Ted Haggard, fallen leader of New Life Church, announced Wednesday that he will be starting a new "church" in his home in the same way he started New Life Church. His first meeting will be held at his Colorado Springs home on November 7th.
According to a report on The Gazette's Web site, Haggard said of his new venture, "'We wanted to do something in our house to connect with friends.'" He doesn't expect many people will come, maybe between 10 and 20. But, he seems to be okay with that.
Haggard indicated that he is not driven like he was before. He has no secret hope that lots of people will show up and he has no goals for the meeting. He indicated that his motivation this time around is different. It's about "'helping other people,'" he said.
According to the report, Haggard's meeting, which he calls a "'prayer meeting'" will consist of music, a talk by Haggard about the power of prayer, and an offering to New Life Church.
Comments
One of my first thoughts when I heard of Mr. Haggard's downfall is that "He'll be back." Not only is being a pastor of a church usually a very lucrative business, it also provides the ego stroking goodness of being worshiped by unquestioning, enabling minions.
I would sure love to talk to his wife and any children old enough (to not be distressed by my questions) about their take on all this. Do they think he got a 'bum rush' and had to 'take it up the arse' for a methed up situation that his original church (and maybe the George W. white house) wanted quickly silenced?
I do admire his strength of will, I understand it only took three week of counseling for Mr. Haggard to be completely 'cured' of his homosexual 'choices'. I can see why 'the proud ignorant®' would want to get behind him in this new scam, I mean church.
P.S. I would have taken the word |scam| out, however, the comment had already been posted so I could not edit it.
Great, we need more prayer meetings
Once a snake oil sales men, always a snake oil sales man.
This is what he is trained for, he tried it in the real world, he could not make it. It will be easy to fool those already deluded. So why not, the gullible have money too.
Ted Haggard's idea of "Helping other people" is better expressed by Ted helping himself to other people's money... He's a Charlatan, and that's the long and the short of it.
Once there was a preacher by the name of Ted Haggard
Who stumbled from the path
Or you might even say staggered
He was one in a million
Or more aptly one-in-ten
Some folks say he put the “men” in “Amen”
-Roy Zimmerman
Mr. Haggard will be a success this time as he was last time by virtue of his charismatic personality and deep committment to self-promotion, just like every other minister in the world. This is what makes the church go 'round.
It's like the Bakers for our generation...
Ted wants to do something (prayer meeting) in his house, music, sermon on prayer, and an offering to the church. But, he says he has no secret hopes or goals for this activity.
Looks like a lie to me. He is converting his house into a church, probably for tax credits. And, let's not forget "cash flow" -- the participating sheep will make an "offering". What is this money going towards? I suspect that it will go to two goals: 1) keeping Preacher Ted & family financially afloat, and 2) recruiting more sheep to grow the enterprise.
Oh, and let's not forget GOAL #1: keeping those homosexual urges submerged.
If Jesus answers Ted's secret supplications of his heart, his enterprise will grow and displace the one that dumped him. Sweet Xian revenge.
What the **** does this have to do with atheism? Apparantly atheists have nothing worthwhile to discuss other than what Christians are up to? What Haggard did is disgraceful. But then what would an atheist know about disgrace or redemption? Without the absolute moral reference of God, y'all are gods unto yourselves. So who's to say that your views are any more or less valid than the god next to you? And what if that god's self prescribed morality includes killing you? Who's to say that's right or wrong in your worldview? Not to mention that the complexity of the most basic elements of matter reveal intelligent design. Atheism = STOOOOOPID!!!!
Dear DAB,
Here's a challenge for you. See if you can puzzle-out why sane people laugh at you...
You start out by 'believing' that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you submit to a magical soul-douching ceremony (complete with magical water, incantations and waving of hands), symbolically eat his flesh (in the form of a cracker) and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was tricked by a malevolent entity (disguised a talking snake... with legs) into eating a piece of magical fruit from an enchanted tree... (etc.)... and that there is something horribly wrong with people who ARE NOT so stupid and gullible that they can be made to believe such outrageously ridiculous codswallop.
THEN... you declare that "Atheism = STOOOOOPID!!!!"
Ahhh... the irony...
I sometimes enjoy the comments as much or more than the articles themselves. Sometimes when I am tempted to post a reply... I see that DuckPhup has beaten me to it and is more articulate and pointed than me.
I tip my hat to you DuckPhup! You are awesome! Keep up the good work! (You, too, Trina!)
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