You know -- the guy who was head of the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals, a leading spokesman for the evangelical movement who had regular conference calls to the White House and pastor of one of the largest churches in America?
Joe Carter describes him as "Some evangelical pastor you’ve never heard of gets caught in a tawdry scandal" despite having written about Haggard four times.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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Jerry Falwell tried to do the same thing the night the scandal first broke.
Falwell was on CNN saying he really didn't know Haggard and that Haggard wasn't that important a figure in any case.
On ESPN they call this "throwing the guy under the bus."
Yeah, amazingly Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said they didn't know him very well and he wasn't that important in the church.
I guess your friends fall away fast.
It's pretty easy to judge people who struggle with sins that I don't struggle with.
It's also easy to judge people who struggle with the same sins I do when theirs become public, as long as my own remain private.
We can be a pretty unforgiving bunch.
That's very true, Brett. Let us mourn for what Haggard and his family have lost. There but for the grace of God....
Amen.
Haggard needs our prayers - for the sins he has acknowledged and the ones he has not - just as all of us do.
May he accept the grace to remove the log from his own eye.
In reading Haggard's letter to his congregation I was surprised to find him taking responsibility, apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and blaming no one. I thought of how Martha Stewart, Ken Lay and Mel Gibson all failed to do this. I knew I deplored Haggard's actions before I read his letter; afterwards I was surprised to find how easily I empathized with his brokenness. I'd encourage anyone who is quick to judge (or condemn) to read this letter as well as the one written by Gayle, his wife. If you fail to be moved, check for a pulse.
What happens next in the Haggard's lives may be the purest example of how they live their faith. Seems our response is also a demonstration of our own.
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