This time last week the news was beginning to break. On Monday, our time, the sad facts came to light. Ted Haggard, US megachurch pastor, author, and head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, confessed to sexual immorality, lying and deceit.

Haggard's fall from grace began when Michael Jones, a gay prostitute, said the Christian leader had used his services over a three-year period, and had bought methamphetamines from him. Haggard initially denied knowing Jones, then said he’d bought drugs from him but never used them, and finally, in a letter read to his congregation last Sunday, confessed: "The accusations that have been levelled against me are not all true,” he said, “but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry.”

Ted Haggard was sacked from the 14,000 member New Life Church he founded back in the 1980’s, has stepped down as head of the National Association of Evangelicals, and will now undergo extensive rehabilitation. His public Christian career is over.

I’ve been grieved this week, reflecting on Haggard’s demise—grieved for the sense of shame and embarrassment he must feel right now: his sins splashed across the world, his success and prominence gone, his books pulled from the shelves. I feel grief for Haggard’s wife and five children who can’t walk down the street now without someone whispering. I feel grief when I imagine how Haggard’s actions might fuel the argument that church people, particularly church leaders, are all hypocrites.

Michael Jones said he went public when he found out who Haggard was, and when he discovered Haggard opposed same-sex marriage. “My intent was never to destroy his family,” Jones told the Associated Press. “My intent was to expose a hypocrite.”

At this point I want to jump to Ted Haggard’s defence, to highlight something good in the story. But I can’t. Haggard’s actions can’t be dismissed or spun away. They’ve brought embarrassment to the worldwide Christian community. Ted Haggard has been a hypocrite.

But let’s be careful here.

If integrity is measured by the degree to which our behaviours match our beliefs, we’re all hypocrites in some way. We tell our children to wait for the ‘walk’ sign before crossing the street, yet nip across ourselves when they’re not with us and the coast is clear. We denounce violence against men and women, yet gladly watch murder and rape stories on CSI and NYPD Blue. Most of us would say something needs to be done about world poverty, but how many of us consistently do something to help?

Ted Haggard’s downfall may be the most spectacular of an evangelical leader since Jim Bakker’s sex and accounting fraud scandal in 1987. But instead of throwing rocks in judgement, a better response to the Haggard tragedy is to consider our own lives, and the damage that could occur if our own dark secrets (if there be any) are allowed to continue.

Haggard asked his church congregation to forgive Michael Jones. "He is revealing the deception and sensuality that was in my life,” he told them. “Those sins, and others, need to be dealt with harshly. So, forgive him and, actually, thank God for him."

It’s not in most of our natures to thank God when someone shows us the deception (and hypocrisy) in our lives. But trustworthy critics are God’s gift to save us and others from ourselves. Let’s welcome them. Because to ignore the private word of correction may mean we, like Ted Haggard, expose ourselves to public shame and humiliation.