Evangelist confesses after being fired

The Rev. Ted Haggard's letter asked members of his church for forgiveness

By COLLEEN SLEVIN

The Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Before the elders began explaining to the congregation at New Life Church why its founder wasn't there Sunday, the youngsters were sent out of the room.

Some in the standing-room-only crowd in the megachurch's 8,000-seat auditorium wiped away tears and embraced each other as they heard the Rev. Ted Haggard's remorseful confession of "sexual immorality," read by a member of the board that fired him a day earlier.

"I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," wrote Haggard, who resigned last week as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million evangelical Christians.

Brought low by a man who said last week Haggard paid him for sex and used methamphetamine, Haggard has not changed his version of events -- that he received a massage from the man and bought drugs but threw them away.

His letter did not directly address the details. "The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from the ministry," he wrote.

Haggard asked for forgiveness for himself and for his accuser -- a plea many accepted with open arms.

After services, Patty Erwin was on her knees near the back of the auditorium, and her first prayer was for Haggard.

"We all love him because he's a part of our family. You don't just throw away a sister or a brother," said Erwin, who's been coming to the 14,000-member church for 15 years. "Desperately, we love him, and we wouldn't be here if we didn't."

In another letter read to the congregation, Haggard's wife, Gayle, promised to remain with her husband. The audience laughed when she said they no longer had to worry about her marriage being so perfect that she couldn't relate to them.

"My test has begun; watch me. I will try to prove myself faithful," she wrote.

Churchgoers and the ministers speaking Sunday made it clear they didn't approve of what Haggard had done, but they also called on people to seek God's grace, love and restoration in their own lives.

The Rev. Larry Stockstill, senior pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center in Baker, La., and the Overseer Board member who read the Haggards' letters, said Haggard had been more open to his dark side because he was stretched thin by the demands of his pastoral work and his national profile. But he said no one is without sin and it's better to acknowledge it than try to hide it.

"We can be angry at God and say the timing is terrible or we can say 'Blessed be His name'," said Stockstill, echoing a line from a hymn sung earlier in the service.

Haggard, 50, had been president since 2003 of the National Association of Evangelicals, where he held sway in Washington and condemned homosexuality. He stepped down from that post Thursday, after Mike Jones of Denver said Haggard had paid him for sex for three years.

Haggard said he will never return to leadership at the church and will be working with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, a psychologist, as well as pastors Jack Hayford and Tommy Barnett on a healing and restoration plan for him, his marriage and family.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered who Haggard was and found out that New Life had publicly opposed same-sex marriage -- a key issue in Colorado, with a pair of issues on Tuesday's ballot.

"I am sad for him and his family. I know this is a tough day for him also. I wish him well. I wish his family well. My intent was never to destroy his family. My intent was to expose a hypocrite," he said.

Haggard's situation is a disappointment to Christian conservatives, whom President Bush and other Republicans are courting heavily as they try to retain control of Congress. But Rich Cizik, vice president of the NAE, said he saw an opportunity for "something good, believe it or not," to come out of the scandal.

"My hope and prayer is that this whole tawdry affair will lessen some of the vitriol that has gone on between gay rights activists and evangelicals," Cizik said.

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Associated Press reporter Robert Weller in Denver contributed to this report.