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Ted Haggard, Part 2: Responding to Christian Critics and Learning the Limits of Faith
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (7)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
In the second part of my interview with Ted Haggard (first half here) the fallen evangelical leader knocks some former friends, responding to evangelical critics and decrying Christian Right. He also answers questions from God & Country readers.
Since my interview happened—on January 15—there's been more news in the Haggard sex scandal. The Associated Press reports that a young male volunteer disclosed a sexual relationship with Haggard to his then-church, New Life, after the pastor was enveloped in a gay sex and drugs scandal in 2006. The church reportedly reached a settlement with the man that kept him from going public.
This new disclosure is sure to complicate Haggard's campaign to seek forgiveness and understanding in conjunction with a new documentary about his year in exile after the scandal.
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Alexandra Pelosi Interview: The Story Behind Her New Ted Haggard Documentary
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (7)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Fallen evangelical leader Ted Haggard is making the media rounds this week—doing Oprah and Larry King—in advance of a new documentary about him that debuts on HBO on Thursday. You can read my interview with Haggard, but just as interesting is filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi's story of how she got access to him after the scandal and how she came to make her movie. Here are clips from my interview with Pelosi at HBO's New York headquarters earlier this month.
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Interview: Fallen Evangelical Star Ted Haggard Discusses His Changing Views on the Bible and Sex
Tweet Share on Facebook January 26, 2009 Comment (41)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Ted Haggard, the onetime National Association of Evangelicals president and Colorado Springs-based megachurch pastor felled by a gay sex and drugs scandal in 2006, is the subject of a new HBO documentary by Alexandra Pelosi. Debuting this Thursday, The Trials of Ted Haggard shows the former Christian Right heavyweight moving his family into a new hotel or borrowed house ever few months and searching vainly for work after the church he founded, New Life, exiles him from Colorado Springs and bars him from ministry as part of a severance contract. The film marks Haggard's return to the public stage; he'll appear on Larry King and Oprah this week.
I've already posted the part of my interview with Haggard, in which he claims to have gotten a supportive message from filmmaker Pelosi's mom—Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a claim the Speaker denied. But the most interesting parts of our discussion dealt with Haggard's evolving views of theology, the church, and homosexuality in the years since the scandal. Here's the first half. I'll post part two, which includes questions from God & Country readers, shortly.
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Rick Warren: Invocation's Unity Message Wasn't a Response to Controversy
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2009 Comment (37)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The biggest theme in Rick Warren's inauguration invocation—before it culminating in the Lord's Prayer—was the importance of unity and mutual understanding. It included such kumbaya-esque lines as:
When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us ... When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.
That led me and many others to wonder if Warren was responding directly to the controversy over his role at the inauguration, trying to reassert his image as a uniter after being portrayed in gay and liberal circles—and by some news media outlets—as a culture-war-fixated divider.
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On Roe v. Wade Anniversary, Democrats Emphasize 'Abortion Reduction'
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2009 Comment (5)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
On the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion, the Obama administration released a statement that reaffirmed the president's commitment to abortion rights but that departed somewhat from the Democrats' traditionally strict pro-choice line by articulating a goal to "reduce the need for abortion." While recent Republican and Democratic presidents have used the Roe anniversary either to institute or rescind a ban on U.S. funds to family planning groups abroad that provide or promote abortion—with Republican presidents instituting it and Democrats rescinding—Obama declined to take any action on the ban, known as the Mexico City policy.
"Not signing that repeal during the March for Life—as he was previously thought to do—was an initial sign of respect," said a Democrat close to the White House, referring to the annual anti-Roe march organized by abortion opponents. "This is a signal that the new administration is going to take a different approach and tone from the old culture wars.
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Obama's "Faith Team" for Campaign and Transition to Stay On in White House
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2009 Comment (4)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The religious outreach staff that helped Barack Obama narrow the so-called God Gap with Republicans on Election Day and that led an intensive listening tour among faith-based groups during the transition is staying on in the Obama White House, a Democratic source close to the administration tells me. The team comprises Joshua DuBois, a 26-year-old Pentecostal and onetime associate pastor who directed religious affairs for the Obama campaign, the transition team, and the inaugural committee; Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democratic operative who served as religious outreach director for the Howard Dean and John Kerry presidential campaigns in the 2004 election, became one of the most prominent of a new breed of Democratic "faith consultants" after the election, and served as Obama's liaison to religious groups in the Office of Public Liaison during the transition; and Mark Linton, a veteran of Catholic Relief Services and the Obama presidential campaign's Catholic outreach director, who is leading the effort to design the Obama administration's version of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "Everyone is staying on," the aide tells me of transition team's faith-based staff. "Working out a few details but hope to share more soon."
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Your Reactions to Rick Warren's Invocation: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Respond
Tweet Share on Facebook January 22, 2009 Comment (13)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
I'm struck by all the thoughtful and heartfelt comments responding to Rick Warren's inaugural invocation—to his invoking Jesus, reciting the Lord's Prayer, and borrowing lines from Judaism and Islam.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims—many of whom attended the inauguration in person—have posted. Some Jews felt excluded from Warren's prayer, a Muslim imam was moved, and quite a few Christians were relieved that Warren resisted succumbing to the kind of watered-down civil religion that they feel stifles genuine religious expression.
Here are some of my favorite comments from the last couple of days. Take a look, and, while the invocation is still fresh, add your own thoughts.
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Rick Warren's Invocation: Final Take
Tweet Share on Facebook January 21, 2009 Comment (4)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
I've got a story up on usnews.com about Rick Warren's invocation yesterday. Here's the gist:
In the face of widespread speculation about whether he would invoke Jesus's name or take a more ecumenical approach, Warren's roughly five-minute prayer included allusions to Judaism and Islam but ended in a recitation of the Lord's Prayer, the most widely shared prayer among Christianity's divergent traditions and denominations.
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Democratic-Friendly Groups to Participate in the March for Life
Tweet Share on Facebook January 21, 2009 Comment (110)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The annual March for Life in Washington has long been a Republican/Christian right affair, with messages sent from the White House during Republican administrations and with the Family Research Council playing host to the affiliated Blogs for Life conference. This year's March for Life, held on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, sees the introduction of new voices to the event: moderate and liberal religious groups that advocate reducing the number of abortions by means other than overturning Roe.
A coalition calling itself RealAbortionSolutions.org, organized by the politically progressive group Faith in Public Life, has bought ads in tomorrow's Washington Examiner and Washington Post Express and on D.C.-area Christian radio to promote a more Democratic-friendly approach toward the "pro-life" cause. The ads promote what they call "solutions based on results, not rhetoric," by expanding adoption, supporting pregnant women and new mothers, preventing unintended pregnancies, and other steps that avoid curtailing abortion rights. You can view and listen to the ads here.
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Was Rick Warren's Invocation Less Inclusive Than He Let On?
Tweet Share on Facebook January 21, 2009 Comment (20)By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Like so much in the Rev. Rick Warren's career, the way he closed his invocation yesterday attempted to merge two divergent traditions for Christian clergy giving Inauguration Day prayers: 1) Explicitly praying in Jesus's name on behalf of all those present. 2) Acknowledging that the prayer is not offered in Jesus's name for all present—just for the clergyman who's delivering it.
For a long time after the inaugurations started featuring prayers in 1937, praying in Jesus's name wasn't too big a deal because the inaugural dais included representatives from other religious traditions, including rabbis. Even if the lineup fell short of reflecting America's full religious diversity, at least no one could say it was an explicitly Christian event.
