The Haggard Ted Haggard

Well, say what you will about these scandals - they will be endless and progressively more commonplace as the End Times draw nearer - but, I for one am not totally surprised. I am disappointed and eye-rollingly fed-up, but not totally surprised.
In case you haven't heard, Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church has been implicated in a shameful controversy regarding his alleged use of methamphetamines and his gay sex with male prostitutes.
Yes, of course a man is innocent until proven guilty but like OJ Simpson's and Scott Peterson's, there are some accusations that needn't be examined that closely. Besides, Haggard admited that he is guilty of at least some of the accusations leveled against him. (Not to mention the fact that there are voicemail recordings of Haggard asking for meth from his pusher!)

I never heard of Haggard until yesterday when the news about his scandals broke. And it wasn't until today that I searched the web for news and articles about him.

It seems that Haggard, though he boasts 45,000 followers, isn't as conservative as many conservative evangelical leaders out there. The Southern Baptist Convention, of which our church is a member, has actually made no moves to associate itself with Haggard's NAE. Apparently, to Haggard's shagrin:

"The Southern Baptist Convention and the NAE need to draw closer together. Both need the other. The Southern Baptist Convention needs to connect with the rest of the evangelical body of believers, and the rest of the evangelical body of believers needs to be there with the Southern Baptist Convention.
When the Southern Baptist Convention launched their evangelism effort in Detroit, they were heavily criticized. But if it would have been an NAE member, another evangelical group could have been there to defend them. That's a function that NAE can do. Franklin Graham is in hot water over some of the things he said about Islam. It would be great for NAE to be active in helping explain Franklin's position.
Instead of ministries having to defend themselves, the representative voice for 50 million American evangelicals could step up and explain them. It would be a much stronger presence."

That was Ted Haggard in Christianity Today, June 2003. His desire to grow his association and affiliate itself with the SBC is understandable, but thankfully, the SBC did not reciprocate that desire.

Further, the NAE, not necessarily under Haggard, had actively wanted to associate itself with the National Council of Churches (NCC) which is a non-denominational group that "promotes harmonious relations among Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, practitioners of traditional Native American religion and many other faith groups in a society that is increasingly multireligious" (from the NCC website.)

James Dobson of Focus on the Family has also resisted Haggard's unorthodox platforms (from Chron.com):

One of Haggard's biggest leaps came when he said he believed global warming
was occurring, and that stopping climate change should be an evangelical priority.
His position drew a rebuke from some prominent evangelicals including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, leading Haggard to keep the association out of at least one religious environmental protection campaign this year.

So even though the lesson here is to avoid following or idolizing leaders - political or religious - without the sound foundation of Absolute Truth (read: The Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ) and that prominent Christian leaders and associations like Dobson or the SBC are also fallible and can easily face scandal like Haggard does today, I'm just glad we've managed to stay above the white noise thus far.

God willing.