Ted Haggard: Walking Humbly or Hypocritically?

I have pretty st rong feelings about Ted Haggard. Here's a clue. They aren't positive. I am not aiming to be judgmental, just honest about my impressions of Ted Haggard which date back to the first impression I had of him. The following is copied from my UndoingChurch Blog which can be read at www.UnDoingChurch.blogspot.com.

I met Ted Haggard a little over two years ago; the day before his story broke. A story he initially denied.I have to admit I didn't know who he was when I met him (President of NAE, among other laudatory titles) but I did immediately know he had "celebrity" status by the way people were falling all over him. It didn't take long to figure out this guy was important.

We were scheduled as guests together on a Christian TV Talk show in Dallas, he to talk about his book, The Jerusalem Diet, me to talk about my book, Winning the Drug War at Home.

The funny thing is I wasn't originally scheduled as a guest for that day, but I formed some pretty strong opinions in my interactions with him.The first was that he definitely leveraged his position. He was a guest on another show across town, and needed to go on first. I was originally slotted in the first position, but it was immediately changed to cater to his schedule, which was fine except that he then went significantly over his time segment and never even said "thank you."

I have a pretty tuned in intuition, and actually just took a personality test that indicated that this is one of my strengths. There was something, well, just kind of "off" about him, not right, just too slick. His smile was plastered on his face as if held there by botox. Slick and fake. Too smooth. Not sincere.

He forgot his Blackberry at the first studio, and when my segment was over, my friend and I drove over to the second studio to return it to him. Again, no "thank you."I did want to ask him a question, though, because I was working on a Bible Study at the time, UnDoing Church, Discovering Faith: Not Your Mother's Bible Study(which will release in July of this year) about being the church, not going to church. In other words, living humbly, following Christ, not living hypocritically, and as a pastor of a church of over 14,000 I was interested in his take on the felt needs of his women congregants.

So I explained the premise of the study and asked how many of the women in his congregation could identify with some of the issues I addressed. His answer floored me then, but even more the next day after his story broke. He said, "I have no idea what women want or are interested in."

He really came up empty. How could a lead pastor of that many people not know what hurts and hurdles were faced by members of his church, even in a broad sense?

And now he is in the news again with more improprietous allegations. I am sad about this and angry.

Angry that someone who was supposed to be representing the church just added to damaging its reputation. Read UnChristian for a take on what those outside the faith think of Christians. Score ten more points for them, thanks to his actions, which were totally out of step with being a Christian. (I am afraid I do sound harsh and unforgiving...)

He denied, he lied, he tried to weasel out of it, and now he is getting more press time to promote his story.

Oh, and did I mention that the church paid an outrageous amount of money to the other individual who came forward as this story was breaking but none of us heard about because part of the deal was to remain silent. Over $175,000. Was this appropriate use of money collected from its members? I don't think I would have voted to approve that spending.Imagine how much clean water and food that could provide in areas of the world hit by disease and famine...

To me the fact that Haggard is out and about touring every major news source timed to perfectly coincide with the release of an HBO story about his fall from grace is sensationalism and taking advantage of his position and an incredible media ploy.

And in my opinion, it will not help the church. He said he was ashamed. Does that condone lying, and trying to get out of allegations?It hasn't always been easy for me to share our story; there are plenty of things that I have felt ashamed about, including my control freak approach to enabled parenting. But I chose to share to try to help others travelling that same road, not to absolve myself of my mistakes, or worse yet deny them. I believe in truth and transparency, even when it costs me, which it has.

But I also believe our God expects nothing less.