Rev. Ted Haggard is back in town

The evangelist forced out of his job after being caught up in a sex scandal involving a male prostitute has left a “spiritual restoration program” and has returned to Colorado Springs but no longer has any ties to the megachurch he founded, the new pastor of New Life Church said.

Under a severance deal that Ted Haggard reached with the church in 2006, he agreed to leave Colorado Springs and not talk about the scandal publicly. The deal expired at the end of 2007. New pastor Brady Boyd said Haggard was now free to live where he wanted.

Haggard was fired in 2006 as pastor of the 14,000-member church and also stepped down as president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals. He then moved to Phoenix with his family to begin what church leaders called a spiritual restoration program of counseling and prayer, which was expected to last five years or longer.