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Banned
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Buh...bye....Ted Haggard....
Quote:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...news-a_section
Evangelical leader steps down amid allegations
The Rev. Ted Haggard denies a man's public charges that the pastor of a mega-church had been paying him for sex.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2006
DENVER — The president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals resigned Thursday after his Colorado Springs, Colo., mega-church opened an investigation into allegations that he had repeatedly paid for sex with a male prostitute.
The Rev. Ted Haggard, who regularly consults with the White House on policy matters, told a Denver television station that he "never had a gay relationship with anybody" and had been faithful to his wife of 28 years.
In a statement released by New Life Church, where he is senior pastor, the 50-year-old Haggard added: "I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance."
The allegations were made Wednesday on a Denver talk radio station, KHOW-AM. Mike Jones, who described himself as a male escort, said he had a sexual "business relationship" with Haggard for the last three years. Jones, 49, told the Associated Press that he had saved voicemail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope that he said Haggard had used to mail him cash.
A committee of pastors from across the country has been convened to investigate the allegations. They can "discipline me if I need to be disciplined, fire me if I need to be fired," Haggard told KUSA-TV. He also placed himself on administrative leave from the 14,000-member church pending the investigation, saying he could not continue to minister "under the cloud created by the accusations."
A father of five who dresses in blue jeans and drives a Chevy pickup, Haggard is well-known, and widely praised, as an energetic, charismatic pastor who has pushed to expand evangelical activism into issues such as global warming and world poverty. But he hasn't shied away from the traditional culture-war issues of abortion and homosexuality.
A lengthy profile in Harper's magazine — which is quoted approvingly on Haggard's website — <h3>recounts how he built New Life Church in part by hanging out at gay bars and inviting the patrons to come to his sermons and be saved.</h3>
Under Haggard's leadership, the National Assn. of Evangelicals, which has 30 million members, reaffirmed a policy statement that describes homosexuality as "a deviation from the Creator's plan" and calls same-sex relations a sin that, "if persisted in … excludes one from the Kingdom of God."
Haggard has lobbied for a U.S. constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage; he also supports the gay-marriage ban that will go before Colorado voters Tuesday......
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<b>The following is an article from post #20, on this thread, and....if you're interested, I posted other articles, on this thread, that report on the christian "influence" at the Air Force Academy....</b>
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9830808/
A religious revolution in America
'Tom Brokaw Reports: In God They Trust' explores why so many Americans are turning to this expression of faith FREE VIDEO
• ‘In God They Trust’
In the upcoming “Tom Brokaw Reports: In God They Trust,” to be broadcast on Friday, Oct. 28 8 p.m., Brokaw explores why so many Americans are turning to this expression of faith, and asks whether or not some Evangelicals are going too far. Watch a preview.
By Tom Brokaw
NBC News
Updated: 10:26 a.m. ET Oct 28, 2005
For some time now I've been intrigued by the growing presence and power of the evangelical Christian movement in American politics, particularly in presidential election years. <h3>I concluded there was an acute shortage of reporting on WHY so many Americans were getting involved in the evangelical church and how they were treated by the political establishment.
</h3>
We chose the New Life church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as the primary site for our report <b>because its pastor, Ted Haggard, is president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and because it is emblematic of the expanding place of so called mega-churches in America. </b>
Also, New Life is close to the U.S. Air Force Academy which has been embroiled in controversy over the place of evangelical Christianity in the ranks and faculty at the academy........
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Last edited by host; 11-03-2006 at 10:50 AM..
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