Ted Haggard - Some of the Accusations are True

I realize that the Ted Haggard story is the hottest thing in the news right now.  The story is so new and fresh that I hope some restraint in reporting and commenting until more is known.  I first heard about this last night when Glenn Lucke e-mailed me about it.  Apparently a gay male escort has accused Haggard of having sex with him over an extended period of time and he also used methamphetamines.  This is big news as Haggard is the pastor of one of the largest and fastest growing churches in America, is friends with James Dobson and many in the religious right, and is president of the large and politically powerful National Association of Evangelicals. This is an especially explosive story since it breaks on the eve of the 2006 elections and because of Haggard's opposition to same-sex marriage.

While watching the Louisville - WVa football game I did a little surfing around for info and as of last night Haggard was denying the allegations and James Dobson had come to his defense and had gone on the attack against the accuser and others who were believing the accuser.

This morning things have changed - Haggard admits that at least some, but not all, of the acccusations are true. We don't know which ones yet, maybe the drug charges are true and the sex charges are not, maybe some of the sex charges, but not all, are true.  We'll have to wait and see.

On the one hand, the accuser is an admitted drug user, admits he has political motivations in revealing this right now and he failed a lie detector test this morning.  On the other hand, the administrator of the lie detector test is not convinced the guy is lying, and a voice analyst found several exact matches between Ted Haggard's voice and voice males left on the accuser's phone.

In any case, this reveals issues that go beyond just the present issue and I want to digress into some of these now.

Phil Johnson has already weighed in on this speaking of the damage it will cause to the religious right, and not only to them, but to all evangelical ministries.  But Phil thinks this goes much deeper:

The back-story here includes just about everything wrong with 21st-century "evangelicalism." This was the top leader of the largest organization representing America's old-guard evangelical core. The movement (not everyone associated with it, of course, but the drift of the movement as a whole) long ago sold out eternal values for more pragmatic and temporal concerns: political power, contemporary fashions, public opinion, and a lopsided moral agenda.

While I didn't read this story with quite the degree of apocalypticism that Phil has, I certainly can see some huge fallout from it.  Here's my two cents:

1. Does it really  surprise anyone that Christians aren't able to live up to the moral standards they profess to believe.  King David couldn't, the apostle Peter couldn't, the apostle Paul couldn't (Romans 7 anyone?).  So why should we be surprised when someone like Ted Haggard has such a fall?

2. In light of the above, this illustrates the folly of Christians who campaign on a platform of moral authority. Morality is a very "law based" thing, and as Romans 8:3ff illustrate, law (and moral standards?) is uniquely ill-equipped to combat sin. 

3. In light of both of the above the thing that distinguishes Christians from others is not our moral superiority or moral authority, it is our identity as recipients of grace.

4. Christians are never perfect, but nor are we merely "just forgiven" as the old bumper sticker says.  We are forgiven, but the grace that forgives also enables us to say no to sin, and our lives, including our moral lives, are necessarily improving.  Yet, we are always simul justus et peccator as the old theologians used to say, simultaneously justified and sinful.  While we are always to be growing in grace, we are always to be reminded of the presence of and battle with indwelling sin.

5. In my own humble opinion, this may partially explain some of these "falls" we see.  Moral crusaders tend to see sin as something external to the individual, so their lives get wrapped up in building external restraints against sin.  I wonder if they lose sight of the fact that the greatest battle with sin in our day is the battle with the sin in their own hearts?

6. This does not negate civic responsibility.  I am not sure, but this may be a place where I diverge a bit with Phil Johnson, but I do think there is a proper place for Christian civic responsibility and Christian involvement in politics. But such involvement is based on love of neighbor and a desire to promote the common civic good, not Christian triumphalism or any misguided notion that law, apart from grace, can really restrain sin in the larger society.

