COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AP) — The New Life Church will recover from new allegations in the 2-year-old sex scandal that brought down disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard, its pastor said Sunday.Brady Boyd encouraged his Colorado Springs congregation and reminded them of their “holy tenacity,” two days after revelations that a male church volunteer reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard.It’s the second such claim against the founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church. Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, in November 2006 amid allegations that he paid a male prostitute for sex and used methamphetamine.”I’m sorry that this wound has been reopened for many of you,” Boyd told the congregation Sunday. “One day we may have a little scar tissue, but the wounds will not define us.”Haggard had confessed to undisclosed “sexual immorality” after the earlier allegations, left New Life and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He has declined to comment on the new claim.On Friday, Boyd said church officials had learned of the second set of claims against Haggard in late 2006, shortly after the male prostitute made his allegations.Boyd said an “overwhelming pool of evidence” pointed to an “inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship” between Haggard and the male volunteer for an extended period of time.
Yup. The preacher is right. The church will recover, because it’s parishioners are foolish sheep who will look past their eyes in a desperate attempt to believe that their money that they donate to this mega-church will buy their way into heaven.Why couldn’t Haggard just come out and be a gay preacher? Why condemn him, and send him to some absurd “center” where he can be “cured of his homosexuality?” Because that’s not hate, that’s love. Love doesn’t sell — hate sells. Hate sells best when it’s called “love”, but it’s still hate. Evangelicals are all about hate. And greed. And denial.
godless sodomite
Reflecting upon Neowolfe’s and your comments, I realize there is a certain uncompromising responsibility we all bear as individuals. Though we are nothing without compassion, perhaps mine might best be tempered with a little more pragmatism.
I don’t know. I will think about this some more and thank you for your thoughts.
Tuen,
You must understand where I am coming from in order to understand my lack of compassion or sympathy for the likes of ted haggard. I am a gay man who has lived my life openly and honestly since my teens and have suffered for it at the hands of small minded, and mostly religiously motivated, bigots. People like haggard who lie to the world about who they are while screaming about sexual piety from the pulpit create an environment of extreme hostility to people such as myself. If all of the closeted haggards of the world were to leave the closet en masse then I would have gained my basic civil rights long ago rather than still having to spend a large amount fo my time and money in the year 2009 working towards gaining the same rights that all other Americans take for granted. Perhaps it is petty and small of me but I wish nothing but the absolute worst for ted haggard and those like him. A self inflicted bullet to his head would be a social service to the gay community.
Okay Tuen, I hear you:
“Be Haggard, the weak, misguided human being, and throw him a bone of compassion.”
Done, just as soon as he returns the millions of dollars he’s blowing up his nose with his boyfriends.
NeoWolfe
godless sodomite,
I’m not sure what to say. I just feel much more enlightened. You’ve lived it. I haven’t. I will never fully understand what you have gone through. But, I assure you, my solidarity with the gay community just gained a new dimension. Thank you.
Neowolfe
haha….ok maybe the only bone of compassion here should be the one he gets from his boyfriend….(couldn’t resist this one and absolutely no derogatory connotation here godless sodomite)
I think my last word shall be that I think of Ted Haggard as the epitome of hypocrites. And this, it seems, is what everyone is saying.
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