag it out until after the election of the Colorado amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

However, I do give him credit when he stated:

Please forgive my accuser. He is revealing the deception and sensuality that was in my life. Those sins, and others, need to be dealt with harshly. So, forgive him and, actually, thank God for him. I am trusting that his actions will make me, my wife and family, and ultimately all of you, stronger. He didn’t violate you; I did.

I have seen (and have actually experienced) the fact where the one who brought forth and/or popularized a controversy has been ringed through the washer looking for flaws trying to pragmatically state that since he had flaws meant that it negated the controversy done. I give him credit for saying to lay off the accuser.

Gordon MacDonald in his blog post entitled The Haggard Truth: Gordon MacDonald on the lies all-too-easily believed really shows his concern as he prays that “the leadership of New Life Church will not assume that “restoration” means getting Ted back into the pulpit as soon as possible.” That is a very valid concern as in the past, leaders in the Charismatic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal movements that were so popular were rushed back to the pulpit as soon as possible or took control back because the church was really the family business as family members sat on the board or over-glorified yes men were there.

However, the most important thing that Mr. MacDonald stated was this paragraph:

Ever since the beginning of the Bush administration, I have worried over the tendency of certain Evangelical personalities to go public every time they visited the White House or had a phone conference with an administration official. I know it has wonderful fund-raising capabilities. And I know the temptation to ego-expansion when one feels that he has the ear of the President. But the result is that we are now part of an evangelical movement that is greatly compromised….identified in the eyes of the public as deep in the hip pockets of the Republican party and administration. My own belief? Our movement has been used. There are hints that the movement—once cobbled together by Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga—is beginning to fragment because it is more identified by a political agenda that seems to be failing and less identified by a commitment to Jesus and his kingdom. Like it or not, we are pictured as those who support war, torture, and a go-it-alone (bullying) posture in international relationships. Any of us who travel internationally have tasted the global hostility toward our government and the suspicion that our President’s policies reflect the real tenants of Evangelical faith. And I might add that there is considerable disillusionment on the part of many of our Christian brothers/sisters in other countries who are mystified as to where American evangelicals are in all of this. Our movement may have its Supreme Court appointments, but it may also have compromised its historic center of Biblical faith. Is it time to let the larger public know that some larger-than-life evangelical personalities with radio and TV shows do not speak for all of us?

AMEN!!! The fallacy of the Christian utopia and the fallacy of abortion being overturned, school vouchers for the home-schoolers, elimination of a marriage penalty tax, etc. is finally coming out to light and the frustrations of those who bought into the mentalities propagated by the Religious Right are asking questions and have every right to do so. We have fought with carnal weapons instead of tearing down principalities. We have trusted in horses and chariots to take over Iraq when we fail to realize that a deep seeded spiritual problem since Abraham and Ishmael is brewing. We have equated questioning as being equivalent to denying God. We have equated disagreeing with the president as ‘touching God’s anointing’. We mistakenly believed that government as the evangelist via legislation was going to send all the people back to church. We believed that faith-based initiative was going to cure the ills of society.

In actuality, it was out of a spirit of revenge instead of vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord. We were going to be the Bible Bullies that was going to reverse everything the DEMONcrats did the past eight years just because the DEMONcrats did it. Instead of looking out for the interests of the people and defending the constitution, we looked out after big oil and like the democrats that branded disagreeing as ‘racists’, the republicans branded disagreeing as ‘terrorists’.

What did we see out of all of this years of the great gospel. Scandals of an evangelical leader fighting against homosexuality admit to sexual improprieties. A Sunday School teacher help funnel money out of a profitable corporation into their own pocket. A church with a coffee shop in the lobby tried to pull the wool over the eyes of churchgoers with the purpose-driven life turning into a world conquest. A prominent book writer who wrote a book on a magical prayer pulled out of a African charity / orphanage he founded in Swaziland when the local people didn’t bend to their will. A Pastor that divorced his wife because God told him to to marry the new woman seven days after his divorce. A Pastor that encouraged women to have sex with him and visiting ministers promising a ‘higher plane’ of spirituality.A pastor that had a long time homosexual affair with his youth leader.

There is a reason why God allowed this scandal to happen. To purge the church.

Related Posts

1. We Finally Had To See It
2. The Undivine Conspiracy
3. More Is Probably On The Way
4. Articles of Interest 7-17-09
5. The “LocalPastor” Talks