“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”
On Wednesday, Ted Haggard was a prominent leader in the Evangelical movement and Senior Pastor of The New Life Church. A man of purported high moral character.
On Thursday and Friday Mr. Haggard’s association with a gay prostitute and his purchase of methamphetamine came to light. Even if only for a massage (the prostitute) and out of curiosity (the meth), his character - his life’s work - must be severely damaged in the embarrassing episode.
Tom Paine didn’t much like preachers and organized religion. But all people, the devoutly religious and the firmly nonreligious as well, should find in Mr. Haggard’s troubles a cautionary tale. For anyone that feels themselves above the frailties of human existence and immune from its vicissitudes, and judges others as if from a superior moral plane, are doomed to find the error of their ways, and immersed in the very thing they abhor.
thomas paine religion ted haggard new life church current events
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