In the words of Mark Levin, “here I am batting clean up” and “you may have heard it from them, but you haven’t heard what I have to say yet”. And I’m going to be up front from the start, my commentary on this is my opinion and as my mother would say, I’m not taking any “tea for the fever” on this one! (If you know what that means you know what’s coming next.)

So Haggard, who I never heard of before until reading La Shawn Barber’s commentary about this. Was accused of having gay sex and doing dope. He tried to spin, lie and deny, but has since admitted some of it. I say some of it, because we Christians need to stop playing like fools to the public on this one. This man was a cheating on his wife with men (I feel only one has come forward, but there are others) and doing dope to boot. But here’s Haggard’s latest spin:

A good video summary of things till this point is available here.

The bottom line is that Haggard is still telling lies and so long as he continues telling lies this mess will only get worse for himself, his flock and his family. Haggard is not ready to fully come clean and therefore not fully ready to repent. He’s still hiding. Satan has him doubled over in fear of the judgment of man, while he should be more concerned about the judgment of almighty God. I know some of you Christians reading this feel that all these superstar pastors will be standing with you in heaven one day. But if you and I make it, we might be surprised who is not there.

I’m not saying Haggard is going to hell, but I am saying that we Christians must work to keep ourselves in check and when busted it would be best to come clean. And the truth is that some people we feel are Christians will not be making it into heaven. Some claim “once saved always saved”, I say once saved, live for the Lord and keep fighting to do right, God is our judge. I don’t care who told you that you can’t miss heaven, Jesus said some will. Fear of the Lord is important.

Now Haggard has met with his elders and they are investigating. But Haggard is telling lies. So although they have met with him and tried to give him good counsel, he’s still not coming clean. So we are beyond the point of simply responding to his actions with support in a nice way. This is going to have to get ugly or it will NEVER get better. Haggard is the leader of a church. So when he does something like this and does not come clean he brings down his entire church. In telling lies to them he sins against them on top of his sins against his own family and of course all sin is an offense to the Lord.

Jesus laid down these rules for Christian conflict resolution:

Now folks, we’re going to have to be honest here. Jesus made the rules and I’m telling you its going to come out that Haggard is still telling lies. This man is racing towards heathen status. Jesus recommends doing it to anyone that refuses to come clean when confronted. For the church to do otherwise would be to go against the wise instructions of Christ himself. And this is why some churches have leaders that continually get caught up in mess. Because the people never actually apply verse 17 above.

It is for these reasons, that I feel Haggard’s overseers should fully remove him from all his post of spiritual leadership. (As horrible as it is, some pastors remove any oversight and attempt to live like the king of their church, but that’s another issue for another post.) Mike Jones, Haggard’s accuser says he has more evidence and I feel there are more people who know than have come forward. I think even Haggard’s wife realized that all was not well in their marriage and the more this drags out the worse it’s going to be for that family. Say what you want about Jesse Jackson, you know I do, but when he was busted he came clean and things were able to move from his love child scandal quickly. Ultimately Haggard’s lies have an affect on Christian’s ability to spread the news of Jesus to others, because when sinners see a man in church leadership telling lies and not being dealt with, they will view the entire church as a fraud! We should not play nice with this given Haggard continues to lie. Claiming he never used the meth …he’s even telling lies about the dope!

Here is video of the man assuming Haggard’s role of leadership during the investigation. If seeing video of that man does not tell you that there is an issue in Haggard’s church that is bigger than even Haggard himself, you’re just not very discerning. Usually the sheep are no better than their shepherd. I’ve been a Christian way too long and seen way too many scandals in the church, to think that this begins and ends with Haggard. But if Haggard comes clean it will help to bring about change.

Haggard has direct access to the President. So this is bigger than simply a church matter, but connects all the way to the head of our Executive Branch of government.

So there’s my take. Haggard has to be put down or he and all who are near him will bear the stench of the mess as this continues to hit the fan.

Dennis at Fire & Hammer notes that Haggard preached the truth and regardless of the actions of the messenger, the truth is still right. The gay lifestyle and doing dope are both wrong and sinful. That’s the only reason this is a scandal with Christians in the first place.

The accuser said this is all politically motivated and the longer Haggard spins and lies the more this plays to the accuser’s desires of making the church look bad.

Rev. DL Foster who is an expert on this sort of issue, notes that the lack of accountability in the church is why these kinds of scandals continue to occur. And the picture he has up illustrates things well.

I pray if I am ever telling lies to cover, that I am given the treatment I recommend for Haggard, because it would be for the best. I don’t run a church, but if I start telling you lies to cover my actions after you see I’m confronted, then you would do will to never read this blog again until you see I’ve fully come clean. What I say about Haggard I recommend for myself.

I’ve seen scandal rock a member of my own family, so I know what they mean when they say, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up! We Christians have a power in Jesus Christ to defeat sin that the world does not have. We may have our issues, but we have a helper that the world does not have. Keep up the GOOD FIGHT Christians.

Related post: Does God Make Mistakes? Does God Make Imperfect People?