Ted Haggard, the former gay bashing mega-church running pastor of New Life fame brought down by accusasing he was having a sexual affair with another man, is starting up anther church .

As the article mentions, this time he hopes to simply start small, maybe 20 odd people just gathering in his house. This is much like how he started the original New Life Church, as described in Sharlet's "The Family":

First, he started a church in his basement. The pupit was three five-gallon buckets stacked one atop the other, and the pews were lawn chairs. A man who likved in a trailer came round if he remembered it was Sunday and played guitar.

Unlike the last time, however, Mr. Haggard has no allusions of building up another mega-church.

Right away, the jokes just start coming in, all the comments about hypocrisy and how he claims to have been cured of homosexuality  . It would be such an easy target.

I'm going to say this: I honestly wish him the best of luck.

I'm serious. I hope his experiences have made him more open, and perhaps he'll see the world more like Frank Schaffer, who's former experiences in Christian Right beliefs converted him into a person who understands that rage and anger - but instead teaches about love. OK, I may not always agree with Mr. Schaffer (like his ideas that "new" atheists are just as fundamentalists as Christian fundamentalists ), but Mr. Schaffer learned humility, compassion, an understanding of that saying "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

I hope Mr. Haggard's experiences has made him realize that  yes, all right, maybe he's not completely heterosexual - and that's OK. Maybe through this trials he's come to see the anguish people go through when coming out to their familes.

Perhaps his time finding work as a small time insurance salesman has let him see once again the suffering of people, people who could use help. I'm not saying he has to embrace universal health care (though that would be nice), but perhaps more of an emphasis on "teach people to do what Jesus said to do" instead of "teach people to love Jesus to the point of hating everyone else."

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I'd like to think he will. But if Mr. Haggard's new church is one centered on love and service rather than sin and dogma, then I'll give him full kodos and wish him well.