You said it, Ted.

Ted Haggard is starting up a new church in Colorado Springs, and Haggard himself will be the pastor. Flanked by his wife and children, Haggard made this announcement yesterday at a well-staged press conference outside the family’s barn.

Remember Ted Haggard?

He rose to prominence as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and he was founding pastor of the 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

In 2006, Haggard was stripped of his pastorship after it was reported that a male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex “relationship” with Haggard.

Later, we also learned that Haggard was reported to have had a sexual “relationship” with a 22-year-old male volunteer in his church. That was the story that really troubled me.

The media reported it as a “gay sex” scandal. But that’s where the media got it wrong.

Though that 22-year-old was of legal age, he was a part of pastor Haggard’s church. In that context, what pastor Haggard did was not merely a matter of “gay sex”; it was a matter of clergy sex abuse.

And now Haggard will again be a pastor.

In announcing the opening of his new church, Haggard said it would be a place for “sinners and the broken.”

Haggard pointed out that he himself was a “broken” person, and he seems to even believe that the prior “scandal” is part of what now qualifies him as a pastor.

“It broke me. And I’m still broken. And I have an incredible heart for broken people. I think I’m qualified to hold their hands.”

“I’m the despised and rejected," explained Haggard. "I’m the one who there’s a reason not to trust."

You said it, Ted.

Though I haven’t seen much reason to believe you’re “despised,” you sure nailed it when you said that you’re someone “who there’s a reason not to trust.”

After all, you haven’t even yet acknowledged the reality of what you did to that 22-year-old in your church.

Oh sure… you confessed to an “inappropriate relationship,” but that’s just minimizing things for your own benefit.

It was abuse, Ted.

When you’re a pastor, that sort of conduct with a person in your church is not merely an “inappropriate relationship.” It’s abuse.

A pastor who has sexually abused a congregant should not again be a pastor. And a pastor who hasn’t even yet faced the reality of his abusive conduct shouldn’t even dream of stepping into a pulpit again.

Open your eyes, Ted. Take a long look at the full reality of what you did. It’s far uglier than you have yet acknowledged.

You were a pastor -- a person of power -- a religious authority figure -- a person in a position of spiritual trust. You used that position to exploit a young man in your church.

Have the decency to call it what it really was. It was abuse of another human being.

But at least you got this much right: You are indeed someone “who there’s a reason not to trust.”

I only hope the people in your new church will keep that truth firmly planted in their minds.