I know that statement sounds harsh, but I can't help thinking it every time Ted Haggard's name, face, or voice come across my field of vision (does hearing count?), so to speak.
Now, Ted Haggard has announced he's not gay. Well, I'm glad for him, I guess, but I can't help thinking that it still isn't anyone else's business except, perhaps, his wife's, is it?
The Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn master's degrees in psychology.
Haggard broke a three-month silence in e-mails over the weekend to select members of his former church. New Life Church interim senior pastor Ross Parsley forwarded Haggard's message to the wider church body Monday.
In the message, Haggard revealed that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and pursue master's degrees through online courses.
Haggard mentioned Missouri and Iowa as possible destinations. Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, said the group recommended the move out of town, and the Haggards agreed.
"This is a good place for Ted," Ware said. "It's hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now. It's like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed."
I am not unsympathetic to Haggard. This entire situation has been embarrassing and humiliating for Haggard, his wife, his church, evangelicals, and, frankly, Christians everywhere. Haggard is now fodder for unsympathetic lefties (see here for starters) and there's no way for him to rebuild any credibility in three months.
Andrew Sullivan put it best:
Let's put it this way: even the quacks behind reparative therapy for homosexuals do not believe a few weeks of therapy will do the trick. (A few years and you can function heterosexually without wanting to kill yourself.) And so the psychological and spiritual abuse that Haggard has imposed on others and is now imposing on himself continues for another cycle of denial and pathology.
I'm no expert in this area, but it seems to me that Haggard is desperate to regain some of the limelight he had six months ago and he isn't accepting that the world for him is different now. This is going to be a slow and painful process for this man, but he needs to accept the consequences--yes, consequences--of his behaviors. Jumping out with this exclamation now is just pathetic.
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