Ted Haggard, former minister of New Life Church in Colorado, former President of The National Association of Evangelicals who resigned after admitting he’d been seeing a male prostitute for three years, is back in the news. 

In 2006 Haggard was given a severance package, overseers, and he and his family moved to Arizona, after declaring himself cured of homosexuality three weeks after the scandal broke.
Both he and his wife announced they were working toward counselling degrees.

Haggard supposedly send out a  fund raising appeal to a friend at KDRO, an ABC affiliate in Colorado Springs four days ago. The station posted the email. 

Haggard is getting free housing at The Dream Centre in Arizona. He owns a home worth over 7 hundred thousand dollars. He received a severance package of 138 thousand and had collected 155 thousand dollars for the 10 months he worked at New Life Church in 2006, along with an 85 thousand dollar anniversary bonus. He also collects royalties on the books he has written.

Supposedly Haggard sent out the fund appeal without the knowledge of the men appointed to be his spiritual advisers.

Not only that, the email address donors can sent funds to is owned by a none registered defunct charity called Families With a Mission which is owned by a convicted pedophile.

Does any of this ring true?
The fund raising email story been picked up by several media outlets and The Associated Press and run as if it is true, but  it may be a smear campaign.
KDRO broke the story four days ago. 94 news outlets picked up the story without question. Where are the so called overseers?

Blogs are all over this.
The zip code in the email is wrong, the ages of his children are incorrect, the charity was never listed with the IRS and a fund raising company appears to be behind the mail address. The University listed in the email is an online one, not a brick and mortar campus. The University of Phoenix is a Mormon run online university with a history of financial fraud and a 16% graduation rate.

As Christianity Today Liveblog points out:

1) Why would Haggard risk his family, his education and his recovery by not consulting with the people put in place to help him?

2) The ‘charity’ and the email address don’t make sense.

3) Ted Haggard doesn’t need money.

The ‘overseers’ been so blindsided by this they haven’t commented in four days.
That makes the least sense of all. 

Either Haggard is romping off on his own during his supposedly supervised ’recovery’ and is exhibiting continued addictive behavior, or someone is attempting to con media and Haggard.

The  Haggard family ’overseers’ have been incredibly slow responding to this, haven’t they? 
The only religious media picking this up has been Christianity Today - today.
Haggard is an addict; he’s addicted to sex, maybe substances, certainly religion and fame.  He remains in complete denial about same sex attraction.

If Haggard has relapsed that is one issue, but if someone is pulling a con against him that’s quite another.
Addicts con.
They lie.
They live in denial.
Addicts can be conned. 
Is it possible Haggard hasn’t been receiving the help ‘overseers’ have said the family is receiving? 
Is it possible he’s relapsed again, big time?

Colorado Springs Gazette
KRDO
Non-Prophet - a Colorado blogger who understands the New Life Church environment.

Update:  Media didn’t get the essence of the story wrong, just a few details that have been brought out by bloggers and investigative online sites such as Colorado Confidential and SLOG.
Haggard is begging people for money.
The charity is real in Hawaii (not Colorado) as are the convictions against it’s owner. 
Here is the update by KRDO Colorado.

According to Christianity Today Liveblog’s David Neff:

I just read your blog and I can tell you 100% that the e-mail from Pastor Ted Haggard is from him. I spoke with him on the phone Saturday evening.

Tak Landrock
NEWSCHANNEL 13

The update at Christianity Today Liveblog. - Haggard Puzzle Partly Solved.
Haggard has stopped talking. 

This is so outrageous and beyond the pale, this family is pitiable. 

I want to know what these ‘overseers’, after getting sideswiped by an addicted man exhibiting deep psychological problems; have done for the Haggard family besides paying them to get out of their way. Who is warning his ’supporters’?

This is a group of people (Assemblies of God) Assemblies of God is a pentecostal denomination. My mistake. Haggard isn’t AoG. Pentecostals believe homosexuality can be ‘cured.’ They believe in forgiving and ’praying away’ lying, pride, entitlement, adultery, cheating, greed, denial and deception.
But I am not sure they have a clue about addiction, psychological testing and solid, long term cognitive therapy.  Mr. and Mrs. Haggard may not want or be ready for appropriate help.  This does not sound like a man and wife ready to work on psychology and sociology degrees in counselling.
But enabling and paying them to just go away is worse than no help at all.

Instead of Haggard bashing in the comment section, there are BDBO readers well qualified in psychology, addiction, church structure, ethics and economics.
Some wisdom would be appreciated. 
More information has surfaced.

A copy of the email is below.

Gayle and I, along with Alex (16) and Elliott (14) have decided to move into the Phoenix Dream Center on October 1st. The Phoenix Dream Center is a half-way house for the homeless, those coming out of prison, recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other broken people. I identify. The building is sponsored by Phoenix First Assembly, our new church home, but the workers are volunteers. The Dream Center also houses a church called “The Church on the Street.” I met the pastor and he asked me if I would be willing to counsel some of the men and to teach the group from time to time. The woman directing the ministry to women invited Gayle to teach and minister to the women. Gayle and I spoke to the boys about it, and after a series of discussions with several leaders and our pastor, Tommy Barnett, we decided to serve the dream center in whatever capacity asked, whether it’s cleaning the building, hosting a visiting group, attending a meeting, or facilitating a study. In order to increase our availability to serve, we have decided to move and live in the Dream Center.

As a result, the Phoenix Dream Center team is creating an apartment for our family by combining a small, one-bedroom apartment with an adjacent room so our boys will have their own rooms. Even though Alex and Elliott’s drive to school is quite a distance every day, we think it is worth it to be given the privilege of service. Now, however, we need to raise our own support. In preparation for the future, Gayle and I are both enrolled at the University of Phoenix at their main downtown campus. Gayle is in the undergraduate program studying psychology. I am pursuing my master of science in counseling degree, which means we are both full time students. Alex and Elliott are both attending a local Christian school. Elliott is playing 8th grade football this fall. Everyone is busy!

It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years. During that time we will continue as full time students, and then, when I graduate, we won’t need outside support any longer.

But for the next two years, we will need support. Between now and the end of the year, we have to find the people who want to help us transition into our future. So I am starting today to let friends like you know that we are raising money for support as we move into the Phoenix Dream Center.

Would you be willing to help us find people who can give a one time gift or make a commitment to help support us monthly for two years? If so, that would be a blessing. If people want to support us directly, they can mail checks to Ted and Gayle Haggard,xxxx. This is a private mail box address that we have been using since we moved to the Phoenix area. If any supporters need a tax deduction for their gift, they can mail it to Families With a Mission at P.O. Box 63125, Colorado Springs, CO 80962. The supporters would need to write their check to “Families With A Mission” and put a separate note on it that it is for the Haggard family, then Families With a Mission will mail us 90% of the funds for support and use 10% for administrative costs.

Thank you so much. We feel our move into the Dream Center is the next step God would have us take. Any help we can get with this will be greatly appreciated and, I believe, rewarded in heaven.
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might have an interest. Any assistance we receive will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
God bless,  
Ted Haggard
“Preparing”

P.S. Our handicapped son, Jonathan (20) has been taken care of financially by Victory Church (Mike Ware), Church of the Highlands (Chris Hodges) and New Life Church in Colorado Springs since November of 2006. It’s our prayer that these churches will continue helping Jonathan while we’re in this stage of our lives. We are so grateful for their assistance. Their faithfulness to Jonathan and consequently our family has given us room to heal. We are all very thankful for their prayers, love, and kindness.