Ted Haggard was founder and (until recently) leader of the New Life Church in Colorado (consisting of about 14000 members), and (also until recently) President of the National Association of Evangelicals (a large organisation of many American churches). He was also an advisor to President Bush on religious matters. So he was a man with great influence. He believes in creationism and that the Bible is the literal truth. He also said that homosexuality was sinful because the Bible said so.

Earlier last year Prof. Richard Dawkins met Pastor Ted Haggard in Colorado for a TV programme where they argued about evolution and other religious issues. The programme was shown on TV in this country. To begin with Haggard maintained a polite and cool presence during the discussion, but later he got angry and threatened Dawkins with legal action ("Get off my property!").

A few months ago a Mr. Jones, a muscular male "masseur", decided to expose the deceitful life of Haggard by publicly declaring that Haggard had been a regular customer of his for about 3 years, and had paid him for his sexual services as well as for supplying drugs (methamphetamine) for him. He said that he did not realise for a long time who his customer was, but when he recognised him on TV one day, and heard what Haggard preached was completely different from what he did, he decided such hypocrisy must be exposed. After initially denying those allegations, the god-fearing preacher later admitted that some of the accusations were true. Consequently Haggard was forced to resign from his church and from the National Association of Evangelicals.

Of course this was not the first time that a well known church leader was caught doing the opposite from what he preached to his followers, there have been many similar scandals in the past, particularly in the USA. And although in such cases the pious churchgoers are initially shocked, they usually forgive the "sinners" if they publicly repent, as many have done. So I wouldn't be surprised if Haggard returned to a prominent position within the Christian community in the not too distant future.

Alex Hill