CSIndy: Public Eye (May 5, 2005)

The Colorado Springs Independent's Cara DeGette sums up another strange week in our little world of bible thumpers and zealots. Pick up a copy of Harper's Magazine to read the articles. You won't find the articles on line for a couple of months or so. Harper's is not good about making their articles available on a timely basis. I read the whole mag on the plane ride back from Delaware last Sunday. Shocking and scary. One of these Sundays I intend to take in a service at the New Life Megachurch. Problem is I would rather do my Sunday morning trail run. It's a dilemma....

CSIndy: Public Eye (May 5, 2005): "It's been a wild week for Colorado Springs.

You've undoubtedly seen all the coverage. First, there was the unfortunate culmination of the very public battle between Focus on the Family and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, in which the normally sedate Salazar told local TV station KKTV that 'Focus is the Antichrist.' He later apologized, saying he meant the Colorado Springs-based ministry's political actions over federal judicial nominees is un-Christian and self-serving.

Then there was the recent Harper's magazine piece chronicling the rise of Pastor Ted Haggard and his New Life Church, a megachurch in northeast Colorado Springs. The author, Jeff Sharlet, described Colorado Springs as 'unspectacular ... a grid of wide Western avenues lined with squat, gray and beige box buildings.' Sharlet's description of our city, with its sprawl and its crime and pollution and a downtown core that 'withers into irrelevance,' evoked a defensive response in the May 2 Gazette, which devoted considerable space to city boosters rebutting Sharlet's observations, point by point."