Not long ago, Ted Haggard was arguably the most powerful evangelical Christian pastor in the United States. His megachurch, the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, boasted a membership a 14,000. Haggard was also president of the 30 million-member Nation Association of Evangelicals. This influence won him the ear of President Bush, with whom he spoke on the phone every Monday.
You may remember Haggard from his appearances in Richard Dawkin’s The Root of All Evil and the documentary Jesus Camp.
In late 2006, Ted Haggard’s world came crashing down. Mike Jones, a male prostitute, alleged that Haggard paid him for sex and drugs. Haggard confessed to some of the allegations, and was forced to resign from the church that he founded. More than that, his church exiled him from the entire state of Colorado. How very Christian.
For the next two years, Haggard was periodically homeless and unemployed. He and his family moved in and out of hotels, and stayed with strangers who were willing to taken them into their homes. To support his family, he applied to be an online representative for Phoenix University, hung up thousands of door-hangers, and worked as a traveling insurance salesman. He also went back to college for the first time in 30 years to study psychology.
Quite the fall from grace.
Perhaps you feel it serves him right. The fallout from his gay sex scandal is a fitting, indeed karmic, punishment for opposing gay marriage.* But last night, when I learned of his pitiable post scandal life, I actually shed a tear for Ted Haggard—something I never thought I’d do. I even wrote him this email:
I am an atheist, a bisexual, and a liberal. So needless to say, I wasn’t always a fan of yours, Mr. Haggard.
Before your sex scandal, I saw you as an ideological enemy, a cheerleader for the Religious Right. After the scandal, I saw you as a hypocrite. But today, for the first time, I saw you as a human being—frail and fallible like everyone else.
With the recent allegations against Bishop Eddie Long, you are back in the news. I watched a couple of your interviews earlier today where you urged people to withhold judgment about and extend compassion to Bishop Long—in short, afford him the humanity that was denied to you. To my surprise, I totally agreed with your comments, and it made me wonder whether I had misjudged you.
I just finished Alexandra Pelosi‘s documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard. I thought it was a very sympathetic portrait of you. I don’t pretend to know you or your trials after watching this hour-long film, but I did often find myself relating to your situation. I was raised Mormon and spent years wrestling with my bisexuality. I ultimately came to terms with my sexuality and left the LDS Church. It seems that you have chosen another path in remaining religious and in maintaining that homosexuality is a sin. I disagree with your decision, but I understand it. I hope it brings you happiness while also allowing you to live authentically.
I cannot apologize on behalf of all those who treated you and your family unfairly. But for what it’s worth, you have my apology. In your most difficult time, I laughed at you, when I should have cried with you. I ask for your forgiveness.
Best wishes,
Jon
If you want to learn more about Ted Haggard’s life after the scandal, I’d highly recommend The Trials of Ted Haggard (trailer here). It aired on HBO nearly two years ago, but I downloaded it as a torrent. Shame on me, I know.
In June, Haggard started a new, more inclusive church. About the church, he writes:
St. James Church is for anyone, and I do mean anyone: Democrats, Republicans, Independents and those who go to Tea Party rallies. If you are straight, gay, or bi, I want to walk through the Scriptures with you. If you are black, white, Hispanic, Native America … you are welcome here. Those working to overcome their sex or drug addictions, St. James is for you.
At its first meeting, 160 people attended—a far cry from the thousands that attended his former church. I’m sure, though, that he finds his current pastoral work preferable to being an insurance salesman.
Haggard claims to be happily married to his wife, Gayle, who stood by him throughout the scandal. But he admitted in a CBS interview that his sexuality is “complicated.” When asked whether he’s been “cured” of homosexuality, Haggard responded, “No, because I don’t think I was sick.”
This interview reveals Haggard to be a person full of contradictions. But that’s precisely why I’ve learned to like Haggard. His story is indicative of the human condition. We are all a little messed up, and that makes us beautiful in a Picassoesque sort of way.
*Ted Haggard was never a particularly anti-gay evangelical pastor, despite having that reputation. It’s true that he supported the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2005, but even then he was fine with civil unions. And since the scandal, Haggard has largely abandoned his opposition to gay marriage.
I’m torn on this. Yes, everyone deserves compassion and understanding, but at the same time, when someone is constantly dehumanising you and persecuting you for who you are, and then turns out to be a giant hypocrite, I feel my ability to feel compassion somewhat lessened.
In fairness to Haggard, he was never among the most vocal or anti-gay pastors. He was a supporter of Bush, but he wasn’t a demagogue against gay marriage. He spoke about the issue pretty rarely.
