False Profits?

This should give the critics of politically-active conservative evangelicals some ammo; Ted Haggard has stepped down as NAE chairman. The NAE is a rather loose organization, so this isn't the evangelical pope. An up-and-coming televangelist, yes, but no massive following like Dobson or (in his prime) Robertson.

He's been accused of hiring a male prostitute. He headed up a big Pentecostal church, New Life, in Colorado Springs; he's leaving the pastorate there as well. He's denying the claims but is stepping aside pending an investigation.

I recall that he's given divine imprimatur to free-market economics (here's a Christianity Today piece that alludes to that, as well as a more hostile Jeff Sharlet Harpers piece), something I'm not quite willing to do. That makes him far more willing to buy into political conservatism than other religious leaders.

I'm not sure if this will have any impact on next week's elections. Haggard isn't that high profile even within evangelical circles; it would be different if someone like James Dobson were caught with his pants down. I can't say that I've ever heard him speak, although I've read of him quite a bit; I recall the Harpers piece coming over my radar last year and not quite figuring out what to make of it.

Will it give the fever swamps of the left a place to lay hypocrisy charges and expand it out to be typical of the evangelical breed? Yes. Will it give ammunition for folks like our buddies at Connexions to (much more fairly) question Haggard's breed of ideology/theology? You betcha; in fact, he looks more than a bit like the American Christianity subspecies that they were positing the other day.

I'm likely to come back to this tomorrow.

Comments

[BD]

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion has an interesting point.
Haggard published The Jerusalem Diet a year ago, he lost weight and started regaining a bit, which would go a little way to explain the desire to keep slim and use meth to do so.

Also Haggard's accuser is a former competitive body builder, a locally known (Denver) personal trainer and massage artist.

[Joel Betow]

I don't see Haggard's fall as related to ideology. This is not a left-right issue but one of temptation, sin and tragedy. Plenty of mainstream or left religious leaders have taken the plunge.

I have questioned some of the priorities of certain of the fundamentalist leaders, but I don't see this as giving ammunition for anything.

I may write a post on the general topic, but it will be centered perhaps in the pressures and temptations that come to prominent religious leaders regardless of ideology.

The truth is that some of the most scandalous behavior among religious leaders was either their support for segregation or their failure to defend and promote the human dignity and rights of racial minorities.

[troy loop]

P. S. I have personally met Ted Haggard, who would not shake my hand for some strange reason.