UPDATED November 6, 2006

Pastor Ted of New Life Church has stepped down from the pulpit and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. New Life Church has provided a press release on the issue. At the time of this posting, there was no news on the NAE website.
This came as the result of a homosexual escort alleging that Pastor Ted has been paying him regularly for over three years for sex and drugs. While Pastor Ted has not admitted to all of the allegations, he has admitted to some guilt. I certainly don't know of what he is guilty, nor would I want to speculate. Haggard has confessed, "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."
Now, my friends and I have had a lot of fun this week watching Kerry "botch" jokes and the military respond. But there's nothing to laugh about here.
How does something like this happen? How do ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ fall into sexual immorality? How do leaders in the battle against the humanist ("man's way") agenda make such "indescretions"?
Have you heard the Desiring God 2004 National Conference? My good friend Ben gave me a CD of these messages (freely available to download as mp3s from the Desiring God website). The topic was "Sex and the Supremacy of Christ." I've burned copies for some of the men in my shepherding group who only had dial-up.
Piper addressed this very issue in his message that Friday night. Ministers that are addicted to pornography, pedophilia, adultery, etc. are revealing that they do not truly know Christ.

Not only do all the misuses of our sexuality serve to conceal or distort the true knowledge of God in Christ, but it also works powerfully the other way around: the true knowledge of God in Christ serves to prevent the misuses of our sexuality. So, on the one hand, sexuality is designed by God as a way to know Christ more fully. And, on the other hand, knowing Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality.

He then gives the following passages as proof: Romans 1:28; 1:23-24; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5; 1 Peter 1:14-15; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:10; 2 Peter 1:3-4; John 8:31-32.
Do you truly know Christ? Is that knowledge changing you? Are you growing in the fruit of the Spirit and shedding the fruit of the flesh?
In Luke 13, Jesus was asked about a couple of local disasters where many had died. They wanted to know why these had died. Perhaps Jesus response is fitting as well when we wonder why a public figure falls into immorality:

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.