Early Life and Education
Haggard was born in Indiana. His father, J. M. Haggard, a practicing veterinarian in Yorktown, Indiana, founded an international charismatic ministry, which was featured in a PBS Middletown documentary series.
In 1972, at age sixteen, Haggard became a born-again Christian after hearing a sermon from evangelist Bill Bright in Dallas, Texas and becoming acquainted with the Christian apologetics of C.S. Lewis. As a co-editor of his high-school newspaper in 1974, he published remarkably frank articles which described services that were available to prevent and deal with increasingly prevalent pregnancies and STDs. These articles scandalized his small town and embroiled him in a free-press lawsuit.
Haggard describes feeling the call of God on his life after his first year in college, while he was in the kitchen at home. He had been a telecommunications major with a minor in journalism, but after this experience he believed he had been called to pastor. "I was totally surprised," Haggard wrote in The Life-Giving Church. "I . . . told the Lord I wanted to serve Him. But before I mentioned this to anyone, especially to my parents, I asked the Lord to assure me by using others to confirm His calling on my life. I felt as though He consented . . ." Within forty-eight hours, Haggard felt that he received four unsolicited confirmations: from a Sunday school teacher, a pastor, a friend, and from his father. Haggard subsequently attended Oral Roberts University, a Christian university in Tulsa, Oklahoma, graduating in 1978.
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