It is that time of the year when church-going folk are all set to prepare, physically and spiritually, for another Christmas. Pastors and priests will soon spend time with their flocks guiding them through a period of fasting and preparation before the celebrations commemorating the infant Jesus’ birth. Retailers stock up on gifts before hungry consumers flood their stores and school children have just got their first look at the script for the annual Nativity play.A time of much joy and merriment no doubt. But two people who will look forward to the coming months with less than relish will be Pastors Jack Hayford of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and Tommy Barnett of First Assembly of God in Phoenix. While they may continue to shoulder the burden of guiding their respective church members through this key period in the church’s calendar, they have also been loaded with a new and unusual responsibility.
Pastors Hayford and Barnett will oversee the ‘spiritual restoration’ of Reverend Ted Haggard, one of America’s most influential evangelicals, over a prolonged span of time that may go up to two years. Pastor Ted, as the Reverend was affectionately known to his thousands of fans, has fallen from grace in a scandal that has rocked the US religious and political circles. While the media buzz has now gradually begun to die down, the spiritual impact on the thousands that lived and prayed by the Pastor’s word will last for much longer.
After all it is not easy to see one’s spiritual guide and moral guardian, Pastor Ted was a vocal critic of homosexuality, be accused of not just drug use but of having used the services of a male prostitute frequently over the last three years.
Simple Roots. Grand Visions.
Till ten days ago Haggard was the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The New Life Church, with a congregation of some 14,000 members, is one of several ‘megachurches’ popular in Protestant Christiantity. A megachurch, one with more than 2000 members congregating for weekly services, falls outside the purview of established organized Christianity. Often run by self-ordained pastors and preachers megachurches attract and retain vast congregations, New Life is not even in the top 50 largest churches in the US, through a combination of fervent prayer, suave and charismatic preaching and over the top churches full of the latest in broadcast and audio visual technology.
New Life, though small in size, was undoubtedly one of the most influential churches in the United States. Under the leadership of Pastor Ted the church, started in the basement of the reverend’s home in 1984, moved to the forefront of American Evangelicalism. It had become the birthplace of ideas and evangelical activism and has played no small part in the rise of Colorado Springs as the capital of the ‘parachurch’ movement. The city has hundreds of churches. But none as high-profile or glamorous as Pastor Ted’s. And his power and influence went right up to the highest office in the country, the Oval Office.
Not bad for a veterinarian’s son from Indiana.
Marcus Haggard was not just the town veterinarian in Delphi, Indian but also owned pig farms. Pastor Ted, in later days, would often call himself the son of a pig farmer. But Papa Haggard was more than just that. He started two companies, one making farm equipment and the other dogfood, ran a bakery and even ran training sessions on selling which Marcus later recorded on audio tapes and sold.
Son Ted would grow up seeing visions that continuously drove him to establish his own church. Pastor Ted once stated he saw visions of online prayer groups even before the internet was invented. Then 18 years ago while praying by a hillside Pastor Ted saw visions of a church where “believers speak in tongues and do cartwheels because they love the Lord so much”.
The New Life Church of Colorado Springs was born. Two weeks ago it all came crashing down.
Radio Killed the Pastor
On November 1st Mike Jones, a prostitute and masseur, appeared on radio to state that Pastor Ted had availed of his services on a monthly basis over the last three years. Jones went on to reveal sordid details of their relationship including the Pastor’s penchant for methamphetamine and his fantasy for orgies with ‘young college boys’.
Jones said he had made his secret public after being riled by Haggard’s support of a proposed amendment in the constitutions that would ban same sex marriages in Colorado State. Jones said: “I had to expose the hypocrisy. He is in the position of influence of millions of followers, and he’s preaching against gay marriage. But behind everybody’s back [he’s] doing what he’s preached against.”
It was a terrible fall for Haggard who over the years had emerged as a symbol of evangelicalism and Christian values. Pastor Ted was a vocal opponent of gay relationships and till then had openly preached how same sex relationships were condemned by the scriptures.
His followers were distraught and believers flocked back to their churches to pray and lament the fall of their hero.
Further turmoil was brewing in political circles. Reverend Haggard was also chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella organization of 45,000 churches and 30 million members that sought to coordinate evangelical activity and was an important conduit between church sentiments and the political machinery.
Harper’s reported last year that Reverend Haggard spoke to the President and his advisors every week. The reverend was apparently the administration’s thermometer to measure how faith communities reacted to policy. In 2003 the pastor personally visited the Oval Office along with seven other leading preachers to meet the President and discuss policy. He was a highly visible Republican who made no attempt to cover up his admiration for the President even during recent time when Bush’s popularity has been at an all time low.
But with Mike Jones’ revelation this aura, built over almost twenty years, was obliterated. For the Republicans it was just another shot in the chest of an already beleaguered election campaign.
Deny. Sigh. Agree.
Initially Pastor Ted denied the accusations. He claimed he had never heard of the accuser. In a statement rather reminiscent of a US President of yore the pastor said: “I have not, I have never had a gay relationship with anybody.”
But the ruse did not last long. Just one day later senior church officials told a local Colorado television station that the Pastor had confessed to some, not all, of the accusations. The next day the pastor himself stated “I called him to buy some meth, but I threw it away. I bought it for myself but never used it… I was tempted, but I never used it.”
On November 4th Reverend Haggard’s fate was sealed when the ‘Overseer Board of New Life Church’ released a statement saying that they had proven without doubt that the Pastor had indeed committed sexually immoral conduct.
He was removed from his job.
All that was left for the Pastor was to publicly admit his guilt. This he did through a letter to his Parishioners on November 5th, the day after the damning statement by the church he had lovingly nurtured for more than twenty years.
“I am so sorry for the circumstances that have caused shame and embarrassment for all of you….The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life….The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry.”
Renewal and Rehabilitation
Pastors Hayford and Barnett will now spend days and nights with Reverend Ted Haggard to bring him back to the path of righteousness. The pastor will not have an easy time. The renewal includes not just several sessions of counseling and group and individual therapies but also exercises meant to ask for forgiveness. The pastor must meet each and every person he has wronged, including this wife and family, and ask for forgiveness.
He must also humble himself. No longer will he be able to pace up and down a stage in front of thousands. Instead he must relearn preaching starting with groups as small as five people. It is a harrowing experiences and many pastors and preachers have not emerged from a renewal exercise fit to preach again.
While the pastor might find solace in the months to come his church members will struggle to overcome the trauma. Many are going back to Church with even greater fervour asking the Lord to forgive Reverend Haggard. Several have not given up hope for their hero. But critics of the church, megachurches and evangelicalism have got an enormous shot in the arm from the turn of events.
In a column for the East Valley Tribune columnist Lawn Griffith says that conservative religionists are so vulnerable to such fiascoes as they present a highly unrealistic view of human life and especially human sexuality.
Much of the debate over Ted Haggard’s sins will remain in the spiritual domain. The Republicans will be relieved they have another tiny scapegoat besides Iraq and Bush himself to pin the responsibility for their thumping defeat.
How this changes the face of American evangelicalism is something that only time will tell. For the non-believer it all seems like a roller-coaster soap opera story. The harangued believer better keep the faith.
Also by Hafta
- A walk in the clouds - February 26th, 2007
- Off the beaten path in Toledo - February 26th, 2007
- Lazy French Holiday - January 22nd, 2007
- Mumbai Votes - January 15th, 2007
- Full House Mumbai - December 4th, 2006