…oh, dear: Ted Haggard’s back in the ministry business:
whenever I see a religious leader who has gone through a crisis like Haggard’s starting a new church, returning to the pulpit after a relatively short interruption, or in some way continuing to offer himself as a religious leader, I don’t think “hooray for second chances,” I think, “there goes a narcissist.” And it’s not because I don’t believe in second chances, either.
But it has to be covenantal because bosses will cover up for the people they supervise, especially at the highest levels. So you need to be responsible to the laity in particular, who will hold you accountable. When those mechanisms are not in place, or don’t function, it’s like giving a license to do bad things. That’s particularly true of entrepreneurial leaders like Haggard, but it also works for apparatchiks like Cardinal Bernard Law.
