News Alert

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Denverpost.com, 2/6/07: Disgraced pastor goes for master’s degree in

psychology [Excerpts]—Former National Association of Evangelicals

president and pastor, the Rev. Ted Haggard, emerged from three weeks of

intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and

told

an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his

accuser.



Haggard broke a three-month silence in e-mails over the weekend to

select members of his former church. In the message, Haggard revealed

that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and

pursue

master’s degrees in psychology through online courses.



Among other things, the overseers urged Haggard to enter a 12-step

program for sexual addiction. Haggard’s “restoration” is being

overseen

by another panel: megachurch pastors Tommy Barnett and Jack Hayford,

and

H.B. London, who runs a Focus on the Family ministry to pastors.



London said he was not surprised Haggard was considering the

psychological field. “Many of us that go into the healing, helping

professions do so out of some sort of dysfunction or traumatic event in

our lives, and we want to do what we can to help other people avoid

what

we’ve gone through,” he said.



[TBC: The only thing that is surprising about this article is that

Haggard is not “confessing” that a demon made him carry on a sexual

affair with a former male prostitute. That’s the usual rationale

given

by those involved with C. Peter Wagner’s Strategic Spiritual Warfare

movement (see TBC issues May & June ’97...), a group heavily

connected

with Haggard and his church. But we suspect that wouldn’t play well

in

the press.



On the other hand, the myth of psychological counseling still has the

world and the church duped. “Three weeks of intensive counseling”

gave

him insights from the professionals, whose degrees and licensing

necessitate that they ignore sin and place the root of the problem and

the blame elsewhere (e.g., his parents, a childhood trauma, or some

experience buried deep within his unconscious). Now he and his wife

want

to become professionals as well.



Tragically, the leaven of delusion spreads. Overseers recommend the

unbiblical, occult inspired “12-step program for sexual addiction.”

Focus on the Family’s London sees hope in Haggard’s desire to join

the

“helping professions.”]