7.  Back to #5 - I sometimes wonder if the moral crusaders make proper use of the means of grace.  I don't want to overstate my case here because, as I mentioned before with the apostle Paul, use of the means of grace does not guarantee you will never sin. I am quite sure Paul made use of the means of grace yet he still had the Romans 7 struggle with sin.  But when I think about people like Ted Haggard, and the Mike Trout's and Gil Moegerle's and John Paulk's of the world, I see people who probably spend lots of time travelling, speaking and engaging in worthwhile ministries.  But I wonder how often they were away from a home church on Sundays before their falls.  I wonder if they were in a small group or Sunday School class where they were fed the Word of God and could develop deep relationships with fellow believers who could love them and pray for them and hold them accountable.  I wonder if, in prep for their speaking engagements and other ministry opportunities, they gave greater attention to the pressing issues of the day than to the Word of God.  Maybe they did, but I do wonder.

8. And bringing this all back around, the upshot of everything  I have said is simply this - Christian engagement with the world (whether political, social, evangelisitc or otherwise) is not based on a position of moral authority.  It is based on grace. Our "common ground" or "bridge" to a non-Christian world is our shared humanity, our shared sin nature, not our moral excellence.  Again, I hope we are growing in moral excellence, but we are just too sinful to ever make that our platform or basis for engagement.

I also hope that we Christians will now be diligent not to act as if we have some kind of moral superiority over Ted Haggard.  If these accusations are proven to be true it will indeed be tragic, and there will indeed be legitimate fallout, and Christians will indeed need to take the lead in disciplining him, and restoring him as a brother as far as possible.

But lets also be careful that we not assume some moral superiority to, or moral authority over, Ted Haggard.  Those of us who do not base our ministries on moral superiority and moral authority may feel morally superior to those who do.  We may feel morally superior because we rely on grace not moral superiority.

The truth is, I am Ted Haggard, we are all Ted Haggard, and Ted Haggard is all of us.  And may God have mercy me, on Ted and on all of us.

Update - just as I was finishing this I got an e-mail from Josh Claybourn who has written an excellent post on not confusing Christianity with the misdeeds of Christians.

Comments

[Darryl]

"The truth is, I am Ted Haggard, we are all Ted Haggard, and Ted Haggard is all of us. And may God have mercy me, on Ted and on all of us." Amen to that.

I don't know, however, if I agree with Josh Claybourn completely. Christianity is not only a belief system; it is a way of life embodied in the church. We (including myself) are not doing a good job of living as disciples.

I'm thinking a lot about 1 Peter 2:11-12 this week: "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." Lord have mercy on us all.

[GL]

Amen. May He have mercy on all of us. Two basic confessions of Christians through the last 2000 years have been "Jesus is Lord" and "Have mercy on me, a sinner."

[Joshua Claybourn]

Darryl, you write, "Christianity is not only a belief system; it is a way of life embodied in the church. We (including myself) are not doing a good job of living as disciples." I'm curious - and unsure - how that is disagreeing with my post. Please elaborate.

[ben]

I cannot contain the glee I feel right now to see such a piece of shit such as Haggard who continued to harp about morals, virtues and so forth be nothing by an utter fraud. A beautiful day it is today. It is so refreshing to see the ones that want to legislate and control everyone's behavior be nothing more than a pathetic fraud.

[Puff]

I think #7 covers most of it, my family has had contact in passing with Ted since his storefront church days, and, everytime, my mom's comment was "he's sold out". I don't take quite the same view (as a note, he did baptize me). He seemed to have the "carrying jesus" issue that afflicts many evangelicals. I have ADD and a prescription for d-amphetamine and know the advantages: a 40 hour "day", lack of jetlag, tons of energy for crunch time. I suspect he started in on meth as a way to be more productive, not realizing how it screws with your sexuality and thought processes, and kinda slid on down from there with a manwhore supplier making it even easier.

PS Ben, Haggard was one of the more moderate of the genre, I suspect this will help the far right more than it hurts (i.e. look what happens when you're not totally orthodox)

[Enlightenment]

He bought the meth, but didn't use it. Waahahahahahahahaha. That's about as believable as...well, about as believable as the "official" 9/11 fairy tale.

[jane]

I don't know what Ted Haggard has done or not done, but I do believe that no spiritual leader should have the power and adulation that he has had. The false teachings of the Apostolic Reformation and social agenda it entails puts one at odds with our Sovereign Lord. This is a formula for trouble.

[GL]

Ben,
If you can help it, why be so vengeful?

I'm with you that hypocrisy merits its comeuppance, and every human I know gets nailed with violating their ideals at least from time to time.

