Wing Nut Of The Week: A Lot About Blood

You know, I hate to keep picking on the evangelical Christians, but man, they sure do make it easy.

"[Evangelicals] are pro-free market, they're pro-private property. That's what evangelical stands for. I want the church to help me live life well, not exhaust me with endless 'worthwhile' projects."

That's New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard, as quoted by Harper's Magazine last May. Harper's goes on to explain that by worthwhile projects, "Ted means building funds and soup kitchens alike. It's not that he opposes these; it's just that he is sick of hearing about them and believes that other Christians are, too. He knows that for Christianity to prosper in the free market, it needs more than 'moral values' - it needs customer value."

Ah yes, customer value. It's why we now have megachurches with Krispy Kreme franchises inside them, sermons about how to invest your money, and Pastor Ted's very own Jerusalem Diet, which I guess is meant to help Evangelicals rich on the free market slim down just enough to squeeze through the eye of a needle.

Unfortunately, Ted's own web page is pretty damn vague about what The Jerusalem Diet is, so I had to go to the linked message board, where I gathered that it involves eating a lot of nuts and seeds. You know, just like they did in Bible times. Also, it makes people crap themselves. It also seems that Pastor Ted's message board could use a better spam filter.

When he's not writing diet books and eschewing community service, Ted likes to debate scientists and chat with President Bush (he speaks with either the President or one of his advisors every Monday). What do they talk about? Partial-birth abortion, gay marriage. Probably the Iraq War, which he wholeheartedly supports.

"My fear," he told Harper's, "is that my children will grow up in an Islamic state."

"'I teach a strong ideology of the use of power,' he says, 'of military might, as a public service.' He is for preemptive war, because he believes the Bible's exhortations against sin set for us a preemptive paradigm, and he is for ferocious war, because 'the Bible's bloody. There's a lot about blood.'"

So there you have it folks. The Bible is literal -- the world is 2,000 years old, dinosaurs lived alongside humans, gays are evil -- but "thou shall not kill" has to be understood in context. The Bible is bloody, people! There's a lot about blood in there!

Congratulations, Ted, you're our Wing Nut Of The Week. Your WNOTW plaque and coffee mug, along with a "You Can't Make a Monkey Out of Me" tee shirt, are in the mail.