Thursday, November 02, 2006

Ted Haggard

Update 2: Here's the news report.

After Pastor Ted Haggard went public Wednesday night denying allegations of a homosexual affair, senior church officials told KKTV 11News Thursday evening, Pastor Ted Haggard has admitted to some of the claims made by a former male escort. The church's Acting Senior Pastor, Ross Parsley, tells KKTV 11 News that Pastor Haggard has admitted to some of the indiscretions claimed by Mike Jones, but not all of them.


Update: According to news reports this morning-Haggard has confirmed that SOME of the allegations are true.

Now I still think we must be patient and allow time to unpack all this. But the reality is rather harsh, because the backlash will be intense. This will truly be a black eye for the church. This reminds me of the Baker/Swaggart era.

Anyhow, I think it's important for the church to react swiftly, if mistakes were made let's admit them, repent and ask for forgiveness. NO COVER UP"S PLEASE, this is not politics for God's sake!

Also, we do need to pray for Haggard and his family. And we need to find the redemptive opportunities that can and will come out of this situation.

Quick Thought: By no means did I really see Haggard as my leader because he led the evangelical association. I guess I'm one who is on the edge of those labels. But I do see the importance and implication that this will cause the church. Therefore this is important to me.

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Ted Haggard stepped down amid sexual ALLEGATIONS. Man this is not good, I hope it's not true. I'm not really into Haggard or many of his beliefs, but I hope he did not do what they say he did.

Click here to read the article.

6 comments:

Head Guy said...

It is burning up the news but here is a quote from another news article:

Colorado College Political Science Professor Bob Loevy says the allegation smells like the oldest political trick in the book. Loevy told News First, " It's well known that with poison squads you get the charge out there, by the time the person is able to defend themselves, it's after the election the poison squad has already done it's damage."

http://www.koaa.com/news/view.asp?ID=5880

Chris Marlow said...

That's what's so sad...Of course it seems like that been an eternal issue starting with Joseph right?

Head Guy said...

Latest headline:
Haggard's accuser fails lie detector

Chris Marlow said...

Ya, you got wonder about the timing of this whole thing.

But, Haggard has admitted to some failures. So, we shall see how it all plays out.

Mac Mann said...

So-called lie detectors are virtually worthless. A research survey by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "10,000 polygraph tests searching for spies would incorrectly classify 99.5% of "deceptive" results (those telling the truth yet incorrectly deemed to be deceitful)".

Do you really believe that Haggard bought crystal meth but "did not use it" and threw it away? Do you believe that all he got for $200 from the gay prostitute was a massage? And, in view of what he has already admitted, do you believe that they had only one encounter (rather than several over a period of three years)?

As for the timing, tv stations KUSA interviewed the prostitute a full two months ago, but "did not have enough proof for us to do this story" at that time. Now they have tapes of Haggard's voice messages.

In Ted Haggard's sermon last Sunday (perhaps his last ever?) he prayed: "Father, we pray that lies would be exposed. We pray that deception would be exposed. Father, we pray that wisdom would come upon our electorate and that they would think with clarity and with decisiveness." I join him in that prayer, but I expect the outcome to be quite different from what he tried to insinuate.

Chris Marlow said...

Mac Mann,

I think at this point that will be the issue. It is hard for me to believe that he "bought" meth but did not "use" meth. And It seem quite weird that he decided to get a message. It just does not all add up imho.

But, I'm trying to allow the details to unpack before I really go on a rant.

All I can say is this-If Haggard is trying to cover ANYTHING up, that is just wrong.