In
this June 2, 2010 file photo, Ted Haggard, the former megachurch pastor
who fell from grace amid a sex scandal, stands with his wife Gayle at
his side. (Credit: Ed Andrieski/AP)
Ted Haggard on How Not to Repent
http://theaquilareport.com/ted-haggard-on-how-not-to-repent/
Haggard used the recent suicide of another megachurch pastor’s son, Isaac Hunter, to continue his attempts at resurrecting his name, reputation, and ministry.
Written by David Murray |
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
In 2006, Ted Haggard joined the “pantheon” of fallen megachurch pastors after being caught red-handed in a gay sex and drugs scandal. Most Christians weep over such incidents, grieve for the damage done to the church of Christ, pray that the man will repent and find forgiveness with God, and hope that he will take a quiet and unpublicized place in the church of Christ for the rest of his life.
Usually it’s a vain hope. As it was in this case too.
After a short period of “restoration,” the Haggards returned to the public eye with books, television interviews, and a re-launched ministry.
I suppose we all still hoped that despite appearances, there had been true repentance, that Haggard really had owned his sin, taken responsibility, accepted the blame, and sincerely confessed his guilt.
But a recent blog post raises a huge question mark against that hope. In Suicide, Evangelicals, and Sorrow, Haggard used the recent suicide of another megachurch pastor’s son, Isaac Hunter, to continue his attempts at resurrecting his name, reputation, and ministry. His post really is an almost perfect example of how not to repent.
So why highlight it? First, because it will help us to spot these characteristics when dealing with others who have fallen into public sin and scandal. Sadly, there are predictable patterns to these things that we’d do well to acquaint ourselves with so that we are not duped. And second, because we can use it as a personal heart-check to examine how we respond to our own sin.
1. I’m no worse than anyone else. In a number of places Haggard basically says, “OK, I’m not perfect, but neither are you. We all fall short. We’ve all had sin intrude horribly into our lives. Only Christ is perfect.” In other words, why make such an example of me when you’re no better.
2. My problem was not spiritual. ”The therapeutic team that dug in on me insisted that I did not have a spiritual problem.”
3. It was something that happened to me. “Contrary to popular reports, my core issue was not sexual orientation, but trauma.” It’s not so much about what I did, or who I am, but about what someone else did to me.
4. I wasn’t responsible; someone else was to blame. ”I had a physiological problem rooted in a childhood trauma.”
5. I needed therapy, not faith and repentance. ”I needed trauma resolution therapy….I went through EMDR, a trauma resolution therapy.”
6. It wasn’t a personal choice. Haggard asks: “Do we actually believe that the many pastors who have been characterized as fallen decided to be hateful, immoral, greedy, or deceitful?” Then answers: “I think not.”
7. Christians are cruel and unforgiving. In a number of places Haggard attacks Christians saying that they lack sympathy, grace, and forgiveness. “My sin never made me suicidal, but widespread church reaction to me did.” He also speaks of the “brutal mail” and “hurtful communications” he received, and he imagines the Warrens and Hunters did too. He lambasts an “evangelical culture that alienates those who fall and spiritualizes their struggles.”
8. Attack the accusers. Throughout this piece Haggard is continually swiping at his accusers and those who initiated church discipline against him. They are “flat-earthers,” “Judaizers,” “scrutinizers,” “Pharisees” who are “too busy with the sins of others.”
9. You just don’t understand me: “When I explain [my trauma and the trauma resolution therapy] to most Evangelical leaders, their eyes glaze over.” He goes on to characterize Christians who rejected his excuses as simplistic fundamentalists.
10. My sins were not as bad as you think. ”My accuser failed his lie detector test and refused to take another, and I passed four lie detector tests given by three different polygraphers saying that the primary accusations were false.”
Sadly there is no shortage of naive people who will swallow this self-pitying self-justifying narrative hook, line, and sinker. (And sadly there’s no shortage of media outlets who will happily use Haggard as a stick to beat the “unforgiving” church with.)
Even more sadly, our own hearts can also do a Haggard when we are confronted with our own sins.
