New Life Church founder and former evangelical leader Ted Haggard returned to the pulpit to give two sermons in a small Illinois church on the second anniversary of his scandal-forced exit from a high-profile ministry at his megachurch in Colorado Springs.
Haggard appeared Nov. 2 at the Open Bible Fellowship in Morrison, Ill., led by his friend of 35 years, Pastor Chris Byrd. Haggard’s sermons surfaced on the church’s and Haggard’s websites.
Haggard spoke about how his “struggle with sin,” involving a male prostitute and drug purchases, grew out of a sexual incident with a man employed by his father when Haggard was 7 years old.
Haggard said that although he had been saved, or born again, at age 16, the incident and “a demonic power” gripped his mind.
The sermons marked an end to Haggard’s long, self-imposed silence on the scandal.
Haggard said in the sermons that although he was living a wonderful life with his wife, Gail, five children and his New Life family, he suddenly found himself caught in sin’s trap.
“When I became 50 years old, I don’t know if it was pressure, or if it was midlife crisis, or if it was just psychological determinism (as) Freud would say, or whatever — I don’t know what it was — but for some reason what happened to me as a child started to produce fruit,” he said.
Feelings long deeply buried, he said, “started to rage inside my mind and heart.”
“The first thing I want you to know is I sinned. I really did sin,” Haggard said. “And I’m very sorry that I sinned.”
However, he called some of the allegations “exaggerated.”
Still, Haggard said, his actions brought shame to his family, New Life and the National Associationof Evangelicals, of which he was president.
Haggard described how he would ease out of bed in the middle of the night, drive to New Life’s auditorium and wander around it, praying: ” ‘God, do whatever it takes to deliver me.’ . . . I was thinking this was going to cost me everything. I am an idiot.”
Haggard said he wrestled over and over with his secret.
“I hate this thing, but there were times I loved it,” he told himself. “I hate this thing, but there were times I loved it. I hate this thing, but there were times I loved it.”
A few months after the scandal broke, Haggard agreed to enter a “spiritual” restoration process overseen by ministers. He chose to end that relationship in February of this year, according to New Life officials.
Haggard sells life insurance in Colorado Springs and will not respond to media requests.
Haggard sounded critical of church leaders who, he said, missed the opportunity to demonstrate unconditional Christian love and forgiveness after the scandal broke.
“I’ve become the strongest, holiest person I know of in my position,” he said, which is not a position of self-righteousness but of someone who has paid a high price for his sins.
