schadenfreude is the new prayer

It is very un-Christian of me to be so damn gleeful about Ted Haggard, the (former!) head pastor of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitting that he purchased meth (but didn't use it!) and solicitied a gay male prostitute. But whoops, don't get too gleeful, because now Haggard is saying that he solicited a gay male prostitute for a MASSAGE. After all, it's written in the Bible:

"And Jesus did sayeth unto his disciples, 'thou shalt have none of thy fairy bretheren anoint thine junk, nor shalt thou anointeth theirs, but thine shoulders be sore from tilling thy fields for mine glory, a rubdown is totally okay.'" Luke 6:9

This guy happens to be a "character" in the movie Jesus Camp, which I saw last weekend at E Street Cinema and has been sticking with me since. The kids in this movie are really great-- obviously very passionate and incredibly well-spoken for such young people. They are clearly smart enough to handle a complex and ambiguous world, which made it all the more painful to watch them being molded to see only black and white, good and evil, heaven and hell.

Reverend Ted came on at the very end of the movie, just in time to yell at the camera operator as they filmed him preaching in his (former!) church in Colorado Springs. That smarmy grin of his was practically demonic as he preached just the most vile, incindiary hate speech at this really great boy who gazed at him with wonder and awe. Knowing that scum like that-- someone who gleefully brags about shaping a "Christian army to take back America" and who takes obvious pride in brainwashing children to hate-- has the ear of the President while good people work for worthy causes and face the derision of the White House every day made my blood boil.

Or rather, I should say "had the ear of the President." Something tells me that from now on Dubya will be too busy on Mondays to meet with his favorite Evangelical Hypocrite.