Dr. Charles Nestor, National Clergy Council's Senior Fellow for Public Policy, spoke for the council saying they are "saddened" by Haggard's stepping down.
"Many have already rushed to raise charges of yet another evangelical clergy hypocrisy. Evangelicals teach that homosexual behavior is proscribed in the Bible and is therefore to be viewed as a sin in all cases," he said in a released statement. "Many are raising the charge of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the playing of a role, i.e., as an actor, without the inward conviction that it represents the truth. Pastor Haggard's swift resignations indicate to us that while he failed to live out the truth he taught, he recognises that his conduct was clearly wrong."
The accusations came as Colorado voters will vote on a same-sex marriage ban in Tuesday's elections. Jones said he went public with his story because Haggard supported the constitutional amendment against gay marriage.
"I had to do the moral thing," he said, according to CNN.
Many are remaining optimistic of Haggard.
"Ted Haggard has denied the allegations made against him. So far, there is only one accuser," said a statement by the Rev. Bob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council and chairman of the Committee on Church and Society for the Evangelical Church Alliance. "The Bible says no man is to be condemned on the testimony of a single accuser. We must prayerfully wait out the investigative process and continue to judge by the evidence."
"We pray that the charges will totally be dismissed as totally false," said Bill Taylor, the past Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Missions Commission, in an e-mail.
Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, told CNN that "the accusations do not comport with the person that I know."
If the accusations turn out true, some leaders hope it doesn't paint a different picture of evangelicals.
"Should this accusation prove true, it will only be another in a long history of human failure," said Schenck. "The Bible says if we say we have no sin, we lie and the truth is not in us. Evangelical Christianity does not rest on frail and sinful human beings, but on a just and righteous God in who 'changes not."
