Jesse Medina

A few years ago, Ted Haggard was pastoring a mega-church in Colorado Springs.  He started it in his basement with 25 people and it now has thousands of people attending.  But that all changed when it came out that he was having a homo-sexual affair with a male prostitute.  He resigned his role as pastor and made an agreement with the church…he collected severance and agreed to move out of state and get help.

He’s been back in Colorado Springs for a while now, and it recently came out that he was going to have a Bible study at his house.  By getting out, I mean he told the local newspaper.  He also told them that it would be appropriate to call it “church.”  Granted he says in the article that he has no interest in growing into another mega-church.

As Christians, we need to approach things like this carefully.  On the one hand, we need to give grace…to everyone.  Haggard is a person with sinful desires who happened to act on them – just like us.  The fact that he was the leader of a mega-church and the head of the National Association of Evangelicals doesn’t change that fact.  And on the other hand, we need to protect the body from well-intentioned people, regardless of how sincere they are, when they are sick.

Haggard quit his recovery program several years ahead of schedule with a claim that God had healed him. Now, I’m a believer in healing, but I’m also a believer in being wise…and its possible to be healed and unwise.  Haggard’s move is unwise for several reasons:

It goes against Biblical counsel

1 Timothy 3:2-7 says:

Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, ³not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. ⁴He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. ⁵(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) ⁶He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. ⁷He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

The bolded parts are where Haggard is falling drastically short and there is speculation on the other qualifications.

The wounds are still fresh

If not for Haggard, then for others.  He burned people.  He betrayed thousands.  He led us to believe that he was something he wasn’t.  He may be fully healed, and that’s great if he is, but that doesn’t mean others are, too.  His desire to start a church or a Bible study or whatever he is doing is incredibly selfish – he isn’t taking into consideration the feelings of those whom he hurt.  Even worse, his entering into ministry may be presenting a stumbling block for others…and I hate it when people use that simply don’t like something, but I’m serious – he is putting himself in a very precarious position.

He hasn’t sought wise counsel…that we know of

The idea came from talking to a friend in Florida…is that enough?  It may very well be that he is ready to go back into the ministry.  I’d be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if other respectable leaders came out and said that they agreed…maybe.  But not even that has happened.  It seems like he has made this decision in complete isolation which is sure recipe for further hurt, further betrayal, and further dysfunction which leads me to my next point

He obviously isn’t better

Because of the previous points, it is clear that he is acting incredibly selfish.  The same type of selfishness which put him in this situation in the first place.  Haggard, it appears, isn’t interested in either his own healing or that of the church, he is interested in getting ahead at whatever cost.  Exiting early the program that is supposed to help him heal, moving back to the city where he hurt thousands of believers (thus refusing to let their wounds heal), and now starting up another church…I know we want to extend grace and we should, we should forgive Haggard, but allowing him to continue in his folly is not an extension of grace, it is an invitation to sin and hurt.

Haggard needs to heal and whether God is involved in that or not, that takes more than just a couple of years, especially for others.  He is not the only one with wounds, here.

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