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CNN is featuring a story headlined “Haggard faces new sex allegations.” While Haggard’s former church disclosed a pattern of immoral behavior at the time it let Haggard go, the specifics are somewhat new.
Newsweek recently published a one-page story about Ted Haggard that showed a remarkable sympathy for the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals. The story, reported by Tony Dokoupil and drawing heavily from the new HBO documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard, was especially uncritical about Haggard’s claim of being mistreated by New Life Church, the Colorado Springs church he founded and built into an evangelical powerhouse:
By this time, the professionals in the mainstream press are starting to settle down, which means that the unrepentant shivers that ran up their legs, into their spins and into the depths of their souls are starting to fade just a bit. Soon, most scribes will get down to the hard business of criticizing the new administration — from the cultural left.
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So many religion stories this week, so little time. I wish there were more stories parsing the prayers of Bishop Gene Robinson and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, but it seems that almost all of the interest is with the Rev. Rick Warren. The variance in scrutiny is odd, to say the least.
When presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said during the Republican primaries that he was comfortable speaking the language of Zion, he clearly referred to the social and, to some degree, theological contexts of conservative evangelical Protestants. I’ve long sensed that Obama speaks in the cadence of Zion, one that seems familiar to any ears familiar with black churches.
I am posting this video here for discussion for a very specific journalistic reason, even though I know I am stretching the boundaries of what we do here.
Can there be anyone who has not read or heard about the stirring ideals of racial reconciliation made concrete in the inauguration of Barack Obama, the son of a white mother and a black father?
