Ted Haggard has been removed from New Life Church now.  This comes after he already resigned.  The board wrote:

 

“Our investigation and Pastor Haggard’s public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct.”

 

This is an interesting statement since it’s sufficiently vague.  Naturally, non-believers will immediately jump on this as proof that Haggard has had homosexual relations with his accuser.  And that may well be the case.  However, equally possible is a lesser degree of sexual immorality.

A few years back, one of the pastors at the church I attend resigned for an “inappropriate relationship.”  At the time, I wasn’t going to the church, so that’s all the information I heard about it.  Naturally, everyone assumed the worst: he had had an affair with someone.  It turns out, however, that he had kissed his secretary.  He had then gone to the board of the church and resigned for his inappropriate relationship.  Though the pastorl staff had offered to censure him for a time and then allow him back, he chose instead to remain out of the pulpit completely (although since quite a few years have now passed, he has actually come back a few times as pastor since the time I’ve joined the church).

Thus, it is possible that there could be something less than what the actual charge is (although how likely that is is yet to be known).

In any case, that’s not the real focus I want to make on this blog post.  Instead, I want to look at the issue of Christians backsliding and repentance.  This whole Haggard situation has reminded me of some recent comments over on Triablogue regarding John W. Loftus and his affair that ruined his ministry.  (Loftus is now an apostate.)  Those comments can be found in post such as this one and this one.

Throughout the ages–indeed from the very dawn of the Church–there has been sexual immorality within the Church.  This is because we are all sinners.  We are also ignorant of the hearts of men, and therefore some can claim one thing while doing another (i.e. hypocrisy).  The fact that this stuff occurs requires Christians to be able to deal with it when, as it inevitably must, the truth comes out.

Paul faced a similar situation in the Church at Corinth.  Indeed, it was such a bad situation there that Paul noted even the pagans would not behave that way: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife” (1 Cor. 5:1).  Paul’s answer to this was clear: “Let him who has done this be removed from among you” (1 Cor. 5:2).

It would be simple enough to stop there, but the passage continues.  There is a reason that Paul demands this.  A reason that extends beyond just keeping the Church “pure.”  For Paul says: “When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:4-5).

Removing this man from the Church at that time was intended “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”  This form of discipline is not an attempt to harm the individual; it is an attempt to save that person.

Now if this same individual is refered to in 2 Corinthians, as many believe, then we know that this tactic worked.  The man repented and was restored to the Church.  On the other hand, as you read the above links to John Loftus, you will see what happens if such a person does not repent, but instead hardens his heart.

Haggard is now at the crossroads.  I think New Life has done well to remove him from any teaching position.  Now Haggard, if he is a genuine believer, can go through repentance and be brought back into the Church as a whole, just as any of us who sin do so.  If, on the other hand, he hardens his heart as Loftus has done, it will show us that he has been a fraud in far more than just his relationships with others (for he has been a fraud in his relationship with Christ too).

Whatever the case, there are Scriptural warrants for what should occur from now on. Despite the gleeful pointing out of the hypocrisy of Haggard by folks on the Left, the fact remains that Christianity both recognizes that Haggard has sinned and also has the means by which Haggard can be restored to a right fellowship.  The Left, on the other hand, is really inconsistent in condemning Haggard (both for the fact that they practice what he did rather openly, and are thus hypocrites, and also because they have no means by which to declare anything Haggard did is actually wrong in the first place).  Thus, we see that there is one worldview that both expects the behavior of individuals such as Haggard and can appropriately respond to it, and there is another worldview that can only seek to make political hay out of another’s downfall.