Posted on 08/09/2007 1:24:29 PM PDT by mngran
DALLAS -- Nine months after influential US evangelist Ted Haggard was disgraced in a gay sex scandal, the man poised to take his place in the pulpit says he plans to steer clear of overt politics and focus on the Bible instead.
"I believe Christians need to be good citizens. . . . But I will not take near the active political role that Ted did," Brady Boyd, recommended by a search committee to be the new senior pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said in an interview.
Haggard, a vocal critic of gay marriage, was forced from the helm of New Life -- the 14,000-member "mega-church" he founded in 1985 -- in November after a male escort said the two had sexual liaisons. Haggard later admitted to undisclosed sexual immorality and also stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Haggard was not as strident on the issue of homosexuality as some other US preachers. But his fiery speaking style made him a poster boy for conservative causes often embraced by the Republican Party.
"I will encourage people to be involved in the political process but I will not touch on hot-button political issues because I do not think that is the role of the pulpit," said Boyd, a 40-year-old preacher now based at Gateway Church in Southlake, an affluent town near Dallas.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
His statement does not match the title:
(The new pastor) *plans to avoid* politics
I notice it doesn’t mention the fact that Haggard was pushing for his organization (the National Association of Evangelicals) to jump on Algore’s Ecotard Bandwagon. Wouldn’t want to tarnish that; just the gay marriage thing.
Well, not to defend Haggard, but I think if he had been caught, say, dumping mercury into the groundwater while advocating environmental protection, that would have been the focus instead of homosexuality. Hypocricy was the issue to a lot of people.
The so-called “hot button” issues are the only ones that count. The pastor who fails to clearly and forcefully preach the Biblical position on these trivializes the pulpit.
The prostitution, sodomy and the meth had something to do with it, too.
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