Focus on Haggard

H.B. London, who heads up Focus on the Family's pastoral counseling unit, will join the spiritual restoration team of the Rev. Ted Haggard, former pastor of New Life Church.

Hey, this is pretty interesting, if you ask me.

The last time Focus spoke out on the Haggard scandal was when James Dobson, the organization's founder and chairman, withdrew from that same restoration team, citing that his schedule was too busy to devote the energy such a panel required. The withdrawal was not received well, generating letters to both The Gazette's editor and to little ol' me. I received a mailing from Warren Eller in faraway Florida that, in part, said "Hey, Dobson! If Rev. Haggard had a million bucks for 'Focus on the Family,' would you be too busy?"

I can't speak to Dobson's time commitments, but London appears to be a natural choice for such a committee. Counseling pastors is London's bread and butter: His department receives about 400-600 calls a month from pastors in various states of crisis, many of them clergy struggling with infidelity or addiction issues.