toledoblade.com --

IT HAS been spoken from the pulpit and expounded to kids on their mother's knee: Practice what you preach. It's a simple lesson, like most of those upon which Americans try to base their lives.

But sometimes the most basic of life lessons are the hardest to learn. Just ask the Rev. Ted Haggard.

His precipitous fall from grace was shocking and unexpected, as the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals and founding pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, was ousted amid allegations of gay sex and drugs.

Given his position as one of the country's most prominent evangelical leaders, it was expected that his ouster and subsequent mea culpa - he confessed that he is a "deceiver and a liar" - would attract comment from those who see a certain poetic justice in the exposure of questionable morals in men who preach moral values, and from others who were saddened by the fall of a man of God.

But perhaps the most interesting perspective was revealed by Blade Religion Editor David Yonke in his conversations with local pastors. Because it is on the local level, in churches in Toledo, northwest Ohio, and around the country, that ministers are on the front line of addressing the fall-out from such a high-profile happenstance.

The lesson, many said, was that the clergy need to live what they say, to follow the tenets of their religion in everyday life. And in order to follow that path churches have accountability groups, commandments to follow in their daily dealings with people that go beyond the original 10.

Lee Powell, lead pastor of CedarCreek Church in Perrysburg Township, said he and his associates avoid going to lunch alone with a member of the opposite sex, and don't visit a member of the opposite sex alone at home. Those are reasonable guidelines, although they may not have been overly helpful in the case of Mr. Haggard.

But the greater point which pastors recognize is the need not only to live lives that are above reproach, but to be seen to do so. They lead by example, their words serving to make public their private conduct.

Oversight boards are helpful, minsters say, with the Rev. Glenn Teal of CrossRoads Community Church in Ottawa Lake, Mich., observing that the lack of a local board could have been a contributing factor in the case of Mr. Haggard.

Some may see the fall of Mr. Haggard as an opportunity to criticize the evangelical movement and its leaders; others may view it as confirmation that we all are sinners, and of the need to seek forgiveness and redemption. And it's possible that from such scandal the church may emerge stronger.

Damage control may be more difficult in the political arena where the evangelicals' influence is strong, but there, too, the sins of one man may not undermine the faith of those who follow his positions on social issues. And while it may be tempting for critics of Mr. Haggard and evangelical churches to take some satisfaction in his disgrace, we would only suggest that such a feeling, as with all temptation, is to be resisted.

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