My Perspective on Ted Haggard, Politics and the Church

In hopes that you aren't sick of the Ted Haggard story I'll say a few more things about it in this post.  Much has been written about it and some of it has actually been quite helpful and thoughtful.

Among many good things he said about the whole situation in his post at Out of Ur I found Gordon MacDonald's comments about the assassin within especially helpful.

Phil Johnson quoted Spurgeon on the subject "Moralism Fosters Immorality," and that is particularly appropos, given the moralistic nature of Haggard's ministry.  Along those lines, Phil Ryken shares his own experience visiting Haggard's church:

I visited New Life Church when it was in its popular ascendancy about a decade ago.  The strongest impression I had on that particular Sunday was a palpable absence of the gospel -- lots of feel-good worship and moralistic exhortation to lead a good life, but little in the way of a biblical message of repentance for sin and grace in Christ.  Yet this is the only gospel that can save any of us who are guilty of scandalous sins.

In the same vein, Russ Reeves examines Haggard's weak views on indwelling sin and suggests that this reveals a sin deeper than hypocrisy:

My point in addressing this is not to call Haggard a hypocrite; that hardly needs to be said at this point, and it’s not all that exceptional, since the only person who can avoid hypocrisy in some form is the person devoid of morals. Rather, the problem with Haggard is that he is a worse kind of “h” word, a heretic.

There is much more being written and though I'm taking a more critical look at the whole situation I do believe we should look at him as an erring brother who, along with his family, needs our prayers and I do hope and pray that a day comes when in his and his family's life when joy returns.

Having said all of that, my only comment to add today concerns the effect this will have on the political realm and the church.

I don't know that this will have any effect on Tuesday's election, maybe there will be some blowback in Haggard's home state of Colorado, but it's hard for me to imagine this will have nationwide effect.  I suppose it could in that, since evangelicals are so closely tied to Republicans, that the Republicans could take a hit from those who are sick of hypocritical evangelicals.  Again, I don't know as political analysis is not my forte. I've seen stories in the last day or so that the Republicans are gaining some lost ground here at the end (maybe as a result of the latest John Kerry gaffe) and others say the Dems stand a good chance of a major victory on Tuesday.

My concern though is that the initial reactions to the Haggard scandal focused heavily on the political fallout rather than the ecclesiastical fallout, the damage that has been done to the church's witness.  Although I am an amillenialist, I've had enough postmillenial cross-pollination to convince me that the Kingdom of God is doing and will continue to do just fine here on the earth, thank you very much. And, in the grand scheme of things scandals like this aren't going to stop the spread of the gospel and by extension the spread of the Kingdom.

But on the smaller scale in which we all live things like this do have consequences.  Things like this have a tremendous impact on the credibility of the church and it's witness.  And that's a far greater concern than political fallout. 

Some time back I did a post called "The Social Dimension of Belief," which was built on Os Guinness's explanation of plausibility structures.  He defines plausibility structures this way:

"the degree to which a belief (or disbelief) seems convincing is directly related to its "plausibility structure" - that is, the group or community which provides the social and psychological support for the beleif. If the support's structure is strong, it is easy to believe; if the support's structure is weak, it is difficult to believe. The question of whether the group's belief is actually true or not may never become an issue."

Something like this scandal further weakens the plausibility structure for Christian belief in the American community, it makes Christianity that much harder to believe.   That's the worst part of something like this.  True, faith is a gift from God, and God can overcome any weaknesses in the support structure of Christianity.  But real damage has been done to that support structure of Christian belief and that ought to be the thing of greatest concern to Christians.

Having said all of this I realize I am coming perilously close to grinding Haggard down here, a thing Scott McKnight warned us all about.  I accept Scott's warning about that, but also think it can be helpful to Haggard and all of us to be reminded that the church is more important than the body politic, and that Christianity is a religion of grace, not moralism. 

Comments

[Jeff]

I beg to differ: Christianity is a "religion" (even though most don't want to call it that) of moralism AND grace. There is nothing wrong with preaching morality, though you are right that it should be followed up with a message of grace. Also there is nothing heretical about Haggard's Church. It just happened to be the place of where a scandal occurred. And to not believe that it could just as easily happen in your own church or mine, is reading into things too much.

