To Be or Not To Be...a Hypocrite

Ted Haggard, former evangelical rockstar pastor and unwitting star of Jesus Camp, one of my favorite documentaries, has announced that, with the help of therapy, he's cured of his homosexual urges. As remarkable as that would be, what I find most astounding (or disturbing?) is that his wife remained by his side through this ordeal. That may be a testement to true love. It may also be because she got a book deal out of it. Regardless of her reasons, this woman has been on one heck of a ride for the past 4 years.

What really strikes me about the whole thing is how truly sane she sounds in many of her interviews. This is a woman the media should be ripping to shreds. I can honestly say that were I to interview her, I'd go one of two routes:
1. Portray her as a sneaky, underhanded scam-artist, who, along with her husband, ran a mega-church soley for profit, uging the congregation to adhere to a strict moral code above which they deemed themselves,

OR

2. Portray her as an old-fashioned, submissive, clueless wife who couldn't string together a proper sentence to defend her husband

Though bloggers who actually watched the Today Show say she hasn't budged on her belief that homosexuality can be conditioned, I'm faintly impressed that she managed to say that therapy just worked for her husband, and everyone is different.

She's not the next Faulkner, but her book excerpt wasn't quite as painful as I expected it to be. She isn't nearly as terrible as Stephanie Meyer, who we all know hasn't had any trouble moving books off the shelves.

What's most unsettling to me about this is that this is a woman for whom I can feel pity. And while I understand that many of the details are fabricated to cast the family in a better light, I believe that some part of her is genuine.

Her husband has always been the public face, and he's always exuded sleaze to me. Watching him try to sell his audience on Jesus in Jesus Camp was like sitting through an overly-enthusiastic pitch for a Multi-Level Marketing pyramid scheme. I've never wanted any part of his hypocritical church, and he was one of the defining factors in my decision to give up mocking high-profile evangelical Christians for Lent the past few years.

But she is different. It seems as if she understands that their church wasn't using realistic standards. That it was setting people up to be hypocrites. That it was presenting a different moral code for the sheep than for the shepherd.

It turns out that I kind of like the woman behind the man I love to hate.