This is for Ted.
Ted, as blogger Michael Spencer aptly put it, is a loser.
Ted agrees with Spencer, saying he’s a loser because he’s a 42-year-old insurance salesman, when just a few years ago he was making six figures.
As the president of a nationwide association representing millions, he led a local organization of over 15,000 and regularly had the ear of President George W. Bush in his weekly teleconference with other nationally known leaders.
But he was a loser then, too.
Ted, as some of you have figured out by now, is Ted Haggard, former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
A little over a year ago, Ted lost his job when it was learned that he had been having sex with a male prostitute in the Denver area. The news was especially shocking given Ted’s outspoken stance against gay marriage and often flippant dismissal of gay rights in his sermons.
Now he’s back in the news for two reasons. First, for the recently released documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, which aired last Thursday on HBO. Second, for new reports that his former church paid a 20-year-old man, who was a former volunteer, to keep quiet about his own sexual relationship with Haggard.
We’ll come back to that later.
For now though, let’s talk about Ted and being a loser.
In a recent interview he told Fox News, “At this stage in my life, I am a loser.” He’s also recently confessed that after the scandal broke he contemplated suicide in the wake of the massive amounts of hate mail he received.
Ted, the rest of this is for you.
From one loser to another, you’re better off now.
One of my favorite musicians, Derek Webb, says that the best thing in the world is to have all our sins broadcast on the five o’clock news because, deep down, we’re all losers.
As I consider your story, I’m struck by the way it parallels my own. You were the darling of the evangelical world, the president of one of its most powerful organizations, and the charismatic face of a massive megachurch in the evangelical capital of America.
And it was all a lie.
My own story is much less dramatic and certainly did not take place on such a large scale, but still bears several similarities. Up until middle school, I was a poster-boy for my evangelical church. I bought all the sermons, hook, line and sinker. I memorized all the verses, went to all the events, gave devotionals at youth group and hated all the right people.
But I spent most nights looking at porn. In repeated acts of hypocrisy similar to yours, I came home from youth group where we’d talk about not having sex before marriage – or even kissing before marriage – and made a beeline for my computer.
Like you, it was only after I was caught that I started to experience a little healing. Also like you, the healing came at the cost of my good standing in the church. As it turned out, it was only in leaving the church that I found Jesus.
And Ted, we’re not alone. If your old church’s recent actions are any indicator, it still isn’t OK to be broken in most churches.
After your story first broke, another young man you’d shared a hotel room with and masturbated in front of came forward and wanted to tell his story. Your old church offered him $180,000 in “compassion assistance” to keep quiet. They said it would be better for their church not to know the full extent of your past hypocrisy. The point is that your former church was presented with a choice: Maintain the appearance of having it all together for the price tag of $180,000 or be honest about what had happened and trust that Jesus can – and does – heal even the deepest possible wounds.
They chose to pay the $180,000.
Maybe that’s why so many of us only find Jesus when we’re going through our detox phase after leaving evangelicalism. Because it’s only when we leave that three-ring circus that we realize we’re pretty messed up.
More importantly, it’s only when we realize that we’re pretty messed up that we realize Jesus still loves us.
Baptist Pastor Charles Spurgeon probably said it best. He said if your sin is small then your savior is small, but if your sin is great then your savior will be great, too.
For most of us, the church isn’t a safe place to acknowledge the greatness of our sin. If we do, it makes us exiles.
I don’t know where you are exactly. Sometimes you still try to hide behind claims that you were “healed” after a week of counseling. You still try to act like, deep down, you’re really OK.
But you and I both know that you aren’t. Neither am I.
And that’s the point. It’s only when we look at ourselves and realize that we are more screwed up than we ever could imagine that we can find any sort of authentic, lasting healing in the Christian gospel. As author Tim Keller masterfully puts it, the gospel tells us that we’re more wretched than we ever dared imagine but more loved than we ever dared hope.
So from one loser to another, welcome to the club.
Jake Meador is a junior History and English major. Reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com.
Evangelism does not allow for discussion of sin
Published: Monday, February 2, 2009
Updated: Monday, February 2, 2009
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