Posted on 03/13/2011 8:33:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In his third featured interview this year, former megachurch pastor Ted Haggard asks why it is so hard for the Church to live out its teachings on forgiveness and restoration, noting that the secular world is doing a better job at this than Christians.
"The differentiation between the Church and everybody else is that we should respond with restoration, healing, hope to people's sin condition, our sin condition. We're losing that right now," he argues in a new video interview with Lifetree Café, a Christian-based network of local discussion groups.
He expresses frustration over his observation that many celebrities – including Martha Stewart, Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, David Letterman – were restored by their secular organizations compared to Christian leaders, including himself, who do not receive restoration by the church.
Ted Haggard resigned as lead pastor of the 14,000 New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., following a drug and sex scandal with a gay prostitute in 2006. His self-admitted "sexual immorality" also forced him to leave the presidential post of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Now, a pastor of St. James Church in Colorado Springs – a new church he founded last year – Haggard griped about the hypocrisy of the Christian church in his conversation with Lifetree.
"I saw Jimmy Swaggert, who's been living fine for 25 years now since his scandal, and the Church still hates him," highlights Haggard in the interview. "The Church only believes in forgiveness and restoration for insignificant people because we can market it."
"The NFL's doing a better job at it. CBS is doing a better job at it. KMART is doing a better job at it,” he continues in his tirade. "Virtually every institution on earth is demonstrating that they are doing a better job at restoring people than the Church. And we're the only ones who market that we know how to do it. We are idiots. We are hypocrites."
What Haggard omits in his interview is that following the revelation of his scandal, the pastor did have a chance for recovery through a restoration program led by four ministers. Despite the overseers' indication that the recovery process could take years, Haggard reportedly quit 14 months into the program.
In a Feb. 2008 statement, New Life officials said "the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete" and expressed their disapproval of his return to vocational ministry.
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Following the publication of this article, St. James Church executive pastor Phil Chamberlin contacted The Christian Post to dispute the restorative nature of the program..
"It wasn't a restoration agreement. It was a 'get out of town' process," said Chamberlin, a former New Life Church member.
According to the "Restoration Agreement" obtained by The Christian Post on Wednesday, Haggard and his entire family were to "permanently relocate outside Colorado;" he was not to engage in ministry; and he was to sign documents in front of church leaders to request churches that ordained or licensed him to revoke his ordination, licensure or certification.
Haggard was also to submit plans for a new career, sell his house, and to not step foot into New Life until he was allowed to by the Restoration Team and Overseers, the contract stipulated.
Out of the 12 requirements mentioned in the contract, only one line mentioned anything about Haggard receiving counseling or help. Line 5 said Haggard was to "participate in mental health therapy and related testing, twelve step programs, and spiritual direction" under the direction of the restoration team.
If they had helped restore Haggard, Chamberlin said "it would have been one of the most amazing events for the Gospel ever. Instead it became not that at all. It became, 'we got to get the sin out of the church.'"
In the Lifetree interview, Haggard also stresses that Christian leaders – just like everyone else – commit sin and are in need of grace.
"For some reason, we in the Christian movement have somehow gotten the idea that if they become a bishop, a cardinal, a pope, a megachurch pastor, a deacon, or an elder that they no longer sin. It's just not true," says Haggard.
"Everybody sins, everybody needs grace, everybody needs encouragement someday or another," he says.
Haggard's interview is part of Lifetree Café's forum topic next week, "Temptation: Why good men go bad." In the interview, Haggard talks about being sexually abused as a child and how that contributed to his temptation. He also addresses the characteristics of temptation and shares what has helped him since the scandal.
"Nobody knows what their temptations are going to be 10 years from now," the former evangelical leader contends. "When I was 40, I never dreamed I would have the temptations I had when I was 50 that led to the scandal."
Next week, participants of local Lifetree discussion groups will watch the interview and share their thoughts on temptation, forgiveness and the role of the church.
The Lifetree interview follows two recent appearances, his January appearance in a reality-style documentary, "Ted Haggard: Scandalous" on the TLC network and his shocking interview in the February issue of GQ magazine.
Lifetree Café was founded by Group Publishing founder Thom Schultz. The network is designed to bring people together to talk about how thought-provoking issues relate to life and faith, serve the community, and experience God through Jesus Christ.
For the week of Feb. 27, the topic of Lifetree Cafés will be on whether medical marijuana should be legalized.
Bakker is still brazenly begging for money on the Jim Bakker Show on cable television.
Tiger Woods is not leading a flock of Christians, and is not held to the standards of 1 Timothy 3.
Apparently, his "word" (signature) is no good either. He is still living in his old house, and every Sunday evening there are 15 or 20 cars parked in front of his house for an evening service in his red horse barn.
Well...that’s disappointing because for awhile there, Bakker, after leaving prison was helping out in a inner city ministry with a daughter I think and was serving humbly and staying out of trouble. I fear he’ll just get himself into trouble again...
I think you meant to add the “sarcasm tag”...I hope?
Yeah - actually Jesus threw the money changers out of the Temple... great story - it’s in Matthew - chapter 21 - verse 12.
I couldn't agree more. The threadbare excuse that all people sin is such a useless answer to real, true repentance. Sure everyone sins, but is there no difference between snapping at your spouse and committing adultery with another of the same sex along with drug abuse??? C'mon! The guy was a pastor of a very large and influential church and he was exposed very publicly - as anyone who commits gross sin in secret should realize God promises he will do.
How would it look to the world to reinstate the guy to his previous place of responsibility as if the acts he had done were minor issues? I know I would not go to his church. Someone who is genuinely sorry for their sins does not try to rationalize it nor do they try to escape the moral consequences of it. He made his bed and he sure sounds like he needs to lie in it some more.
and you place a man's penis in your mouth and God only knows where else and defiled yourself and your family...especially your wife
and there is the meth allegation too
you sir are a disgrace..go find something else to do..in obscurity
Woods was not a preacher..not even a believer..some Eastern mumbo jumbo I think... and was only a whoremongering cheater...never been a shortage of either end of that equation
God has a scalding hot waiting bench for these asshats...Ted, Swaggert, Oral send me the money, Reverend Ike, Sharpton, Jim Baker, all the freaks here and there posing as real Godly folks...they make me puke....very few preachers on TV are even worth the urine it would take to put them out if on fire
i’m a grown man..i know crap when i see it...most of this garbage is hype...show me the money...some flashy megachurches, tv and preachers in big houses, private jets, rolex watches.. trophy power wives..I loathe it all
they are no different than corrupted Popes of medieval lore like Borgia
it's a shame
give me an old time fire and brimstones simple Godly man anyday..are there any left?...and don't get me started on self impowerment and material positivism being mixed with God's word...man...I despise all that..and we know the toothy lad and his wife I'm talking about
He would like us to believe that, because all sin offends God, all sins should be regarded as exactly the same by the church. This is the Left's reasoning. (I'm reading "Rules for Radical Conservatives" right now, and it explains how they want to cloud our judgment and derail our common sense.)
Anyone can see that, simply as a matter of worldly prudence, putting a drug user who frequents male prostitutes in a position of responsibility is idiotic. He's got serious psychological problems, not just, "I shouldn't have yelled at my neighbor when his dog dug up the flowerbeds."
That sounds like an interesting book. I’ll check it out.
David Kahane is the author; not his real name. He writes satire for National Review that is often taken as straight writing by readers on FR! Excellent vocabulary, too. The book is depressing, so far, because his analysis of how the left took over is spot-on, and I haven’t reached the part where he tells us how to fight back effectively.
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