Christian Spiritual Leader Ted Haggard accused of Inappropriately Touching Young Men
The Denver Gazette reports
National evangelical Christian powerhouse Ted Haggard, who founded New Life Church in Colorado Springs in 1984, grew it to 14,000 worshippers and was excommunicated in 2006 amid accusations that he paid a male escort for sex and was using methamphetamine, is facing new allegations from another congregation he started in 2010, Saint James Church.
Some former members allege that Haggard has continued his tendencies toward same-sex encounters and illicit drug use, and they say they have proof.
"People are scared and worried and don’t want to be connected to him anymore,” said the Rev. Kirk “Seth” Sethman, who was ordained as a minister by Saint James Church in October 2012.
Two young men, one of whom was a minor at the time the alleged incidents occurred in 2019, claim on a recorded tape — which Sethman shared with church elders and The Gazette — that Haggard made them feel uncomfortable in his mannerisms he displayed while around them.
The minor said on the tape that his statement was unrehearsed and uncoerced, and he wanted people to know that Haggard touched him inappropriately on several occasions at the church.
“Sometimes when he touches me, it feels very predatorial and very strange,” the teen says. “He’ll touch me on my pecs or my back or hug me in a way that I’m sliding up his hip or the side of his thigh or his bum. You can kind of tell it’s weird.”
And, he said, "There's a lot of highly suspicious things that he does, and you're like, 'that doesn't seem or feel normal.'"
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