It is patient and kind, he wrote. It is NOT jealous or boastful.

The Christian counselors Sanford sought out while trying to decide whether to stay with his wife or jump on a plane to South America advised him what else love is and isn’t.

“Their point is that love is not a feeling,” Sanford told The Associated Press in a tearful two-day confessional. “It’s a choice. It’s an action.”

That sentiment might seem cold to many Americans, but it is perfectly consistent with the born-again, evangelical Christian world that Sanford inhabits, says sociologist John Bartowski.

“What evangelicals are doing is sort of carving out a subcultural view of love which is not so highly romanticized as we see in movies, that is at odds with the dominant view of love,” says Bartowski, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of the book, “Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families.”

That world view, he says, “divorces” love from emotion, because “feelings are fleeting and not to be trusted.”

“Love is something that is cultivated in the trenches of living a day-to-day relationship,” says Bartowski. “That is not a Hallmark moment.”

So while there are countless romantics out there urging Sanford to follow his heart, he can expect mostly tough love from his own spiritual community.

“The emotions are the icing on the cake,” says Ben Witherington, a New Testament professor at Kentucky’s Asbury Theological Seminary. “They’re not the cake.”

Witherington says feelings are a “notoriously unreliable guide” in personal relationships because they tend to change with time. Marriage is not just a commitment of will, he says, but a commitment before God.

“That’s why, at a Christian wedding service, you don’t say, ‘I feel like’ and ‘I feel like.’ You say, ‘I will’ and ‘I will,’ ‘I do’ and ‘I do.’”

Sanford is a man writhing in agony as his emotions battle his sense of duty – to his wife, to their four sons, to his office.

In one e-mail to his lover, Maria Belen Chapur, Sanford said to “sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”

He told the AP on Tuesday that the past 8 1/2 years have been an emotional “wrestling match,” a struggle “between one’s heart and one’s value system.”

“A whole lot more than a simple affair,” he said. “It’s a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

That is not how he talks of his bond with Jenny Sanford.

“I do have a love for my wife,” he told AP. “I do have a love for my boys. I do have a love for the farm. I do have a love for the world of ideas and politics.”

What has also become clear over the past few days is that Sanford has decided – at least for now – to take his friends’ advice and try to repair his marriage. The friend whose words appear to echo loudest is Warren “Cubby” Culbertson.

The owner of a court reporting business, Culbertson, 51, is an influential Bible study leader and considered a pillar of the state capital’s Christian community. Sanford told him about the affair immediately after his wife discovered it in January, and Culbertson has been counseling the couple ever since – even holding a monthlong spiritual “boot camp” at the governor’s mansion.

Culbertson told the AP he believes that “everybody’s vulnerable, and there are no boundaries on darkness.” He does not dine alone with other women and keeps his office door open when he has a female visitor.

He says he has counseled many men “who have fallen in the position that Mark’s in.”

“Everybody starts with the same exact story: ‘We got to be friends. We started talking. I didn’t mean for anything to happen,’” he says. “That’s exactly where a sin begins.”

Many times during the past week, Sanford has quoted Culbertson and others almost verbatim in describing where things went astray.

“It was innocent,” he said of his first meeting on a beachside Uruguayan dance floor with Chapur. “That was the beginning of sin right there. … If you’re a married guy, at the end of the day, you shouldn’t be dancing with somebody else.”

Culbertson has advised Sanford to stay with his wife. If Sanford works diligently, he believes the couple can find an even “greater love” than they once had.

The Rev. Gary Chapman agrees.

A senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., Chapman has been a marriage counselor for 35 years. He has written several books, most notably “The Five Love Languages.”

Chapman says Sanford is in the throes of what he calls the “in-love experience.”

“It’s not that there is not emotion involved in love,” he says. “But the ‘in-love’ experience is super emotion. It’s very euphoric. It doesn’t take any effort. You’re just pushed along by your emotions.”

That high doesn’t last, Chapman warns. Rather than seek that high over and over, he counsels couples to stick with the commitment they’ve already made and learn how to “keep love alive.”

A faded love can be reborn, he says. But it takes time – and work.

“You don’t sit around waiting for the emotional love to come back.”

Gayle Haggard makes the remarks in an appearance with her husband on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to air Wednesday. She said she was shocked when Haggard first told her the truth about the allegations against him.

“The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Who are you?’” she said, according to a publicity release issued Tuesday by Harpo Productions.

However, Gayle Haggard also said her husband told her early in their 30-year marriage that he “struggled with some thoughts.”

