THE PULPIT: Haggard's charisma survives a bumpy road
Sitting in a Colorado Springs Starbucks recently, sipping on a beverage, Ted Haggard was approached by a former member of New Life Church.
The woman told Haggard she's still seething over his affair with a male escort.
"How could you do that?" she said, her voice quivering with emotion.
Haggard stood up, put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye.
"I am so sorry that I hurt you," Haggard said. "Can you forgive me?"
He went on to tell the woman that his well-documented fall was like undergoing a public surgery. "Being a Christian doesn't mean we are sanitized. Sometimes we need surgery. Mine was horrible and bloody, and I am sorry you saw into my surgery room."
He asked again for forgiveness.
The woman's anger melted away. "I liked you as a pastor," she said through her tears. "I wish you were still there."
The exchange was brief, but it spoke volumes about Haggard's continued place in the limelight. Love him or hate him, Haggard's rise, fall and very public repentance on high-profile talk shows in January have fascinated millions across America, and it's hard for him to go out in public - especially in Colorado Springs - without being accosted, as he was this day.
"This happens all the time," Haggard told me after his encounter with his former congregant. "People are always coming up to me, and it is always a positive experience."
His upbeat attitude reflects a return of confidence 28 months after Denver escort Mike Jones went public with the news that Haggard was one of his clients. Haggard went from rising evangelical star on the national stage to pariah, resigning as senior pastor of New Life and president of the Nation Association of Evangelicals.
It's been quite a journey.
In the HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard," filmed in Arizona in 2007 during Haggard's exile from Colorado Springs by church leaders, he is broken and self-loathing. When I interviewed Haggard in January, shortly after a young man named Grant Haas recounted a sordid rendezvous with the New Life pastor, he came across as a penitent.
Two months later, the day before he and his wife, Gayle, went to Los Angeles to tape an appearance on "Divorce Court," Haggard was a man sure in his future. (The show will air at 11 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday on Fox 21 KRMX.)
No, he's not starting a church, but he'll be preaching nonetheless - for starters as a "Christian businessman" at some large evangelical churches outside Colorado Springs in the coming months.
"I am the Gospel story," said Haggard, now a health insurance salesman. "I love God and love the scriptures, and I had sin dominate a horrible part of my life. And God did what it took to knock it out of my life."
He says offers are pouring in for speaking engagements and from publishers wanting him to write a book. But he claims it's not something he has sought.
"People assume because of my past success, and they will assume because of my future success, that I am a driver," he said.
"But here is what I do: I read my Bible and I pray. Doors open for me and I walk through them. That is all I've ever done."
Haggard's future may still be uncertain, but his gifts for preaching and persuasion, as evidenced by the encounter with the woman in Starbucks, remain intact.
To read more of my interview with Haggard, including his response to a question of whether he's addicted to media attention, go to my blog, The Pulpit, at gazette.com.
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