Ted Haggard’s Lies

“I don’t want surprises, scandals, or secrets…”
[Ted Haggard, quoted in “Soldiers of Christ: Inside America’s most powerful megachurch with Pastor Ted Haggard,” by Jeffrey Sharlet, Harpers, May 2005]

It is a sad fact that Ted Haggard, who has headed the National Association of Evangelicals since 2003, and who this past weekend was caught in lies about drugs and a sexual liaison with another man, has previously lied about other things. It is particularly sad that, to many people, he represents Christ and Christianity. Despite the publicity over his current lies, his previous lies are more concerning because he attempted to cover up his involvement with the New Apostolic Reformation — a dominionist sect at the forefront of the “transformation” of evangelicaldom.

Few evangelicals — and even fewer outside evangelicaldom — know that Haggard, like Rick Warren, has been much more than a megachurch pastor. He stands at the forefront of what is called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), i.e., Rick Warren’s “2nd Reformation.” Haggard’s church has played a central role in promulgating the heretical doctrines of the NAR, especially dominionism — political dominionism, mission/evangelization dominionism and prayer warfare dominionism.

As a political dominionist, Haggard — in his roles as megachurch pastor, head of the NAE, and “apostle” of the NAR — has been playing in the “big league” with the politicians ever since his rise to fame. Unfortunately for him, these big boys play ugly. According to a story that appeared in Harper’s magazine last year, “Pastor Ted… talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday” and “No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted, and no church more than New Life.”

As a mission and spiritual warfare dominionist, Haggard has housed the offices of C. Peter Wagner’s Global Harvest Ministries, which are located on the campus of the World Prayer Center. This is another evangelical mega-sized databank which originally was part of the U.S. Center for World Missions in Pasadena, California, and has been databanking people by religious belief and ethnicity across the planet (documented in the past twenty years of the Mission Frontiers publication), not unlike the global databank described in last week’s Herescope post “Rick Warren – Is He Scary?” According to Al Dager in his book The World Christian Movement (Sword 2001):

“Housed in a 55,000-square-foot building, the World Prayer Center is home to the Observatory Research Center, which houses an enormous ‘spiritual mapping’ system. That system is designed to compile in its computers the largest collection of data on evangelization ever assembled.” (p. 130)

C. Peter Wagner, a mentor to Rick Warren, is a leading self-proclaimed global “apostle” who has formed the International Coalition of Apostles to work on changing governments and governance structures around the world, particularly by his newly-created marketplace transformation “apostles,” which this blog has written about in previous posts (to search see upper left corner). Wagner’s wild and wacky ideas, doctrines and activities would be considered controversial and heretical in the more conservative quadrants of evangelicaldom.

A little over a year ago Sandy Simpson of the Apologetics Coordination Team expressed concern about Haggard’s deceptions and lies regarding his involvement in the New Apostolic Reformation. Simpson’s report is excerpted here, but for an overall understanding of the context the reader is referred to the main articles:

Addendum To “An Answer To Ted Haggard” by Sandy Simpson. 9/19/05.

I do not want to belabor this issue, but in the pursuit of truth I must update you on a few current developments in this story. Please refer to the original articles here:

An Open Letter to the National Association of Evangelicals – Re: The Election of Ted Haggard as President of the NAE by Sandy Simpson & Mike Oppenheimer, ACT & Let Us Reason Ministries, 3/27/03

An Answer to Ted Haggard- Response to Ted Haggard’s Email Rebuttal To Our Open Letter to the NAE by Sandy Simpson & Mike Oppenheimer, ACT & Let Us Reason Ministries, 4/23/03

Ted Haggard is apparently still telling people he has no formal association with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and it’s International Coalition Of Apostles (ICA). He recently reiterated this assertion on a radio program called “Issues, Etc.” on 9/13/05. You can watch the Windows Media version of this interview here or access the MP3 audio here. The “Issues, Etc.” site is located here.

Interestingly, since we exposed Ted Haggard as being disingenuous on these issues back in 2003, the ICA has finally made public part of their covert web site, which was a private site for members-only for years.

http://www.apostlesnet.net/index.asp

There is still a section of that site that is members-only accessible by password. http://www.apostlesnet.net/index.asp?action=members_access

…The current list, on the ICA site, lists the following as the “ICA Apostolic Council”
…http://www.apostlesnet.net/index.asp?action=introduction

ICA Members are listed here:
http://www.apostlesnet.net/index.asp?action=members

The NAR leadership think they are being clever by omitting Ted Haggard’s name from the ICA Apostolic Council and ICA Membership rolls, obviously in response to our articles about him. But this does not belay the facts as follows:

(1) Ted Haggard has long been a prominent leader and supporter of the NAR working as a leader among those listed as the ICA Apostolic Council

(2) Ted Haggard continues to deny involvement in the NAR, not just the ICA.

