Peeking into Haggard's box of horrors
Posted November 6, 2006
So what else is Ted Haggard hiding? What other vile, creepy, depraved secrets are concealed in this preacher's closet? Those questions are haunting the ministers who loved and trusted Ted Haggard the most.
The best story I've read today is from the Rocky Mountain News. ("Leaders see Long Road Back." -- www.rockymountainnews.com ) It focuses not on Sunday's 9 a.m. New Life Church service, but on the press conference later that day.
Meeting with reporters, Haggard's longtime mentor, Rev. Larry Stockstill, said church officials will be looking for other landmines in his old friend's psyche. There'll be psychological screenings, polygraph tests. Somebody will need to take a peek at Haggard's computer hard drive and -- just to be safe -- take a gander at his finances.
The problems are apparently bigger than even Haggard's enemies probably could have guessed.
"Our hope against hope was that Ted just had a little slip, but when we began to interview him, we began to realize he's not in touch with truth and reality, and he has admitted that to us," said Stockstill, the Baton Rouge, La., pastor, who gave Haggard his start as a youth pastor more than 30 years ago.
Archived Comments
I agree wholeheartedly, James. Though I suspect you made a tongue-slip when you referred to the orthodox church's subjogation of women as "benign;" maybe they truly meant it that way (though one doubts it), but that wasn't the way it turned out.
The conservative element in religion always seems to have a great need to be against something or someone, and now that the laws won't let them discriminate against blacks and women quite as openly as they once did, gays are about the only target they have left.
He just joins a long list of "god's" ministers who are long on telling others what to do but short on following their own rules. Didn't Jesus have something to say about Pharisees who but burdens on others but are unwilling to lift those burdens thenselves? Bottom line is that sexuality is part of a healthy normal life and these guys are examples of what happens when one tries to repress their sexuality. How much better would Haggard and his followers have been if he had been openly gay?
Just discovered your fine blog, via a link from Get Religion. One correction regarding Larry Stockstill. It would have been Larry's father (then a church pastor) who gave Haggard his start (at what I believe was Bethany Baptist Church at the time) more than 30 years ago, not Larry himself. I know this because I was in the same freshman class as Larry Stockstill at Oral Roberts University and knew him quite well my first year there (we lived a few rooms apart on the same dorm wing). I haven't been in touch with Larry since I left ORU in 1973. Although our theological beliefs differed, he was a person of high integrity and from the interview clips I've seen since the Haggard disclosures, he appears to be the same person of character I knew at the time.
Rev. Haggard's long road back will indeed be difficult if it takes the approach of ignoring modern science and psychiatry, while trying to "cure" him of the sin of homosexuality. His sins are in lying to his family and others in order to maintain his lifestyle of luxury.
The organized church has a long history of ignoring science--punishing people for believing the earth is round; justifying slavery by incorrectly claiming that people of color are morally and intellectually inferior; benignly subjugating women because of false assumptions about gender specific traits making them more "suited" for certain tasks and "unsuited" for others; and currently claiming that homosexuality itself is a sinful condition which merely requires sufficient wilpower to overcome.
We are all free to believe what we are inspired to believe in this country. However, when we cross the line into writing our religious beliefs into public policy--people of color cannot vote; women cannot own property; gay people cannot marry; teachers cannot teach evolution--our personal, private lives and failings become public events, and our religious beliefs are subjected to public scrutiny by people who don't believe as we do.
One solution is put less emphasis on a gospel of wealth and judgment of others, and focus on personal salvation, integrity truth, and compassion.