I’m with Craig. “At least he’s not as bad as _” is a horrible defense.
First, there is nothing necessarily hypocritical about being gay/bisexual and opposing gay marriage. It’s a tenuous and uncomfortable position, but not hypocritical. And second, I’m don’t think Haggard ever said anything “dehumanizing” against gays. I once lumped Haggard in with the likes of Robertson and Falwell, but I know think that was mistaken. The only quote I can find from Haggard about homosexuality is the following: “We don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity, it’s written in the Bible.”
That’s pretty tame.
In 2004, he supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage, but even then he supported civil unions for gays. And since the scandal, he backed off his opposition to gay marriage. This is what he said to The San Francisco Chronicle:
“I think the government should recognize the union between people whether they’re gay or not in whatever the language they choose, whether they call it a marriage or a civil union, it’s up to them. If the government is going to be in the business of recognizing people grouped together as couples, then they need to that across the board.”
I believe strongly in life-long development, which in theory means that all of us have the potential to be better people today than we were in the past, and in the future we can become better people than we are today. I hope that’s true for me, and by these comments, I think it’s also true for you. We all struggle with our own human weaknesses, and I think most of us want to be better people than we really are. I don’t think of that as hypocricy, but as a struggle for virtue. I still am not the man I hope to be in the future, but blogs like this one make my process much easier. Referencing Jesus’ encouragement that we focus on our own weaknesses instead of rushing to judge another, I’ve decided that I don’t want the speck in someone else’s eye to distract me from the plank in my own. I appreciate your forgiveness, and certainly extend forgivness to you. Thank you for being kind and understanding.
Thanks for comment, Mr. Haggard. I hope you didn’t mind that I published my email to you. And if you feel I’ve mischaracterized you in this post, let me know.
Take care.
In after famous person comment.
(…or alternatively, in after impostor comment)
I agree with your email letter, Jon.
The “famous person comment” checks out ha ha. The email provided is the one to which I sent my message, and the IP address of the commenter is Colorado Springs, where Haggard lives.
Jon. I really thought this was an important article. I liked it a lot. I feel that it embodies (as I feel the mission statement of the new church described here) what I think is a beautiful, endearing quality to the teachings of Christ: the idea that we are all imperfect, shallow, caring, selfish, loving, suspicious, and conflicted human beings. But we can reach out and be better than we think we can. We can forgive. We can understand. We can eat with the publicans and sinners. We can die for the souls of our killers. That is beautiful. And so is this blog post.
Interesting. I saw a video of Haggard’s new church a while back. Maybe I’m just a bleeding-heart softie, but I was touched. A cynical person could say he just can’t let go of leading a church because of financial or ego reasons. But what I saw was someone who really has a gift for preaching and flock-tending. I’m glad that he can still use those gifts, and it seemed really appreciated by his new flock. Best to him.
Thanks for sharing your letter, Jon.
Thank you for an interesting and very well done post.
“A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble.”
Jon, you have, in my mind, portrayed Mr. Haggard as such an individual: one who went wrong, one who learned, one who got back up, and one who is moving forward. It seems it would be incredibly challenging to do so without the support of like-minded believers; it seems it would be a little easier knowing someone with different beliefs offers compassion and support.
Thanks for sharing, and thanks for offering a model of kindness.
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I consider myself a free thinker, yet it seems that “free thinking” blogs like this one have people that all think the same way. Does anyone else think that way? I hope not because then we would be thinking the same. I don’t read many people debating, but just bad-mouthing some religion or political group because they think different than you. Perhaps this is what you mean by “free thinkers.” Strangely, it doesn’t sound like you allow others to think freely either. This is self-reflexively incoherent, right? In otherwords, you have “free thinkers” and “atheists” in the title of the blog, but atheists all agree that there is no God, right? Do you then not include “free thinkers” who do believe in God? If you don’t, then you are excluding someone and that doesn’t sound much like being a “humanist” to me.
Claims of “free thinking” are a nice euphamism, but lack much substance. It is kind of like in high school when I dressed like a chicano to be different. One day, I noticed that all my friends had the same white shirt, dickies pants, and chuck taylors. Yeah, we were gangsters. Hah. We weren’t different, but all the same. There is nothing worse than a nice state like Utah giving up on everthing that makes it good so it can be like California. Trust me, it sucks here. Ask Jerry Brown.
Anyways, now that I have brought this up, let’s throw in a little bit of “free thinking.”
Does anyone here think that gender is relevant in society? If so, how?
