"Pastor Ted"

Meet Pastor Ted Haggard:

One of the nation's most influential conservative Christian leaders, the Rev. Ted Haggard, said today he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a self-described male escort. But Haggard denied allegations by the man that he ever used the drug or had sex with him.Haggard, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, resigned yesterday as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as leader of his Colorado mega-church. The association and church are investigating allegations by the male escort, Mike Jones, that he had a three-year relationship with Haggard.

And why I don't feel that sorry for him:

When I walked in, an hour late, they were talking about Christian film criticism—whether such a thing could, or should, exist. Then they talked about the tsunami and wondered with concern whether any of the city's preachers would try to score points off it. When I mentioned that Pastor Ted already had, they cringed. I told them that at the previous Sunday's full-immersion baptism service, Pastor Ted had noted that the waves hit the “number-one exporter of radical Islam,” Indonesia. “That's not a judgment,” he'd announced. “It's an opportunity.” I told them of similar analyses from Pastor Ted's congregation: one man said that he wished he could “get in there” among the survivors, since their souls were “ripe,” and another told me he was “psyched” about what God was “doing with His ocean.”

That pretty well sums up the white, nationalistic/jingoistic, fundamentalist, anti-science and intolerant form of Christianity that passes for "evangelism" these days, and why I can't move my heart to feel any pity for a man brought low by his own hipocrisy, or for his followers, upon whom the moral lesson will be mostly lost, I'm sure.