COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. — In the hush of a Sunday morning, believers grieved, struggled and forgave as their pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, confessed his sins.
"I am a deceiver and a liar," Haggard told 9,000 of his followers in a letter read from the pulpit of New Life Church by one of his spiritual mentors. "There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."
Men wiped at their eyes. Women clung to one another. A grandfather hugged his baby grandson close, rubbing the boy's small back. Haggard had founded this church in his basement. He had grown it to a congregation of 14,000. He had guided them to God and helped them triumph over sin, and he had done it always with a smile, ever exuberant, ever strong.
They wept to hear what he'd been hiding.
"For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom," Haggard wrote. "Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach."
A male prostitute in Denver came forward last week claiming that Haggard had visited his apartment almost monthly over the last three years for sex and drugs. Haggard at first denied it. Then he said he bought meth from the man, but threw it away. On Sunday, he said this: "The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry."
Having resigned the presidency of the National Assn. of Evangelicals and been dismissed as senior pastor of New Life, Haggard said he and his wife, Gayle, "need to be gone for a while." He pledged to put himself under the guidance of several pastors who will help him work toward restoration.
"Please forgive me," he wrote. "I am so embarrassed and ashamed.... I am a sinner. I have fallen."
Then the Rev. Larry Stockstill, a Louisiana pastor, read aloud a short letter from Gayle Haggard. She said her heart was broken, but she promised to stand by her husband.
"For those of you who have been concerned that my marriage was so perfect I could not possibly relate to the women who are facing great difficulties, know that this will never again be the case," she wrote, evoking a ripple of laughter. "My test has begun; watch me. I will try to prove myself faithful."