“I felt it was the thing that could destroy Ted if he gave in to it,” she said. “So I prayed for him and I felt as though he was winning the battle.”

Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., after the male prostitute went public. Haggard confessed to “sexual immorality.”

The scandal widened in recent days with disclosures that Haggard also admitted to an “inappropriate” relationship with a church volunteer, Grant Haas, who was 22 at the time.

Haas told KRDO in Colorado Springs that Haggard performed a sex act in front of him and sent him illicit text messages. He informed New Life Church shortly after the scandal broke, and the two parties reached a settlement in 2007 that included a confidentiality agreement. Haas went public as Haggard is heavily promoting an HBO documentary about his time in exile.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Haggard did not rule out a return to public life or the pulpit. He spoke before he appeared before TV critics in Los Angeles to promote “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” an HBO documentary on Haggard’s exile after his confession to “sexual immorality” and fall as a top evangelical leader.

“I am guilty. I am responsible,” Haggard, 52, said Friday in a phone interview. “I got off track, and I am deeply sorry and I repent … I’m moving along in a positive direction.”

Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., in November 2006 amid allegations that he paid a male prostitute for sex and used methamphetamine.

In a written apology at the time, Haggard confessed to a long battle against feelings contrary to his beliefs and admitted buying the drugs but said he never used them.

During a guest sermon last November at a friend’s church in Illinois, Haggard said a co-worker of his father molested him when he was 7, an experience that “started to produce fruit” later. Clarifying that Friday, Haggard said: “I’m certainly not saying that because of that, I did this. I did what I did by my choice, and I’m responsible for it.”

Haggard said he isn’t qualified to judge what factors into one’s sexuality, but still believes it’s “God’s perfect plan” for marriage to be between a man and woman.

“I think sexuality is confusing and complex,” Haggard said. “I am totally completely satisfied with the relationship with my wife now, but I went through a wandering in the wilderness time, and I just thank God I’m on the other side of that.”

Asked whether he could define his sexual identity, Haggard said: “The stereotypical boxes don’t work for me. My story’s got some gray areas in it. And, of course, I’m sad about that but it’s the reality.”

At the time the film was shot in 2007, Haggard described still occasionally struggling with same-sex attraction. Asked Friday whether those attractions remain, Haggard did not say definitively but said he was “not anywhere near” where he was at that time.

In the documentary premiering Jan. 29, Haggard is shown shuffling from motel to motel, driving a moving truck, enrolling in a college psychology course, struggling as a door-to-door salesman and pondering his fate while laying in a motel bed in a white undershirt.

“At this stage in my life, I’m a loser – a first-class loser,” he says.

Now back living in Colorado Springs, Haggard said Friday he hopes to build his business selling insurance and debt-reduction software and is considering marketing himself through a speakers bureau to share his story – “if the terms were right. I have to earn a living.”

“If what I have is helpful to other people, then I want to make that available to them,” he said. “If it’s not, then I’m perfectly happy building my business.”

Haggard also plans to launch a nonprofit group to help the poor and needy, his Web site says. As for a return to pastoring a church, Haggard said: “I have learned enough to know a lot can happen to anybody. And when Jesus is our Lord, we can’t plan our path.”

The nature of Haggard’s return – and his harsh words in the film for his former church – is drawing criticism. Haggard is also is to tape an “Oprah Winfrey Show” appearance next week for an episode scheduled to air this month, a spokesman for the show confirmed Friday.

“If you’re going to come out and begin a new life, why would you choose an HBO documentary, then meet with the liberal Hollywood press?” said H.B. London, a former counselor to Haggard and an executive at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. “The fact that he’s attacking the church or New Life Church, when they did so much to help him and his family, is below the belt.”

Haggard lashes out at “the church” in the documentary, which was produced by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He said “the church has said go to hell” and “the church chose not to forgive me.”

Over a 14-month period ending Dec. 31, 2007, New Life Church paid the Haggard family $309,020 in salary and benefits, according to a church document obtained by The Associated Press.

The payout included $152,360 in salary for Ted Haggard, $62,177 in salary for his wife, Gayle, $26,426 for counseling, $11,168 for legal fees and $26,000 to help care for the couple’s special-needs son, who is in his early 20s.

Haggard on Friday said his family is grateful for the severance, but he was angry for being forced to leave Colorado Springs as one condition. He also challenged the church’s statement that he halted a process meant to restore him, saying he still receives counseling.

The church has since released Haggard from all restrictions, including a prohibition on speaking publicly, and both Haggard and church leadership say relations are positive.

