Haggard’s Moral Failure May Explain Liberal Drift of NAE

From NAE and All Evangelicals Must Seek The Lord — Haggard Failure May Explain Liberal Drift of NAE, a press release from Rob Schenk, president of the Evangelical-dominated National Clergy Council in Washington, DC, and chairman of the Committee on Church and Society for the Evangelical Church Alliance:

The moral failure of recently resigned president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. Ted Haggard, may explain in part the leftward drift of the organization over the last several years. It has been a mystery to many of us who watched this venerable institution shake lose of its once secure foundation and slide onto the shifting sands of political correctness, postmodern jargon and social trends. Whether its immediate past president’s troubles came before or after this slide is not as important as what its board of directors does next. The NAE has an opportunity to make a critically important course correction.

I recommend NAE leadership call all of us who label ourselves Evangelicals to a time of humble repentance, contrition and seeking the Lord and His will. Instead of concerning ourselves with what rock superstar Bono thinks we ought to do, let’s instead inquire of the Lord and His Word. Let’s repair the Temple, as King Josiah did, and bring out the Book instead of the polls. Let’s read God’s Holy Law and forget the New York Times.

The NAE will need a leader who holds God’s Word above all else, who is keenly aware of our human predilection toward rebellion against God and His moral will and who sets the organization’s agenda only by the time-tested dictates of the Book. Being a Christian has never been a popularity contest. Jesus said, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

We are all deeply saddened to see a brother fall, a family suffer, a church injured and reproach of the ministry of the Gospel. We must pray for the repair of the Haggard family, for the accuser to find salvation and deliverance, for the New Life Church to be restored and the NAE to find solid biblical direction. As we do, we must look inward to see our own failings and bring to the Lord the fruit of repentance.

As Evangelicals are once again put in the spotlight this Tuesday, Election Day, let’s tell the reporters at the voting stations, “I don’t take my cues from Ted Haggard, or party leaders or pollsters and pundits. I prayed today, read my Bible and asked the Lord alone to help me. Then, I cast my vote. Now, I pray, ‘thy will be done.’”

Let’s see this episode as a gift from our Heavenly Father who chastens those He loves.

“And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage.” (Ezra 9:8)