Mega-church weathers gay sex scandal

By Ed Stoddard

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - Five months after its senior pastor Ted Haggard was felled in a gay sex scandal, the massive New Life church he founded seems to have weathered the storm.

At services on Sunday morning, the 3,500-seat church was filled to near capacity with worshipers drawn by its charismatic preaching and vibrant musical stage show.

"Weekly attendance has dipped a bit since the dismissal of pastor Haggard but the bottom has not fallen out and we have had a comparatively smaller drop in revenue," said associate pastor Rob Brendle, a view echoed by other church leaders.

"We recognized quickly that the church was not about one man or a building," he told Reuters.

Haggard, a vocal critic of gay marriage, was forced from the helm of New Life -- the 14,000-member mega-church he founded in 1985 -- in November after a male escort claimed the two had sexual liaisons.

Haggard admitted to undisclosed sexual immorality and also stepped down as the president of the influential National Association of Evangelicals.

Haggard was not as strident on the issue of homosexuality as some other U.S. preachers but his chiseled looks and fiery style made him a poster boy for conservative causes often embraced by the Republican Party.

The scandal was perhaps the biggest to hit America's huge evangelical community since the 1980s, when sex and underhanded financial dealings toppled mega-preachers Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker.