27% of Pastors Believe Glenn Beck is Christian

A national telephone survey of pastors conducted between October 7-14 reveals that 27% of pastors believe Glenn Beck to be Christian. Glenn shouldn't feel too bad. He did nearly ten points better than the antichrist herself, Oprah (19%).

There are a few ways to read this conclusion, most of them make me laugh. There is the odd chance that pastors don't know of Beck's religion. He doesn't bring up his Mormonism (unless you count his Skousen conspiracy fetish) every show. But I thought it was pretty common knowledge that he was LDS.

Assuming that people generally know of his faith, there are two readings of the data. First, there's a good chance that doctrinaire evangelicals refuse to admit that a man who proclaims to be Christian is Christian because he doesn't believe in an extra-biblical interpretation of God. Second, there is the chance that his ranting and raving, and willingness to compare anyone to the left of Rand Paul with Hitler or accuse them of anti-semitism (even if they are Jewish) has lead people to believe he could not be a true follower of Christ.

I'm going to guess they are the former more than the latter. But either way amuses me.