If the accusations against Haggard are true I have no problem with him reaping consequences. I also have no problem with people extending mercy to him amidst those consequences.

The vehemence of your comment makes me curious... Have you ever, even once, failed to live up to your ideals?

Lastly, you mention "legislate". Are you aware of laws on the books of the United States or of your state that are not the legislation of some person's or group's values? My guess is that you are not actually against legislating values; I suspect you simply don't like it when certain people or groups legislate values you don't hold.

Consistency matters. It matters if the accusations against Haggard are true because he was being inconsistent with his professed beliefs. It also matters if you claim to be against legislating values but actually support laws that are the legislation of values. Either you're really, truly against all legislating of values (in which case you'd be against virtually all current laws) or else you are against the legislation of some values. If the latter, then you should express yourself accordingly, and not just criticize those who legislate values.

[Mark]

Pretty thoughtful, for an apologist, though how you managed to write this without using some form of the word hypocrite is beyond me. That is probably what galls most folk out there, Christian and not, lib and con, straight and gay, D and R. So you might consider addressing religious hypocrisy as a separate subject. I hesitate to suggest conclusions prior to inquiry, but my theory is that the fall of all the Ted Haggards is highly corrosive to everything its tawdry, sanctimonioius tentacles touch.

[Mark McConnell]

Very sad; I hope that the worst of the allegations are not true.

Regardless, this is what is meant by "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"

[Russ]

I think I'm as ready for the fall of the politically-oriented religious right as I am for the electoral defeat of the Republican party. This is a tragedy, but so is much of modern evangelicalism. Philip Ryken notes at Reformation21.org that on visiting Haggard's church several years ago, the most notable aspect was the absence of the gospel, replaced by moralistic exhortations. If true (and I have no reason to doubt Ryken's assessment), Haggard should have been removed from the pulpit long ago.

[David Cho]

I completely disagree with Josh Claybourn's post on on "not confusing Christianity with the misdeeds of Christians."

His posting is right on when it comes to how we as a body of Christ should handle our fellow sinners misdeeds. Indeed we know that we ought to follow Jesus only, and what our fellow Christians do and do not do does not diminish the truth of we believe.

What Ted Haggard did or didn't do has no bearing on what on my faith, period.

But there is nothing we can do to dictate non-Christian etiquette in processing Christian misdeeds and hypocricy. Of course they do nothing to dimish the truth. You know that, and I know that. But I don't understand where we get off telling them (journalists, pundits, voters, etc) how to take this without insulting us, as Josh put it.

One of our own handed the enemy the sword. We can't dictate how they should and shouldn't wield it and somehow dictate the rules of engagement

[Darryl]

Apologies, Josh. Perhaps I misread you.

You wrote, "My point is simply that the hypocrisy of others is not a legitimate ground to reject the truth that the hypocrite is advocating. Determine your belief in Christianity on its own merits, and not on the misdeeds of your fellow man."

I took that to say "Don't judge Christianity by the Christians." Perhaps that's not what you're saying?

[Eli Rabett]

You know the Lord will forgive almost any sin against him, but only will forgive sins against others that have been acknowledged and apologized for, and sometimes the apology must be abject. It is never enough to say I have sinned, forgive me o Lord when you have sinned against others.

In this case when someone has beaten on others unmercifully (and I use that word with meaning) only for us to discover that he himself has behaved in the manner he abjured, one should not be quick to forgive. One should also reconsider the "perceived sins" of those who were villified

[Eli Rabett]

You know the Lord will forgive almost any sin against him, but only will forgive sins against others that have been acknowledged and apologized for, and sometimes the apology must be abject. It is never enough to say I have sinned, forgive me o Lord when you have sinned against others.

