Letter from America

First he denied it. Then he confessed it. Now the dust has settled we need to consider it.

What would make Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals, Senior Pastor of New Life Church, a 14,000 member charismatic success story, with the ear of the President of the United States, at only 46 years old a respected member of the evangelical dynasty, what would make him engage in homosexual activity with a male prostitute over three years and take crystal methamphetamine?

Gordon MacDonald offered one explanation. He opined that we all have an innate tendency to self-destruct. ‘Leaders Implode’ (http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2006/cln61106.html), and we are to watch out for signs that the ‘herd of wild horses’ within each of us is about to get loose. Stubbornness and tyrannical behaviour is one sign; the inability to tell the whole truth evidences that we are lying to ourselves.

Death knell?

Leaders are tempted to adopt ‘the cardinal lies of a failed leader’, that they give and give and no one cares, or that as they are so holy in most things they can be forgiven other matters. MacDonald also tellingly goes on to comment that he wonders whether this event sounds the death knoll for the NAE, and even raises grave alarms about the evangelical movement’s association in the public mind with Bush-Iraq-Torture-homophobia, etc.

Of course, Ted Haggard represented a form of evangelicalism with which many members of EN would be less than comfortable. He envisioned a church where believers speak in tongues and do cartwheels because they love the Lord so much — a combination of well meaning, American positivism, and shaky theology that would be hard to match. And yet I have known leadership whose fall has been little less dramatic but whose doctrine was pure pristine gold. At least Haggard has voiced genuine repentance.

At the heart

What is the core issue? Are we wrong to expect those with latent temptation in this area to suppress their desires? Should the homosexually inclined give in to their homosexuality? Should the bored take drugs? Are we to set up more accountability groups — but one can always lie, one can always deceive, one can always find a way to do what one wants to do. And there’s the rub. As Jesus taught us, a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit, and on that day there would be many who would say, ‘Lord, Lord’, but who he would reject because he never knew them. Our faith — pace Luther — without deeds is dead (James 2.26).

Preventing such things?

On the bright side, the church has acted swiftly and appropriately to deal with the matter, and Haggard himself, remorseful and repentant, is reportedly involved in hardnosed counselling with some senior Christian leaders. As tragedies go, this one may have a good outcome.

What can we do to prevent such a tragedy in our own lives? I think we must first of all acknowledge the possibility that we, if a leader, may be tomorrow’s front page news. As coaches say to sports stars, we want to stay on the back pages not the front pages. But we must face up to the fact that, as the Lord spoke to Cain, sin crouches at our door and desires to have us, like a wild animal waiting to leap, and we must master it. All the doctrinal orthodoxy in the world won’t help if we don’t put it into practice. You can be so Reformed you get deformed. Let him who thinks he stands be careful lest he fall.

Spiritual warfare

This really is imperative. We are in a spiritual war that takes no hostages, standing against an adversary who cares nothing for us, and desires our soul at all costs. We have the victory, certainly. We need not fear, definitely. He is a lion prowling around, but he has been de-clawed, without doubt. Yet he still must be resisted if he is to flee.

And we never get past that resistance fight this side of glory. As one Puritan used to comment (I believe it was Gurnall), we need to sleep in our armour.

Haggard

Death knell?

At the heart

Preventing such things?

Spiritual warfare

Josh Moody

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