A little more info on Haggard, not as hypocritical as

[BootinUp]

I assumed according to this Denver post article. It is available on Haggards site. Probably worth acknowledging he was not your Falwell type of evangelical according to this:

Doubts a run at politics

Haggard can't be sure whether his words lead to change. An example: In a private moment in 2003, Haggard told President Bush that U.S. tariffs on steel inflate the price of steel worldwide and hurt poor nations. Bush looked surprised that an evangelical would care about tariffs. A couple of weeks later, the tariffs were eliminated. But Haggard does not claim credit.

"Influence is kind of like prayer," Haggard said. "You do it, and sometimes you see what you want being done. But you don't know if it would have happened anyway."

Haggard briefly considered running for U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley's seat next year if the Colorado Republican were to retire. But he decided he could prove more influential in his current role and doubts he'll ever run for office.

Though he preaches evangelical unity, Haggard has not hesitated to criticize better-known colleagues. He rebuked Pat Robertson for advocating the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and attempted to separate the evangelical movement from Franklin Graham's statement after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that Islam was an evil and wicked religion.

And Haggard said last week that the White House erred in underscoring failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' evangelical faith, saying her judicial philosophy was what mattered.

He also set himself apart from the vast majority of evangelical Christian groups by applauding a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas anti- sodomy law.

"I believe the church has to teach against immorality, but I don't believe it's the role of the state to spend money to find out what consenting adults do in their bedrooms and then haul them off to jail," Haggard said.

The NAE, observers say, will need to weigh the greater prominence and energy Haggard has brought with the risk of associating itself too closely with one person - a person with close ties to a White House in trouble.

In the meantime, the fresh new face of big-tent evangelical Christianity has an appointment to keep. Haggard is visiting New York next week to talk about poverty and AIDS in Africa with Bono, singer of the popular-music group U2.

http://www.tedhaggard.com/denverPost.jsp

[valerief]

1. He rallied the base for Bush/Cheney. That's his sin. nt

[Ignacio Upton]

2. He still helped Bush

Fuck him for doing his dirty work.

[BootinUp]

3. Harpers article, more controversial parts of his mission

http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html

[Mr_Spock]

4. Interesting...

I would not have expected him to have any humility based on what I had read to date.

[blitzen]

5. check out this vid....he's a creep

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2554606&mesg_id=2554606


the worst part is not his stances on social issues...it's that he promotes an absolutely literal fundamentalism--we don't need science or debate because all answers are provided in the bible...it's a dangerous and completely dumb-ass notion of scriptural meaning...

as for politics, his main crusade is free-marketeering--he's an extremist global capitalist

[blitzen]

7. article from Haggard's website...the "free-market economics" stuff

is toward the end

http://www.tedhaggard.com/rmNews.jsp

[BootinUp]

6. More analysis of the strange side

With such bizarre, dubious and contrabiblical visions accepted as authoritative in his megachurch, it's no wonder that Pastor Ted sees the need to caution his congregants against acting weird when reporters visit their church.

Non-Prophet has the full text of the e-mail sent to New Lifers in which Pastor Ted urges them to feign normalcy for the cameras. The e-mail contains this fascinating bit of advice:

If reporters want to interview you, talk with them, but use words that make sense to them. Speak their language. Don't talk about the devil, demons, voices speaking to you, God giving you supernatural revelations, etc. Instead, tell your personal story in common sense language (I was a drunk but God changed me and now I'm sober, I'm grateful, etc.).

Stick to common sense, Pastor Ted says, and not all that other stuff we embrace around here. That's a far cry from, say, 1 Peter 3:15-16:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

It's a lot easier to "give the reason for the hope that you have" than it is to give the reason for the homophobia that you have -- particularly when that fear is based, not on common sense, but on "the devil, demons, voices speaking to you, God giving you supernatural revelations, etc."

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/week21/index.html

[blitzen]

8. Read the Harper's article, post #3...The guy is a whackjob

he literally led a witchhunt in Colorado Springs...Forced people to move out

He has a major psychological obsession with "good and evil"--surpassed only by his obsession with the "free market"

he is the embodiment of the "MegaChurch" that gave us Bush, Cheney, and Rummy

Haggard: "Catholic nations aren't shooting people into space" because they lack entrepreneurial spirit

[BootinUp]

10. yep, also read #6

[keepCAblue]

9. From the Harper's article, "Soldiers of Christ"

Inside America's most powerful megachurch with Pastor Ted Haggard

At the time, Colorado Springs was a small city split between the Air Force and the New Age, and the latter, Pastor Ted believed, worked for the devil. Pastor Ted soon began upsetting the devil's plans. He staked out gay bars, inviting men to come to his church; his whole congregation pitched itself into invisible battles with demonic forces, sometimes in front of public buildings.

...

The Prayer Team screen, whether viewed at the center or on a monitor at home, is split between “Individual Focus Requests,” such as the above, and “Worldwide Focus” requests, which are composed by the staff of the World Prayer Center. Sometimes these are domestic—USA: Pray for the Arlington Group, pastors working with Whitehouse to renew Marriage Amendm. Pray for appts. of new justices. Pray for Pastor meetings with Amb. of Israel, and President Bush. Lord, let them speak only your words, represent YOU! Bless! But more often they are international— N. KOREA: Pray God will crush demonic stronghold and communist regime of Kim Jung Il.

...

“No,” said Linda. “To my Spirit.” She opened her eyes and explained the process she had undergone to reach her refined state. She called it “spiritual restoration.” Anyone can do it, she promised, “even a gay activist.” Linda had seen with her own eyes the sex demons that make homosexuals rebel against God, and she said they are gruesome; but she did not name them, for she would not “give demons glory.” They are all the same, she said.<3> “It's radicalism.”

She reached across the table and touched my hand. “I have to tell you, the spiritual battle is very real.” We are surrounded by demons, she explained, reciting the lessons she had learned in her small-group studies at New Life. The demons are cold, they need bodies, they long to come inside. People let them in in two different ways. One is to be sinned against. “Molested,” suggested Linda. The other is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could walk by sin—a murder, a homosexual act—and a demon will leap onto your bones. Cities, therefore, are especially dangerous.

...

So the Catholics are out, and the battle boils down to evangelicals versus Islam. “My fear,” (Pator Ted) says, “is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state.”

And that is why he believes spiritual war requires a virile, worldly counterpart. “I teach a strong ideology of the use of power,” he says, “of military might, as a public service.” He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because “the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood.”

[upi402]

11. you gotta fight

for yer right




to PAAAAAR TAY!