More than a year after then-pastor Ted Haggard resigned from his position at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Haggard has severed his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team. Haggard was the church's senior founding pastor. In November 2006, he resigned from his church leadership position and from his position as head of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations he had an affair with a male prostitute. In January 2007, Haggard voluntarily agreed to enter a process of spiritual restoration.
Late Monday, Brady Boyd, the pastor at New Life Church, sent a letter to parishioners updating them on Haggard. That letter was also sent to 7NEWS. Here is the letter in its entirety.
Dear New Life Church family and friends,
Today, our church's board of trustees will release a statement regarding the end of the restoration process for Ted Haggard. This process may receive some media attention, and I want you to hear of it from us before you read about it in the newspaper or hear it on the evening news.
Let's continue to pray for Ted, Gayle, and their family.
God bless you,
Brady Boyd, Senior Pastor, New Life Church, Colorado Springs, CO.
Ted Haggard’s leadership of New Life Church for many years was extraordinary and the depth of spiritual maturity that is found today in the church is in large part attributed to his leadership as the founding senior pastor.
In January 2007, Ted Haggard voluntarily agreed to enter a process of spiritual restoration. He has selected Phoenix First Assembly and Pastor Tommy Barnett as his local church fellowship and is maintaining an accountability relationship there. He has recently requested to end his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team and this has been accepted by them.
New Life Church recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future.
Because spiritual restoration is a necessarily confidential process, the church does not anticipate that it, or its overseers or restorers will make further comment about it.
Given that "spiritual restoration is a necessarily confidential process", one would have thought that the church would have remained absolutely silent about Haggard's failure to complete the process. After all, one suspects that he would not have been trumpeting that from the ramparts, now would he?
I have to admit, a tiny part of me feels just the littlest bit sorry for the guy. It's bad enough to have to wrestle with who you are -- or wrestle the demons of temptation, if you prefer -- let alone having to do it in public. Never mind apparently losing the battle in public, which is probably how he feels right now. And it's got to be horrible knowing that you've put your family through all of this, that they get to suffer along in public with you through no fault or action of their own.
The rest of me remains, yes, grimly amused at the concept that being gay renders one unfit to proclaim the love of God for mankind, and vice versa.
Posted by iain at February 06, 2008 12:14 PM
