Are the Christian faithful of Colorado Springs ready to trust Ted Haggard again?
The pastor, disgraced in a 2006 gay sex scandal (and maybe some meth use, too - it was never quite clear) is back in his home town and today announced he was starting a new church.
This is where he once built New Life Church into a megachurch attended by 14,000 and rose to become president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Driven out of town by the scandal, he returned in 2008 but was still under an agreement with New Life not to speak to media - and not to start a rival church.
That agreement is over now and Haggard has headed back to the headlines.
David Gibson at Politics Daily recaps some of Haggard's adventures under today's irresistible headline, "Gay sex and drug scandal can't keep evangelical down."
The Colorado Gazette, had the original story in early May when Ted and Gayle gave their home address, where they had already begun holding sporadic prayer meetings, as the site of the Haggard's new church, St. James. Or at least that was the provisional name for the place-marker church-on-paper. Who knows if there's another New Life in his new life.
According to the Gazette, the incorporation of St. James was just "to keep the accounting in order" of their many paid talks around the country. He wasn't completely disingenuous, however. He did tell the Gazette three weeks ago that, "Sometime, somewhere we will do some type of ministry."
Evidently, he wanted to wait for the press releases and publicists - who touted his "career announcement" for 24 hours in advance - lined up.
