DENVER — They have had four months to reflect, and the senior staff of New Life Church can now look back and see the warning signs.
Not one suspected that their high-profile pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, had been secretly visiting a male prostitute. But they see now what they should have seen then: that Haggard talked too much about sex; that he could be crudely suggestive; that he seemed to have a need to push boundaries.
And that no one ever called him on any of it.
"His loose discussions about sexuality might have seemed refreshingly raw and real, especially since church had always been so stuffy and prudish in the past," said Rob Brendle, associate pastor of the megachurch in Colorado Springs, Colo. "In retrospect, some of his comments and interactions that at the time seemed edgy, but innocent enough, now seem questionable."
A team of pastors assigned to investigate Haggard after he admitted in November to "sexual immorality" has concluded his behavior went beyond merely questionable.
The board of overseers uncovered a pattern of troubling behavior -- "everything from sordid conversation to overt suggestions to improper activities to improper relationships," the Rev. Larry Stockstill told the New Life congregation in a report last month.
Stockstill would not divulge details, but he and the other investigators concluded that Haggard -- who is in therapy and preparing to leave Colorado Springs -- suffered from "habitual, life-controlling problems." They called it "a matter of grace" that the pastor was caught in his relationship with prostitute Mike Jones of Denver.
Last fall, Jones came forward with allegations that Haggard had regularly been paying him for sex for three years and had used methamphetamine in his presence. After Jones produced voice-mail messages from Haggard, the pastor admitted he had visited the prostitute -- only for a massage, he said -- and said he had purchased drugs but never used them.
He was permanently removed from the leadership of New Life and resigned the presidency of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million Christians.
Shortly after his confession, Haggard and his wife, Gayle, spent three weeks at a secular counseling program in Arizona. A member of the church's board of overseers, the Rev. Tim Ralph, told a reporter that Haggard emerged from the treatment convinced "he is completely heterosexual."
