This morning, ABC News is reporting that Ted Haggard preached a very personal sermon this past weekend about his fall from and back into grace.
Haggard spoke in the morning and evening at Open Bible Fellowship, an independent, charismatic church in Morrison, IL. I have yet to listen to the sermons but the ABC News account implies he attributes his homosexual inclinations to sexual molestation at age 7.
Haggard told the congregation that a sexual incident with a man when he was 7 years old may be related to the scandal involving a male prostitute and crystal meth use that cost him his job two years ago.
“My dad was pretty successful,” Haggard said. “He had a lot of workers. One of those workers had a sexual experience with me. I was 7 years old.”
Haggard said that incident stayed with him throughout his life.
There I was, 50 years old, a conservative Republican, loving the word of God, an evangelical, born-again, spirit-filled, charismatic, all those things,” he said. “But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my heart and mind.”
“I’m very, very sorry that I sinned,” he said. “My wife — all my sin and shame fell on her. People treated her as if she had fallen. And my children — they all went through carrying my shame.”
Pastor Ted, I hope you get your website up so that those of us who want to encourage you have a venue to do so. You pastored me for 4yrs and you were the best pastor I had ever had up to that point. I guess what i want to say is this: the world and the church are fickle. One minute your up the next you are down. Jesus turned the world upside down because he was the genuine and authentic answer! When your healing is an authentic miricle from God, filled with resurrection life and divine transforming power, the world will listen. The church and the world will listen because deep down inside they know it is their only hope too! There is something about truth and the authentic that people, both saved and unsaved, smell it! They sence it! The mark of a true champion is that you always, always get back up! It’s not over till it’s over!
I believe the man; I understand only too well what inappropriate sexual contact during childhood does to a person and how that can lead to SGA and acting out on SGA so many years later.
My heart breaks for Mr. Haggard and I pray that he finds peace and healing and is able to live in freedom from his internal struggle and the condemnation of others.
I do not believe a word that comes from his mouth. All he has done is make excuses for his actions in the past. I’m sure he was prompted to find such an excuse anyway.
Ah – okay. Thank you. I do hope for his own sake and that of his family that he continues to recieve care for himself and resists the urge to get in front of the public before the foundation of his healing has taken sturdy root.
Being an ex-member of this church, I can speak with complete positivity that he was not paid. Pastor Chris Byrd and Ted Haggard are simply very close friends.
This is too bad. I’m not sure he has had the time to season or really cure some of the “depths” of his pain enough to start being in front of the public again.
He may have been paid a large sum??