I have read some people on this blog stating that homosexual relationships are “equal” to heterosexual relationships, but I am puzzled as to what criteria you are using to make such a statement. Clearly, homosexual relationships are different than heterosexual relationships. This in and of itself does not necessarily imply lack of equality, but I can’t help but ask myself, “What does a heterosexual relationship bring to the table versus a homosexual one?” If there exists a quality with merit which is relevant to me or society, which one relationship can offer, while the other cannot, I find it very difficult to claim “equality” to the two. I suppose there just doesn’t exist any such quality, right?
It is kind of like that movie “Back to the Future.” Remember “Doc” disappeared from the photograph?
On that same thread (not to do a strawman, but…), claims of “diversity” seem off considering the lack of “diversity” in a same-sex relationship. The individuals are of the same sex! To me, this is “equivalent” to saying that we can increase diversity by having 10% of our schools segregated, and the other 90% integrated. If you think that diversity is a real virtue in society, go with the relationship that has greater diversity. Support heterosexual relationships! I know this doesn’t fit your narrative well, but you can keep “thinking” it because you are a “free thinker.”
Speaking of that 10% figure, did you hear about the new study from UCLA Williams Institute (an LGBT think-tank, but only thinks one way)? They report that actually only 1.7% of the population of the US “identifies” themselves as gay. This is far lower than the 10% figure I learned in medical school. (The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Complete Home Medical Guide, p. 158) If our studies are nearly 500% off in the assessment of the denominator, I am seriously beginning to doubt any and all social “science” research articles that have been done on this topic at all, including monozygotic twins, hypothalamus, etc. Further, did you read the article about some people not just controlling their behavior, but actually changing their desires. That really puts in kink in the “this is who I am” narrative. Again, you can keep thinking that, “free thinker.”
Here is another story that hurts your narrative. Did you hear that they no longer allow students to write Happy Father’s Day cards on Father’s Day in Scotland because they don’t want to discriminate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2176315/Fathers-Day-cards-banned-in-Scottish-schools.html
Again, I ask, is this really “free thinking?”
If two individuals of the same sex wish to have sexual relationships in this country, there are no more anti-sodomy laws, so I don’t see what you are complaining about. You insisting that your relationship is “equal” to a heterosexual one is short-sighted. You insisting that all of society has to change the term marriage, along with its traditions and to bend to your way of “thinking” is just ridiculous. There are more polygamous in this country than homosexuals. Why should we call your relationship marriage before we call a polygamous relationship marriage? The only difference is the title. You have taken the narrative and have duped so many people with it. It is so sad. You simply want validation for what you’re doing. You have no right to my validation of your behavior.
You likely haven’t been following this blog very long. We’ve had many debates here; we don’t all think the same. Theists are always welcome to comment and post here–I’ve even extended the invitation to have my theist friends write blog posts. This group has always understood “free thinkers” to include both atheists and theists.
With all due respect, Jon, I think you give SHAFT too much credit here. Yes, there are people who post on the SHAFT blog who have varying opinions. But back when I was a regular contributor to this blog, it felt pretty lonely at times in the debates about gay marriage and other like subjects. My guess is that since I have stopped participating here, there has been a serious decline in the diversity of opinion (I do not know that, when I stopped posting I also cut back how often I checked and read the blog). If I am wrong, if you have you had a SHAFTer make an argument against gay marriage or something like that, I welcome the correction.
Anyway, my experience on this blog suggests that there is little evidence of any diversity of opinion on various cultural and political questions (gay marriage, abortion, contraception, etc) among actual members of SHAFT. I have commented before on this remarkable coincidence that almost all of the “free thinking” members of SHAFT manage to “free think” their way into lockstep progressivism on all of the big moral questions of our times. In fact, whenever those lockstep positions get challenged here (even challenged from the supposed ground of free thinking – data from science and social science, as I did with condoms and AIDs in Africa), those who disagree with the acceptable progressive opinions get called nasty names (“murderers”). Free thinking indeed. So my experience here is that it is not hard to find some of the most dogmatic thinking around, and when those dogmas are challenged the response is as unpleasant (and sometimes much more unpleasant) than how most religious people respond when their dogmas are challenged.
I should say, I am not a “free thinker” and have no interest in being one. It is not just because I am a theist. It is because I think there is truth in poetry, art, and music. The “free thinker” is really just a reductionistic thinker, one who thinks that the only worthwhile thoughts, or the only thoughts capable of expressing something true, are those that issue from science and logic. In this sense, “free thinking” is actually a narrow movement of limitation and reduction, not a movement that broadens horizons. As such I would suggest that “free thinking” is actually profoundly anti-humanistic since it systematically reduces (and hence excludes) all sorts of deeply human questions and experiences.