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In his second-story church office, with its spectacular view of Colorado's Front Range, Ted Haggard spars playfully with a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. Established East Coast newspapers haven't always sent reporters to interview pastors in Colorado, no matter how big their churches got. Times have changed.

In February, Harper's Magazine devoted 14 pages to Pastor Ted and his New Life Church in Colorado Springs, depicting him and his neighbor James Dobson as the two most powerful (and therefore dangerous) evangelicals in America. The piece by Jeff Sharlet was mostly scary atmospherics—he made much of the muscular warrior angels that adorn Haggard's World Prayer Center—but it helped draw reporters. Today, Haggard is talking to the BBC and an XM radio talk-show host, in addition to the Inquirer's Paul Nussbaum.

Since Harper's placed Haggard somewhere on the spectrum between the Grand Inquisitor and William Jennings Bryan, you might expect Haggard to treat the press stiffly. On the contrary, he speaks appreciatively of Sharlet and seems genuinely eager to talk to Nussbaum. Haggard and his staff tell reporters to go anywhere, film anything, and talk to anybody.

Early this year, Haggard did send a memo to his congregation, tutoring them in proper behavior with TV reporters. "If a camera is on you during a worship service, worship; don't dance, jump, etc. … Jumping and dancing in church looks too bizarre for most to relate to. … Don't talk about the Devil, demons, voices speaking to you. … Instead, tell your personal story in common-sense language. … Don't be spooky or weird. Don't switch into a glassy-eyed heavenly mode."

Haggard believes in territorial spirits, demonic oppression, visions, and voices from heaven. New Life worship is free and physical. Yet Haggard was coaching his congregation to act the way he does, which is anything but spooky or weird.

"He doesn't carry Pentecostalism as a chip on his shoulder," notes Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan. Jack Hayford marvels at how naturally Haggard expresses himself in terms that appeal outside the evangelical community. "I have to work to think, How can I say these things? This stuff just flows out of Ted."

"When I became president of the NAE [National Association of Evangelicals]," Haggard tells the Inquirer's Nussbaum, "the talk was about doing away with the term evangelical. Evangelicalism was morphing and changing so much that people were wondering if the term applied. The first decision I made as president was to start using the term prolifically and defining it simply. I define an evangelical as a person who believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the Bible is the Word of God, and that you must be born again."

Haggard, who is 49 but looks younger, with sandy hair and eyes that squint when he grins, goes on to explain that the 2004 presidential election has increased popular interest in the evangelical movement.

"Is it correct to say 'values voters' are evangelicals?" Nussbaum asks.

"Yes."

"Because, by your definition, Jimmy Carter is an evangelical."

"He is."

"Bill Clinton?"

"He is an evangelical."

"Hilary Clinton."

"No, she is not."

"So, which of these definitions doesn't she meet?"

"I'm not going to say."

Nor will he budge from that reticence, though Nussbaum gently badgers him. Haggard loves to talk, and Nussbaum has caught him making an off-the-cuff pronouncement he is unwilling or unable to substantiate. Yet Haggard seems about as chastened as Huck Finn apprehended with Aunt Polly's strawberry jam. Rather than becoming frosty or severe, Haggard surges forward into his topic.

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November 2005, Vol. 49, No. 11