[David Wayne]

Jeff - I agree wholeheartedly on the very last statement - I do believe this can occur in my church - I've seen it numbers of times in various presbyteries that I have been a part of. So, on the one hand I'll apologize if I conveyed that dotting your theological i's and crossing your theological t's is a guarantee of prevention of scandal.

Having said that there is everything wrong with following up morality with grace, unless you are using your moralistic preaching as a mirror to expose sin and drive people to Christ. Romans 8 is clear that the law, morality, has no power to curtail sin.

But it is heretical to imply that you can keep the commandments perfectly and be without sin for periods of time. This denies the continued presence of indwelling sin.

[cavman]

I do believe there is a difference between preaching morals (right & wrong) and preaching moralism, which is anti-thetical to grace (those 3 letters, -ism, make a huge difference). Moralism places the power of godly living in the human will instead of the power of the Spirit thru faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus. If the sermon isn't pointing you to Christ and Him crucified then there is a big problem.
You are right Jeff, these types of scandals are no respecters of churches- they hit all of us because all of us are sinners, plain & simple.

[dan mcgowan]

you say that "Christianity is a religion of grace..." Well, we're about to find out if that is really true, or just a bunch of smoke we Christians blow up each other's holy rear ends because it's the right thing to say!

I am a believer - strong one. Have been for many years. Have been involved in ministry for over 30 years. And I have heard and experienced first-hand all the wonderful Christian-ese we all SPEAK but rarely live out. It's easy to SAY we are grace-filled, loving, caring, forgiving and accepting people. It is a whole different thing to LIVE IT OUT in front of a world that, unless you live in a cave, views ALL of us as hypocrits and, unfortuantely, rightly so in many cases.

So, what's it gonna take? More TALK on blog sites and from pulpits about HOW WE SHOULD LIVE? Or is it time for us to ACTUALLY PUT OUR WORDS INTO PRACTICE and become FORGIVING LOVERS of others?

I sin. Deal with it. And love me.

Because THAT is what Jesus WOULD (and does) DO!

[The Unfettered Monk]

It seems we must live with tension eh? Whenver I read one of the oldies I hear an incredible felicity to the Doctrines of Grace married to an earnest call to moral excellence. (I'm thinking of John Owen's Indwelling Sin in the Believer or J.C. Ryle's - Holiness) More modernly John Piper's preaching convicts me to no end with regard to the pursuit of moral excellence and I'm also convinced of his fidelity to the Reformed doctrine of Sola Gratia... so... tension? yes... let's not err to far to either side...

With regard to Haggard - the plausiblity structure must be built on the proper assumptions. We are the ones who created the house of cards. We are responsible for telling the world the church is full of the righteous not the sick in need of the physician... perhaps it's a time for us to remove our masks and get back to the gospel... I've seen far to many pulpits vacated by our inability to admit the reality of indwelling sin and pursue godliness from the perspective of hope in a salvation secured in blood for those whose only righteousness is filthy rags and yet who stand robed in pure white. "God will spare the sinner because He did not spare His Son."

[markbates]

Sean Lucas, Church History professor at Covenant Theological Seminary has an interesting post on this, which includes a bit of a response to Ryken's remarks. You can read it at http://seanmichaellucas.blogspot.com/2006/11/sad-tidings-of-spiritual-warfare.html

[Pastor Maurice Wafula]

Dear Servant of God,

Calvary greetings in the wonderful name of our Lord and saviour. We thank God for this opportunity of knowing each other through website for the sake of the kingdom of God. After going through your webpage I really feel blessed and motivated by your efforts in our Masters service to help to fulfil the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My desire is that you fellowship with us here inKenya, and we will be glad to be connected to your ministry for consistent spiritual growth and leadership of our ministry and the saints here in Kenya and would be blessed to have you come to Kenya and minister in our pastors/leaders conference. Should you need more information concerning our ministry we will be gald to give you.

We hope to continue His will as you prayerfully consider our request. We love you and we hope to do His will as we wait to hear from you.

God bless

Yours in Christ.

pastor Maurice W.Walubai.