Haggard’s successor at New Life, Brady Boyd, wrote in a blog post Friday that “the motives behind every decision” involving the Haggards were pure, and the church was generous in its severance and support. He would not respond to Haggard’s specific complaints.

In the AP interview, Haggard credited his therapists, whom he described as Christian believers who used secular therapy methods.

“I just thought a spiritual solution would be the solution to everything that’s internal,” Haggard said. “That turned out not to be the case.”

Of Mike Jones, his accuser, Haggard said: “I know he’s gone through a lot. When he said he had to say something, I believe it. And I think that was God encouraging him to do that.”

Jones said Friday he considers Haggard a salesman seeking attention for his business.

“I know he’s apologized to his church and family, blah, blah,” Jones said. “But the people he hurt is the gay community, and he’s never apologized to the gay community. He owes that.”

Haggard has said his childhood experiences, including same-sex “sex play” with friends when he was in the seventh grade, started to manifest themselves when he turned 50, a few months before the scandal. That conflicts with Jones’ statement that Haggard paid him for sex for three years. Haggard on Friday declined to discuss the discrepancy.

The Rev. Richard Cizik’s comments – made on a Dec. 2 “Fresh Air” broadcast on National Public Radio – triggered an uproar that led to his stepping down as NAE vice president of governmental affairs.

A fixture in Washington for nearly three decades, Cizik has played a key role in bringing evangelical Christian concerns to the political table. But in recent years, he earned enemies in the movement for pushing to broaden the evangelical agenda. His strongest focus was on “creation care,” arguing that evangelicals have a biblical responsibility to the environment that includes combatting global warming.

The Rev. Leith Anderson, a Minneapolis-area pastor who serves as NAE president, said Thursday the group is not backing away from its environmental stances. Cizik’s resignation was necessary, he said, because some of his answers in the radio interview did not reflect NAE values and convictions.

“Any organizations that speak to controversial issues are going to have critics,” Anderson said. “What was different this time was our individuals and organizations felt there was a loss of credibility for him clearly espousing our positions and values. When you lose that, it’s very difficult to re-establish.”

Cizik did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. The NAE said in a statement that Cizik had expressed regret, apologized and “affirmed our values.”

The NAE is an umbrella group for tens of thousands of churches and organizations.

Anderson said a “combination of things” Cizik said in the interview led to his downfall, including this comment on gay marriage: “I’m shifting, I have to admit. In other words, I would willingly say I believe in civil unions. I don’t officially support redefining marriage from its traditional definition, I don’t think.”

Coming off the passage last month of amendments barring gay marriage in three states, some evangelicals took that as a slap in the face, said David Neff, editor of Christianity Today magazine and a member of the NAE executive committee.

“He seemed to be abandoning the one thing where evangelical activists felt they had actually made a difference this time around,” Neff said.

Anderson said others were troubled that Cizik discussed nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy issue when he could have focused on religious freedom or human trafficking – issues he has championed.

Still others were disappointed Cizik volunteered that he voted for Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries, Anderson said. Cizik also hinted that he voted for Obama in November.

“I don’t want anybody to think, because I’m the lobbyist in chief for the National Association of Evangelicals, that because I voted one way or the other, I can’t represent their concerns,” Cizik said. “So, I believe I can. I happen to think in the primary it was the best choice. People disagreed.”

Anderson said the problem wasn’t necessarily that Cizik backed Obama, but that he answered the question at all as a representative of a group that remains neutral on candidates.

“He wishes he could do the interview again,” Anderson said. “I wish he could do the interview again. As we discussed it, he realized how difficult this would be and resignation was probably best for him and NAE.”

One of Cizik’s fiercest critics has been Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based evangelical group founded by James Dobson. Last year, Dobson and other Christian conservatives unsuccessfully pressured the NAE to silence Cizik about global warming.

“It was time for him to go,” Tom Minnery, a Focus on the Family senior vice president, said Thursday. “He no longer represents the view of evangelicalism. He has not represented those views for some time.”

More tradition-minded evangelical activists believe an environmental focus distracts attention from abortion and gay marriage, or they don’t believe in global warming or that human activity causes it.

The latest arrests came at Central Baptist College, in Conway, Ark.

Upon their arrival, Riders were met by President Terry Kimbrow, who informed Riders that they were not permitted onto campus and that they would be arrested for trespassing if they proceeded.

Riders began a vigil just outside CBC property but four Riders, who said they wanted to speak with students who had gathered on campus several yards from the vigil, entered onto college property and were arrested for trespassing.

