Faith and punditry

Ted Haggard, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals has criticized Pat Robertson's comments, although saying they were overblown. Below is a part of a post from CT.

I am confused as to how Haggard can offer a pseudo-justification for Robertson's remarks by saying he wasn't speaking in the portion of the show that was focused on "Christian exhortation" but in "another section where he's a political pundit." Hasn't it been people such as Haggard and Robertson who have been saying you can't compartmentalize your faith, including in politics?

Haggard was scheduled to travel to Venezuela to offer an apology on behalf of evangelicals. By the way, is anyone surprised that Jesse Jackson is going to travel to Venezuela to meet with the dictator? I'm so glad we have him to heal our land - and the land of others. Perhaps Jackson and Haggard will have an opportunity to chat.

On CNN yesterday, Haggard criticized the remarks, but said the criticism was overblown:

I think you have to understand the context of it. You know his program has one section of it that's a Christian exhortation, and then another section where he's a political pundit. And I think what he was saying was, we have a looming problem down south, and there are several bad options there. And he's saying maybe the least of the bad options is to do something about the dictator. …

The First Amendment is wonderful. People have free speech privileges. He wasn't writing a memo to the White House recommending a public policy decision. He was not recommending something to the State Department. He was not exposing himself sexually on the platform the way Janet Jackson did. Instead, he was having a political discussion, where they were randomly working with some ideas. For Jesse Jackson [who called for the FCC to investigate the remarks] to exaggerate it this way is just as appalling as what Pat Robertson said, I think. … We're addressing it, we're not taking it lightly. Nobody is taking it seriously as a policy issue. So the system is working. Everything is fine. Nobody's going to assassinate this man. But we do realize he is a major problem. … Pat Robertson was wrong in recommending this. He was wrong in saying it. But he was not wrong in being able to just openly discuss it the way political pundits do all the time. Now, if you take his words as from a religious Christian leader, as a recommendation, then we have a problem. But I don't think that's what he did.