(3) Ted Haggard is mentioned as a prime mover in the NAR in numerous places on the web.

(4) Ted Haggard is thanked by C. Peter Wagner on his Global Harvest web site for providing the grounds for a number of the NAR ministries on his New Life Church property in Colorado Springs, CO… etc.

Let’s put some facts straight on this continuing snow job …

First, read the articles above. Everything we said is documented, and many of the statements Haggard has made in support of the tenets of the NAR are on video. Second, NAR members are famous for this kind of “spin” to cover their tracks. If you doubt that, go check this article about C. Peter Wagner claiming he knew nothing about Latter Rain doctrines till 2001.

http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/addendumNAR.html

Ted Haggard’s longtime association with the NAR and ICA is no secret at all. On HarvestNET, an NAR ministry, it states this:

In this GI interview, Wagner states that he believes that the barriers of ‘prophets’ relating to ‘apostles’ as he proposes is solely due to the ‘prophets’ themselves, and not due to his teachings or presentations. He proposes they ‘miss it’ because they are suspicious due to woundings from the Discipleship or Shepherding movement. He also mentions they need to “change the way they submit” as the ‘solution’ to relating to ‘apostles’ (“how” they are to submit is not defined in this short interview, but may be defined by Tedd (sic) Haggard’s local protocol and Wagner’s own description of submitting all “words” to the apostle for total discernment and execution at the

National School of the Prophets: January 28 -30, 1999, in Colorado). http://www.harvestnet.org/reports/aboutWagnerapostles.htm

Apparently Ted Haggard has been involved in defining “local protocol” for the NAR back at least as far back as 1999 at yet another NAR “School of the Prophets” conference held at his church. On the Glory Of Zion site, an NAR ministry, Haggard is listed this way:

World Prayer Team The first and foremost thing we can do for our communities is to pray for them. Now this is possible as never before with the World Prayer Team. Pastor Ted Haggard, President of The World Prayer Center, is developing this tool to fulfill a vision and command of God. I would encourage you to visit http://www.i-m-a-g-i-n-e.org for more information and let people know this is available to them.http://www.glory-of-zion.org/links_1.htm

On the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada site it states this:

Wagner also leads the International Coalition of Apostles (ICA) and the New Apostolic Roundtable. He is in partnership with prominent pastors, including Ted Haggard, president of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals. …

http://www.faithtoday.ca/article_viewer.asp?Article_ID=155…

…On the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries web site (very similar name to the International Colition of Apostles!) which is an NAR ministry, Haggard’s book is listed as a reference for “Ten Paradigm Shifts Toward Community Transformation”. This book, along with others, has been a manual for the NAR “Transformations” movement.

Loving Your City Into the Kingdom: City Reaching Strategies for a 21st Century Revival
Author: Ted Haggard and Jack Hayford, Publisher: Regal, 1997

http://www.icwm.net/articles_view.asp?articleid=1395&columnid

…Ted Haggard referred to himself and a number of other pastors, who attended the “Mobilizing The Prophetic Office” NAR conference at his New Life Church in May 2000, as “apostolic pastors”.

The NAR World Prayer Center is located on Ted Haggard’s New Life Church property, as well as the Sentinel Group of George Otis, Jr., another NAR “Transformations” promoter. Haggard may not be listed as a member of the ICA at this time, but he is one of the biggest promoters of their agenda in every way possible. In any case, this “unlisting” of Ted Haggard on the ICA site doesn’t really matter. Look at the last DVD in our

“The New Apostolic Reformation – What is it and where is it going?” series and you will see what Haggard supports. He hosts many of the NAR conferences in his church, some of the members are involved in his church ministries, and Haggard is a speaker in their conferences where he endorses and teaches the Latter Rain false teachings of the NAR. He asked people to come and spend money at the Mobilizing the Prophetic Office conference to learn how to be a prophet. He prayed that the apostolic would be restored to the “global church of the world” so that they could do “explosive ministry”. We have it all on the DVD.

Ted Haggard has tried to hide these facts before, and we have the paper trail and videos to prove it. It seems that Ted Haggard is still trying to carry out a covert strategy among those who are uninformed even since he was voted one of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals” in Time Magazine. One has to wonder why he is so embarrassed about his position on NAR issues that he doesn’t want the National Association of Evangelicals, of which he is the president, to know what he espouses. His name is not on the ICA web site in order to try to hide what he is doing, even though he supports EVERY major agenda of the NAR.…

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The Truth:

“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)