They are identified as Lauren Parke of Seattle, Wash.; Alex Lundy of Syosset, N.Y.; and Katie Higgins and Enzi Tanner, both of Minneapolis, Minn.

They were released after formal charges were pressed.

“It is unfortunate that the school chose to deny us the opportunity to create dialogue on campus,” Lundy said after his release.

“We feel that the message of safety and inclusion for all students, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender is too important to be limited by property lines.”

Following the arrests, a number of students crossed out of the campus to speak directly with the Riders. They were later joined by students from nearby Hendrix College and by Arkansas residents Bob and Mary Lou Wallner, who are featured in the film “For the Bible Tells Me So.”

“I think it’s unfortunate that they intentionally went to jail to make a point,” said college president Kimbrow. “What they are espousing is opposed to our beliefs. That’s why I denied having them on campus.”

The Equality Ride plans to return to the campus on Friday, when the Baptist Missionary Association will be meeting at the college.

The Equality Riders are attempting to enter Christian colleges in the deep South to engage students in a discussion on gay inclusion. This is the third year of the “ride” and young members of the group are visiting 15 campuses.

Last month three Riders were arrested when they entered the campus of Southwestern Assemblies of God University in Waxahachie, Tex. Two others were charged when they walked onto the Mississippi College campus. Three Riders” were arrested at Heritage Christian University in Florence, Ala. And six members of the group were arrested when they attempted to enter the chapel at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla.

More than 200 U.S. colleges and universities have explicit policies that discriminate against LGBT students.

Since 2006, the Equality Ride has visited 50 schools, hosting public forums, participating in panel discussions, and taking part in worship services and Bible studies. The goal is to inspire further conversation and to empower students, faculty, and administrators to make their school welcoming to all students.

But the bus tour often has been met with opposition from schools, resulting in the arrests of some Soulforce members.

Two members of the group were arrested last year at the headquarters of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

Ten other riders were arrested on trespassing charges after they entered the Bethany Lutheran College campus in Mankato, Minn.

In 2006, 24 Soulforce demonstrators were arrested at a gay “die-in” at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Three others were arrested at Bob Jones University in South Carolina, other were arrested at Covenant College in Georgia, University of Cumberlands and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, 

Soulforce members also were arrested at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, West Point, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia which is affiliated with Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

The organizers of the Equality Ride said they use a collaborative approach, writing to college administrators months in advance and inviting them to work together to design programming that examines diverse points of view – including points of view that affirm gay and transgender students.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and his evangelical running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have done just that at times during the campaign, with repeated jabs at the “liberal media.”

One way to change this perception, some church leaders, social commentators and journalists say, is for mainstream news organizations to employ – and keep – more evangelicals in their newsrooms.

“Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges,” said Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. “While there’s been heavy gender and racial diversity … there’s a lack of cultural diversity in journalism,” including religion.

Since the 1980s, when the Christian right emerged as a powerful force in American culture and politics, evangelicals have made significant inroads in law and government by training believers to work inside secular institutions. But while the same universities that helped students launch careers in those fields are offering similar programs in journalism, they haven’t been as successful at changing the nation’s newsrooms.

“The media – journalism – remain one of the hardest fields for them to realize their power,” said D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of “Faith in the Halls of Power.”

Many evangelical journalists start out in secular news organizations but they soon join Christian media that offer an environment more accepting of their beliefs and more family-friendly than the long hours and low pay of secular journalism, said Robert Case II, director of the World Journalism Institute, which offers seminars for young evangelicals seeking work in secular media.

Martha Krienke, 26, who attended one of Case’s seminars in 2003, worked for two secular newspapers in Minnesota before she finally took a job as an editor at Brio, a magazine for young girls published by Focus on the Family.

At one paper, Krienke disagreed with the edit of an opinion piece about what Christmas meant to her.

“My editor wanted to change several paragraphs, and it totally changed the tone and message of my opinion,” she said. “Going through that situation just confirmed to me why I wanted to work for a Christian magazine.”

It’s unclear exactly how many evangelicals work in newsrooms, and federal laws against religious discrimination prevent news managers from asking about a job candidate’s beliefs. But the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported in 2007 that 8 percent of journalists surveyed at national media outlets said they attended church or synagogue weekly. The survey also found 29 percent never attend such services, with 39 percent reporting they go a few times a year.

Pew polling of the general public found 39 percent of Americans say they attend religious services weekly.

In seeking a greater voice in the media, most evangelical leaders say their goal isn’t to evangelize inside newsrooms, which demand that journalists set aside their beliefs for the sake of objectivity.

