Pastor Ted part of 'a new breed'

Pastor's political clout reached all the way to the White House

Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, November 3, 2006

Ted Haggard rides a motorcycle, favors jeans and open-collared shirts and has kept an electronic copy of the Bible in his Palm Pilot.

"Pastor Ted" also is one of the most powerful Christian leaders in the country. As president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Haggard talks regularly with President Bush and wields almost as much clout as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

Fit and self-assured, the 50-year-old is a dynamic leader of the modern movement to spread Christian values across the world - through prayer and politics.

"He's a new breed," said colleague Bishop Phillip H. Porter Jr., pastor of All Nations Church of God in Christ in Aurora.

Fellow clergy say Haggard's prominent role in politics, including his leadership in the current election campaign to ban gay marriage, has also made him a vulnerable public figure.

They are shocked and filled with sadness that Haggard has been accused of having sex with a former gay escort for three years.

Among his many political pursuits, Haggard is an architect and vocal proponent of Amendment 43, the Nov. 7 ballot measure that would define marriage in the state constitution as a man/woman union. He has preached against homosexuality and used to minister at gay bars, but is not considered an extremist on the issue.

In fact, Haggard supported a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law.

"If you would line him up with other evangelical leaders, he would not be one of those who was most hostile to the gay community," said John Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Jeff Crank, a former congressional candidate from Colorado Springs who is campaigning for Amendment 43, credits Haggard for showing strong leadership on family issues and efforts to help the poor, among other things.

"I don't think he's been a bomb thrower," Crank said. "He's been a responsible leader in his church. That's gained him notoriety. It also puts a target on his back."

Haggard, who is married with five children, stepped down Thursday from his positions at New Life and the National Association of Evangelicals pending the outcome of a church investigation.

Green describes Haggard as a charismatic, approachable, successful preacher who "can speak to modern middle-class Americans very well."

Considered a moderate

Within the evangelical community, Haggard is considered a moderate. Since becoming president of the 30 million-member evangelical organization in 2003, he has worked to broaden the mission of the NAE beyond hot-button issues like homosexuality and abortion to environmental consciousness, fighting poverty and promoting international human rights, Green said.

Haggard developed an intense faith and dedication to ministry at an early age.

He was born and raised in Indiana, the son of a veterinarian and entrepreneur who became a born-again Christian. He is one of six children, according to press reports.

Before graduating from Oral Roberts University, Haggard was ordained as a minister and would later lead a church in Baton Rouge. As a young preacher, he traveled around the world, at one point smuggling Bibles to people in communist countries before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

In 1984, Haggard moved with his wife, Gayle, to Colorado Springs, where Gayle's father was pastor of a church.

The next year, he started New Life Church out of his basement.

The church grew quickly and moved to strip mall storefronts and corporate offices before becoming a sprawling complex covering 35 acres north of the city.

Today, New Life has 14,000 members, continues to grow rapidly and is one of the largest churches in the state.

Haggard followed an ambitious mission born out of fasting sessions on mountainsides and visions of God's instruction, according to press reports.

He calls Colorado Springs his Jerusalem, and urges congregants to wage battle against sin, crime and cultural depravity.

"He sees the presence of God and he really wants to build a city of God, and he sees Colorado Springs as his mission territory," said Father Bill Carmody, a Catholic priest at two suburban Colorado Springs parishes.

"He is God's instrument."

Haggard is involved with Promise Keepers, a national men's Christian leadership organization. He's also a leader of the Presidential Prayer Team and the World Prayer Team, a real-time online prayer group.

Carmody has known Haggard for 10 years, and has organized annual chastity rallies for young people with him. He describes Haggard as different from other evangelical leaders, who retreat from the "evil" world.

As shown by his political activism, "He wants to be engaged in the world," Carmody said.

Matt DeCoste, a member of New Life since 1996, said Haggard often talks about his family and uses examples of raising his children during his sermons.

DeCoste describes Haggard as approachable and "very humble."

"He's one of the first people to say that he's not perfect."

Ted Haggard

• Born: June 27, 1956, in Indiana

• Married to Gayle. They have five children.

• Graduated from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., in 1978 and has received two honorary doctor of divinity degrees.

• Until Thursday was the president of the 30 million- member National Association of Evangelicals, the largest evangelical group in America.

• Founder and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. He also stepped down from that post on Thursday.

• Included by Time magazine in its list of 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.

• Author of more than a dozen books, including a diet book and Making Your Vows Last a Lifetime, co-authored with his wife, Gayle.