[The following is my reaction to the recent HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard." Feel free to disagree with my conclusions about the problems inherent to modern evangelicalism. I actually hope I'm wrong about this.]
It’s so easy to mock guys like Ted Haggard; men who preach against homosexuality while soliciting s*x from male pr*st*tutes. There’s a devilish delight inherent to these dramatic falls from grace. It provides vicarious revenge for the spectators feasting on the juicy details. If we’re honest, we like to see the sanctimonious saint reduced to humiliated sinner. Somehow, it validates our own human weaknesses, our own everyday, mundane failures. But the plight of Ted Haggard ought to rip the veil off the shoddy machinations of American evangelicalism.
Pastor-centric churches are the bulwarks of the evangelical movement. Every mega-church needs its superstar pastor. The more charismatic the personality, the better it is for business. And like Haggard admitted in the recent HBO documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard, he was “bad for business.” Not only was he banned from ever preaching again, he was banished from the state of Colorado. Essentially, New Life Church ran their pastor out of town. Or to put it in Biblical terms: exiled him outside the camp. But why go to such extreme measures? It was almost as if the church feared Haggard, like he might infect them with some malignant form of disaster.
Of course, this is only possible when a church is organized like a business. If the CEO/head-pastor is fraudulent, the result is a church version of a bank on the brink of financial collapse. Once Haggard’s story was exposed, church board members scrambled to shore up the crumbling infrastructure. They were trying to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak. Haggard had become a massive financial liability. He had to be publicly destroyed.
So, who’s to blame? It’s myopic to place the whole blame on Haggard. His hypocrisy is a symptom of a bigger problem in the evangelical world. Non-denominational and mega-churches are entirely dependent on one personality. Who, for example, will fill Joel Osteen’s shoes once he retires or if (God forbid) he’s caught cheating on his wife? Can evangelicalism survive the picking off of their tragically flawed leaders? Probably. After all, it’s a time-honored tradition for Protestant churches to spin off and establish “new” churches. That’s been going on since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. Protestants don’t generally stick around long enough to solve the problem. They just up and start over.
This is how the American evangelical church has become much like American consumer culture. With the dizzying array of “seeker friendly” churches springing up everywhere, why shouldn’t we find a church that makes us feel good about ourselves? On any given Sunday, you can shop from a wide selection of church services—each custom-tailored to a targeted demographic.
Here in Southern California, for example, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church has 17 services in five different venues, all on the same campus. The preaching is all Warren, but the worship style varies from hymns in one venue to, according to the church website, “a musical concert setting!” in another. When it comes to evangelicalism, the church universal has become the church personal preferential. And all these churches have one thing in common: the superstar pastor front and center.
But when you’re standing on the faulty pedestal of American evangelicalism, there’s nothing to break your fall. And as Ted Haggard discovered, no one to pick you up afterward.
