Ted Haggard 2.0

There is a must-read article on Ted Haggard, the former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and exposed bisexual/drug user. Here are a couple of paragraphs:

"My spiritual life was wonderfully empowering for me in the midst of the struggle. But it wasn't the solution," he says. "I needed a therapist." Decades in the ministry failed to prepare him for this.

"I thought, 'I don't need to go to a therapist!' I mean I didn't even understand therapy. 'Jesus is the solution to everything!' " he says. "And I personally believe now that this process has occurred so that I would get the therapy I needed. I believe my therapy is the answer to 30 years of prayer about this subject. And so I am very grateful for the decision of the overseers and the restorers and I'm so thrilled about the way my life is now. I'm the man now that -- no, no, no, that's not true. I am becoming the man now that everybody thought I was then."

After being tormented by his secret homosexual/drug behavior during his pastorate, he turned to pastor friends for help.

"There were a few times when I talked to other people about it, but they were always within the religious leadership community, and they always gave me bad advice," Haggard says, with what only sounds like a laugh. "I talked to one old man of God, told him about it, and he said, 'You just need to be busier in the church.'

"And talked to another about it, and he said, 'Have you memorized Romans 6?' " The one that ends: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Toward the end of the article, Haggard makes an amazing statement:

"Prior to this scandal, I felt as though the definition of marriage was an important issue to be reflected in law," Haggard said. "I now believe that the Gospel is so wonderful, that the New Testament is so wonderful, the grace of God is so wonderful that that word might not be so significant that it should define publicly evangelicalism."

If Haggard thought he was a pariah before, making statements like that turn you into a heretic, which for fundamentalism is even worse than a homosexual sinner.

Sounds to me like Haggard has had a 'Shack'-like experience.