In this case when someone has beaten on others unmercifully (and I use that word with meaning) only for us to discover that he himself has behaved in the manner he abjured, one should not be quick to forgive. One should also reconsider the "perceived sins" of those who were villified

[c'mon now]

Ted Haggard has 1460 news articles about him.

http://news.google.com/nwshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/15924898.htm

Meanwhile notorious creationist Kent Hovind's conviction yesterday for tax fraud goes virtually unnoticed. Only 31 stories.

http://news.google.com/nwshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&q=hovind

More about Hovind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind

[cavman]

I suspect that our particular areas of concern, or outrage, reveal more about our hearts than some of us may be comfortable admitting.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We can call his actions wrong. But so are many of ours. If we say we do not sin (in thought, word, or deed) we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1). This is why confessing our sins to one another (James 5) is so important. When we keep people out of our lives, live in secret, we lose a reality check and the Evil One is able to continue ensnaring us. The specifics may be different, but the result is the same.

[bradley Shaw]

So, if a Christian is supposed to be saved from sin, and practices sin because he is just so curious about sin, that to experince sin is more important than to please and give glory to God, is he really truely a Christian? How can someone who is in Christ, a new creation in Christ, and saved from sin, but continue to walk in sin - mocking the name of Christ and the very idea of holiness? I am not Ted Haggard and true Christians do not practice sin. Because of His grace and mercy, we are new creatures in Christ and reflect His purity and holiness because He lives through us for His glory. I really am saved from sin, and though I accidently fail him and others sometimes, I experience victory from sin because of the power of His Holy Spirit. I can't walk in sin, but I live to please my savior and Lord because I have His love for Him, in me. 1 john 3:6

[wfseube]

Boy, David, what did you do to get all the moonbats and whackos into your blog today??

A few of the posters have alluded to this, and I'll put in my two cents: It all boils down to one word: hypocrisy. That is what is at issue here. Not us baaad old conservative Christians. Not homosexuality. Not drugs. It's about people who say one thing and do another. We're all guilty of it - it's part of being a fallen human sinner. Unfortunately, some public figures don't seem to realize a) they need to be PARTICULARLY aware of their hypocrisy, and b) they WILL eventually get caught, and when they do, it's the end of their ministry and damaging to that of many others.

----
bill

[rat-terrier]

What a crack-up...this stuff is just too funny. Everybody's writing as if there is some established moral context here. Yeah, a moral structure built upon the centuries-old folk tales of primitive peoples. Never mind that much of it directly contradicts the respect for individuals which forms the actual basis of modern western civilization, and that much of it contradicts fundamental scientific principles which form the basis of modern western affluence and understanding. This is a legitimate moral discussion, and not merely commentary on some noted inconsistency in the rules established by children for playing cowboys-and-indians.

[Dave Taylor]

You said, "But let's also be careful that we not assume some moral superiority to, or moral authority over, Ted Haggard."

It struck me that the quote from Phil Johnson is a perfect example of this (and yes, I did follow the link and read all of his post).

It's beyond me how somehow can use the occasion of the moral failure of a prominent leader as a springboard to vent about the things he did. When Noah disgraced himself, two of his three sons dealt with his condition discreetly (Gen. 10:20-23). They didn't see his sin as the perfect opportunity to get their own message out.

Stop and take a deep breath. Exactly how does Ted Haggard embody all the sins of 21st century evangelicalism? What clear chain of causation is there between Christian political involvement and Haggard's sin? This is blog discussion at its absolute worst; it's tactless, opportunistic, tone-deaf and sounds more like Pat Robertson on a bad day.

[bradley Shaw]

"Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" Heb 10:28 This is not just an issue to contemplate about modern evangelicalism. This is serious sin and destructive to the church in its purpose to give glory to God. We have to have God's perspective on this. For a person to be representing the testimony the gospel of Jesus Christ and His death in payment for sin and His glorious resurrection and decide to walk in sin because his is curious about it, God says that's just like you have wiped your feet on the death of His Son. You have insulted the Spirit of grace. It is like you have spit in His face. All that awaits you is the full fury of the vengeance of the living God. Wake up!

[Ralph Marconi]

For a satirical news analysis of Haggard in light of Clinton, check out:
http://demergent.blogspot.com/2006/11/pastor-ted-haggard-i-didnt-relax.html

[Christinewjc]

My take on this issue:

Church Scandals Cause Immense Harm

[Mickey Finn]

"Oh ye hypocrites" Jesus taught that the law of love trumped everything. Is this the creed that Haggard preached? It's just more hypocrisy to cite the Great Law when Haggard and the rest of his ilk have demonstrated a complete disregard for that law.