Ted Haggard is a humbled man, said Kevin Roose in GQ. Haggard was one of the nation’s most visible evangelicals as pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. It all came crashing down when a male escort named Mike Jones came forward in 2006 with scandalous allegations that Haggard had paid him for sex and crystal methamphetamine. “We never had sex sex,” Haggard says today, while conceding that sexual contact and drug use had occurred. As part of his separation agreement with New Life, he was banned from any contact with church members. “I used to think the church was the light of the world,” he says sadly, “but I’ve completely lost my faith in it.”
He’s started a new ministry in Colorado Springs for sinners like himself. “I don’t judge people anymore. I know life happens to everybody. Sometimes it’s self-imposed, other times it’s imposed from the outside. But I think we’re qualified to hold people’s hands when they go through that.”
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