Ted Haggard Didn't Fall.

Ted Haggard didn't fall. He was already in the gutter. We evangelicals simply elevated him and his gutter to pulpit level.

I was not surprised by today's mess in the news about Ted Haggard covorting about with a sodomite prostitute. What did surprise me some time ago was the realization that people who call themselves Christians would actually have anything to do with this man.

However, Haggard has done us all this great favor: he has accurately represented evangelical "Christianity" in America. It is a sewer of lukewarm compromise and half-truth. Haggard once described Evangelicalism as broad enough to reach from Benny Hinn to R. C. Sproul. That statement alone would disqualify him from service in a godly church. Benny Hinn is an apostate. He has also stated publicly that his emphasis will be on the positive, not on negatives like sin and judgment. This, too, should have been a deal killer.

Open heresy will always lead to moral compromise and moral compromise will always lead to open heresy. That is what today's Evangelicalism is all about. We would rather read the Message than the Bible because it can be twisted into almost anything. Bothered by the Bible? No problem reread that passage in the Message. We want to hear about how God will make us rich, not daily self-denial, the mortification of sin, or the fellowship of His suffering.

Take advantage of Haggard's favor. Look into the mirror that is Ted Haggard. Then ask yourself if your attitudes and beliefs are that much different. Then repent. Then call on your friends to repent. Then call on your church to repent.

Repenting of my silence against compromise,
Phil Perkins.