It was not a good week in the church business last week.
First, as this Findlaw article reports, the Baptist General Convention of Texas is trying to figure out what happened to $1.3 million that was raised to help start hundreds of churches in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Apparently, three pastors reported that they had started 258 churches in the Valley over the past decade, but only “five to 10” of those churches actually exist. Yup, those things happen even in the pulpit, folks.
Meanwhile, the Ted Haggard affair moved into the mainstream of the pre-election gamesmanship while distracting most from the real issue, which is the risk of elevating personality over worship within the megachurch movement in the U.S. (Ben Witherington has insightful comments on that issue here). The Richard Dawkins interview of Haggard below reveals that Haggard is indeed wound pretty tight, but my sense is that Dawkins does not come off looking any better than Haggard. I mean really. Why should Dawkins care that Haggard or his ilk talks to people about what Dawkins considers to be myths? Nobody is forcing these folks to go to church and it’s not as if Dawkins suffers from a lack of forums in which to express his views. In that regard, here are the letters that Haggard and his wife Gayle wrote to the New Life Church congregation upon his removal from the church and which were read to the congregation yesterday. Gayle’s letter includes the following observation, which is pretty remarkable under the circumstances:

For those of you who have been concerned that my marriage was so perfect I could not possibly relate to the women who are facing great difficulties, know that this will never again be the case.

Finally, from a far different and more civil time, Ann Althouse brings us this very clever interview between Woody Allen and Billy Graham. I particularly enjoyed Allen’s answer to the question from the audience on his worst sin. Don’t miss it.