According to the terms of an agreement he signed with his former church, Ted Haggard was not only banished from New Life but also — in a provision more typical of TV westerns and medieval decrees — forbidden from ever returning to the state of Colorado. As chronicled in The Trials of Ted Haggard, an HBO documentary that aired last January, the Haggards moved through a series of temporary lodgings as the pastor-turned-insurance-salesman roamed Phoenix neighborhoods, growing to resemble the Willy Loman character in Death of a Salesman.
So virtually no one expected to find Haggard and his family back in their comfortable Colorado Springs home, less than a mile from the mega-church that started nearly 25 years ago as a basement gathering of worshippers. Gayle, Ted’s wife for the last 30 years, has written a book called Why I Stayed, which is slated for January release by Christian publisher Tyndale House. Ted, meanwhile, has begun speaking at churches around the country and recently posted to the Internet that he’s “motivated for the first time in 2.5 years to re-enter full-time ministry.”