Real repentance looks and sounds radically different. It says: “I’m worse than you, worse than you think, and did worse than you can imagine. No matter what was in my past, I deliberately chose these sinful actions and accept full responsibility for them. I deserve whatever consequences result from them. I shamed my Lord and His church. If some Christians treat me badly, that’s OK, I understand. I can’t and won’t complain. I won’t say or write anything that will portray the Church or Christians in a bad light. I’ve brought enough damage on the church already. And I certainly won’t use the tragic suicides of others to further my own public rehabilitation.”
That’s the kind of repentance that leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10).
David Murray is Professor of Old Testament & Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. This article first appeared on his blog, Head Heart hand, and is used with permission.
Disgraced Ex-Preacher Says There’s a Major Culture Problem in Evangelical Christianity
Ted Haggard, a preacher who stepped
down in 2006 from his position as president of the National Association
of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs,
Colo., following a sex and drug scandal, recently spoke out about Isaac Hunter’s suicide, an event that took the evangelical world by storm last week.
Focusing specifically on the scandals
and charges of wrongdoing that have surrounded many famed preachers —
himself included — Haggard said that evangelical Christians sometimes
fail to properly apply the gospel when dealing with faith leaders who
fall from grace.
Hunter, the former pastor of Summit
Church in Orlando, Fla., had been facing personal issues since stepping
down from his position late last year. His death, following the suicide
of Pastor Rick Warren’s son, Matthew, earlier this year, has brought
additional attention to mental health in evangelical circles.
“The news about Pastor Isaac Hunter
breaks my heart. Great speaker, lover of God, and my guess is he loved
the church. But he, like all of us, fell short,” Haggard wrote.
“In the midst of divorce with accusations swirling, he resigned from
the church he founded. He gave it his best shot, and his heart was
broken.”
He continued, “This makes me sick to my
stomach. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sick that he fell short, that’s a
given for everyone except Christ Himself, I’m sick that our message did
not do what we all hoped – it did not fix the problem.”
Haggard said that, in the past,
evangelical leaders who have been immersed in scandal were often seen as
not true believers, however he said this simply isn’t the case. In
fact, he argued that most people who are in ministry “are sincere
followers of Christ.”
While many Christians assume that a
conversion to the faith heals all past problems, Haggard said this
wasn’t the case in his own experience. While he said that becoming a
believer made him “a new creation spiritually,” Haggard noted that there
was some “simple care” that would have helped him avoid the scandal and
pain he caused his family.
“I was so ashamed in 2006 when my
scandal broke. The therapeutic team that dug in on me insisted that I
did not have a spiritual problem or a problem with cognitive ability,
and that I tested in normal ranges on all of my mental health tests
(MMPI, etc.).” he wrote.
“Instead, I had a physiological problem rooted in a childhood trauma,
and as a result, needed trauma resolution therapy. I had been
traumatized when I was 7 years old, but when Bill Bright led me to the
Lord when I was 16, I learned that I had become a new creature, a new
person, and that I did not need to be concerned about anything in my
past, that it was all covered by the blood.”
But Haggard said that his past was still impacting his life.
In the end, the former megapastor
claimed that his Christian training was delivered by people who didn’t
respect the mental health and neural science professions. This
translated, he wrote, into a counterproductive situation, as he was
taught to view all issues as being entirely spiritual in nature.
“If I prayed and fasted, I was more
tempted. If I just worked in ministry, I experienced relief and was not
tempted,” Haggard continued. “I thought it was spiritual warfare. It was
not. My struggle was easily explained by a competent therapeutic team.”
Haggard said that he believes
wholeheartedly in the Bible, but that Christianity has “abandoned the
application of the gospel” and that, as a result, too much time is spent
on image management and damage control.
“Every one of us have had sin horribly
intrude in our lives after being saved and filled with the Holy Spirit,
and God is faithfully healing us or has healed us,” he continued. “Why
don’t we tell that? He has never left us or forsaken us when we’ve said
and done the wrong thing. Why don’t we tell that?”
Read Haggard’s entire blog post here.