“They have to be journalists first,” Mattingly said. “You don’t need more Christian journalists. You need more journalists who happen to be Christians if they’re going to contribute to any real diversity in newsrooms.”

He also says evangelical journalists can bring a range of contacts to the table and can draw on their knowledge to help explain and shape religion coverage.

Case’s primary concern is that evangelicals are frequently portrayed in the media as a monolithic bloc, when in fact they are diverse politically, intellectually and theologically.

“It bothers me that when mainstream outlets want an evangelical voice, they’ve turned to Jerry Falwell or James Dobson or Pat Robertson,” he said. “They are men of high regard and standing, but there are others who have a different take on things.”

Scott Bosley, executive director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, doesn’t believe there has been a bias against evangelicals in hiring or in the workplace, and that it’s common for groups to feel underrepresented in newsrooms.

“I don’t think the sole measures of the effectiveness or success of newsrooms in reflecting their communities depends on having precise quotas of folks representing all different ideologies, be they Christian or not,” he said. “We have a lot of generalists in newsrooms and they tend to have to learn about a lot of things.”

Religious scholars estimate there are nearly two dozen evangelical colleges in the U.S. that offer either journalism degrees or classes. And the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, holds an annual conference in which students get career advice from Christians working in U.S. media outlets.

The Rev. Pat Robertson, the well-known evangelical leader who is founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, even considered buying The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va., to give students at his Regent University opportunities for internships. But he later abandoned the plan because of newspapers’ overall financial decline.

Still, “journalism is important and it’s one of the areas in society I think our graduates should play a role in,” Robertson said. “I think the idea of transforming the culture, of having Christians involved as salt and light in every area of endeavor, is an important thing.”

But Cameron Strang, the 32-year-old editor of edgy and hip Relevant Magazine, had second thoughts and pulled out of delivering the benediction on the convention’s first night, Monday. Citing fears that his bridge-building gesture would be wrongly construed as an endorsement, Strang said he instead hopes to take a lower-profile role, participating in a convention caucus meeting on religion later in the week.

“Through Relevant, I reach a demographic that has strong faith, morals and passion, but disagreements politically,” Strang wrote on his blog. “It wouldn’t be wise for me to be seen as picking a political side when I’ve consistently said both sides are right in some areas and wrong in some areas.”

Little known to outsiders, the Strang name carries weight with evangelicals, especially in the fast-growing charismatic and Pentecostal branches. Cameron’s father, Steven, who like his son is based in the Orlando, Fla., area, founded a magazine, Charisma, that spawned a publishing empire. The elder Strang has endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has aggressively courted the young evangelical vote, and the younger Strang has been part of it. He was on the guest list when religious leaders met with Obama in June in Chicago, consulted the campaign on Christian issues and interviewed Obama for his magazine, which claims a print circulation of 80,000 and 450,000 unique Web site visitors per month.

Yet Strang’s reticence to play such a high-profile role shows such relationships are a work in progress: While Democratic leaders are reaching out to more diverse religious groups, many younger evangelicals are striving for political independence and common ground without compromising on core issues like abortion.

The convention’s schedule is studded with faith-themed events, including the first interfaith gathering to open a Democratic convention. Those delivering invocations and benedictions during the four-night convention include a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Catholic nun, a rabbi from Judaism’s Reform tradition and Joel Hunter, a Republican and Florida megachurch pastor who has made the environment a signature issue.

In his blog post, Strang wrote that he initially accepted the benediction invitation, in part, so he could pray in a forum where faith isn’t typically emphasized. He also wanted to provide tangible evidence that “this generation of values voters doesn’t necessarily need to draw political battle lines the way previous generations have, and that we can work through areas of disagreement toward common goals.”

Those goals range from fighting poverty, torture and genocide to protecting the environment and reducing the number of abortions, he wrote. Strang calls himself a pro-life Republican.

Learning later that he was to speak on the main stage on opening night gave him “serious pause.” Strang said Obama representatives understood his decision, and he wants to keep his good relationship with them.

Asked whether he got any pressure to reduce his role, Strang said Thursday he got a few e-mails, but it was a personal decision.

Obama campaign and convention committee officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Democratic officials have emphasized their faith outreach work is meant to recognize the nation’s religious diversity and unite the religious and nonreligious around shared values.

Strang found a different young evangelical to take his place delivering the closing prayer on Monday night: Donald Miller, author of the popular spiritual memoir “Blue Like Jazz.”

Strang’s soul-searching prompted one other change: He switched his political affiliation to independent this week.

As for his presidential preference, Strang said he still hasn’t decided.