Fundamentalist Love: Don't Ask Questions

I'm the author of a recent feature in Harper's, "Soldiers of Christ: Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch, about New Life Church in Colorado Springs, pastored by a Bush ally named Ted Haggard: http://harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html (apologies; I don't know how to make links.)

What I want to call your attention to is the aftermath of the piece --

-- as reported on by a fine Colorado Springs blogger called Non-Prophet who's been doing real journalism, interviewing the folks at the church and me and making up his own mind. A lot of people saw his post in which he published a memo from Pastor Ted Haggard telling his congregation not to act "weird" when Tom Brokaw and Barbara Walters came to shoot film. But most missed the beginning of the memo, in which Pastor Ted boasted that he'd just come out of a meeting with Netanyahu and was about to go into one with Sharon.
http://nonprophet.typepad.com/nonprophet/2005/05/ted_haggard_don.html

On a smaller scale, there's Non-Prophet's more recent post on an email exchange a church member forwarded to him. This Christian was disturbed by Pastor Ted's behavior and respectfully asked to meet with him about it. Pastor Ted told him to find a new church.

That's just one small story, but it hints at an atmosphere of no dissent that pervades the church of the head of the National Association of Evangelicals.

I've nothing personal against Ted. He's a nice guy. But I think progressives need to start paying more attention to what goes on in politicized church in America. It's not just politics; it's a whole culture of unquestioned authority. http://nonprophet.typepad.com/nonprophet/2005/06/insiders_perspe.html