Ted Haggard speaks out on 2006 scandal

Two years after his infamous sex scandal broke, fallen megachurch preacher Ted Haggard reemerged to speak about the circumstances surrounding his "sins."

"I'm a stronger Christian than I've ever been in my life," he told an audience at a church in Illinois. "I have a stronger marriage than I've ever had in my life."

"I really did sin," he said, "and I'm very, very sorry that I sinned." Haggard also apologized to his family and to members of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which he founded in 1984, and where he was senior pastor.

"My wife--all my shame and sin was placed on her," he said. "People treated her as if she had fallen. And my children, they all went through carrying my shame. And I am so sorry that I did that to my family."

"There came a moment in my life," he said, "when we were so alone and there was so much despair that I became suicidal. And I'd figured out how I was going to kill myself and rid the world of the horrible curse of Ted Haggard."

Haggard said that his behavior stemmed from an incident when he was seven years old in which he was molested by someone who worked for his father that haunted him when he rose to power later in life. "There I was, fifty years old, a conservative Republican. Loving the word of God, an Evangelical, Born-Again, spirit-filled, charismatic--all those things. But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my mind and in my heart."

Haggard tentatively stepped down from his post at New Life Church and resigned leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals in November 2006 after gay Denver escort and masseur Mike Jones went public with allegations that Haggard was his client. Jones said that the two engaged in gay sex and that Haggard had also purchased crystal meth.

Haggard confessed "sexual immorality" and lodged an apology. He entered a "spiritual restoration" program in Phoenix in January 2007, emerging three weeks later with a proclamation that he had become "completely heterosexual" thanks to his Focus on the Family-backed handlers.

Haggard officially ended his relationship with New Life Church in February 2008. "New Life Church recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete," the Church said in a statement, "and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future."

Haggard currently lives in Colorado Springs, and is entering the insurance business. source>>>

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