Name your top current media evangelists/preachers.
Joel Olsteen, certainly one of the top ones. Rick Warren, although he doesn't use television, he's near the top. I would suggest T.D. Jakes of Fort Worth. He's used the media quite well. Also, Charles Stanley of Atlanta, Georgia.
Your opinion of Jimmy Swaggart.
I would put the word, charlatan, by him. I'm not saying that even charlatans cannot — you know a broken clock is right twice a day. Even charlatans can be right. There's a great passage in scripture, Phillipians, Chapter One, where the Apostle Paul rejoiced when Christ was preached, even if he was preached "in pretense". In other words, if the preacher didn't mean it, at least the message gets out. So to the extent that Swaggart preached anything from the scripture ... but his obvious flaws. I mean, he should have gone away, and hid his head and never come back after he did what he did. Especially because he was part of the process of bringing down others, and judge not that ye should be judged, with everything that was going on in his life. I would say charlatan. He was a man of great flaws. I think he rationalized his own sin and it was all about him.
Do you attempt to separate politics and religion in the pulpit?
I do actually write a lot about politics. I'm a columnist for Townhall.com. I write on that. I make an absolute conscious effort, people know where I stand as a citizen, to the extent that my name is associated with my church. But I would say that even though I come down as a conservative Republican, 30 per cent of my congregation is Democrat. I have a culturally diverse congregation. So yeah, I separate it. I talk about issues when they need to be talked about. Especially if they are issues that have a biblical connection, the most important would be the pro-life issue which I'm very strong on. Our church is one of the few that celebrate both the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday and Martin Luther King Day at the same time, because most churches do one or the other. We put them together and I see them as a natural affinity. The Washington Post picked it up and did a piece about that. I try to separate out partisan politics. People know where I stand from my writing and my blog. But I don't campaign. If someone comes in our parking lot and puts flyers on cars, our ushers rip them off and I write an angry letter to the campaign. People are shocked and say, "Aren't you conservative?" Yeah, but this is a church. Our job is the gospel, not that stuff.
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