Morality Tale: A Pastor's Fall From Grace

The Rev. Ted Haggard had boyish dimples and a perpetual placid smile, but spoke of demons on earth. As a young pastor in Colorado Springs, Colo., he tore apart the local phone book and prayed over every name. He warned of "Satanists" and covens abroad in the city. Over time, his New Life evangelical church grew to be among the most powerful houses of worship in the country, with a congregation some 14,000 strong. Haggard called these faithful "Puritan descendants," but spoke of the omnipresence of sin. To be a Christian, he warned, "is to be in a constant state of war."

What no one saw was the war within Haggard himself. Last week Mike Jones, a former male prostitute in Denver, came forward to claim he'd had a three-year sexual relationship with Haggard, a vocal critic of gay rights. Married with five children, Haggard initially denied even knowing Jones. But then Jones produced recordings of a voice that sounded like Haggard's asking Jones to help him secure some crystal meth. In the recordings, reviewed by NEWSWEEK, the voice is polite but persistent: "I was just calling to see if we could get any more ... I could pick it up really any time." On Friday, Haggard acknowledged buying crystal meth from Jones but denied using it. Nor had he slept with Jones, he said, whom he claimed to have hired for a massage on the recommendation of a Denver hotel. Jones, who says he saw Haggard use meth regularly but denies ever selling it to him, failed parts of a lie-detector test when asked if he'd had sex with Haggard. But by late last week, New Life's Board of Overseers had determined Haggard was guilty of "sexually immoral conduct" and dismissed him as pastor of the church.

From Elmer Gantry to televangelist Jim Bakker, the man of God felled by sins of the flesh has always been a venerable American character. But Haggard is not just another minister who met temptation; he was, until Thursday, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a powerful lobbying group that represents some 30 million Christians. He has boasted of his access to President George W. Bush, and is a confidant of Focus on the Family head James Dobson, who said Haggard's downfall had "grave implications for the cause of Christ." The emerging details of Haggard's hidden life show a man of great talents consumed by urges he couldn't name.

Born in Indiana, Haggard went to Colorado Springs in 1985 and set about building a Christian kingdom in the Rockies. Attractive and savvy in the ways of pop culture, he earned hordes of quick converts and eventually moved his church from his basement to a giant campus north of the city.

By the late '90s, Colorado Springs was home to more than 100 other evangelical organizations--chief among them Focus on the Family. New Life's hefty growth made Haggard an evangelical celebrity. Named president of the NAE in 2003, he told congregants of a long Oval Office chat with President Bush. He bragged to reporters about weekly White House conference calls. "There was a significant influence exerted on the last election by Colorado Springs," he told Harper's magazine in 2005. "God has a plan for this city," he later said.

But there was another city, teeming, to the north. In Denver, Mike Jones worked as a male escort who posted ads in local gay publications and on the Internet escort site Rentboy.com. Three years ago, Jones says, he received a call from a pro-spective client who called himself "Art." (Haggard's middle name is Arthur.) The men began a monthly relationship, Jones says, claiming Art paid him about $200 a visit.