News

Todd Bentley Fires Blanks in Texas

Kevin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:57:41 -0500

By Danny Gallagher

DENTON, Tex.--The University of North Texas "Super Pit" indoor stadium is packed to the nosebleed seats with people hoping to see a knee to the stomach, a poke check to the ribs, or the classic swift kick to the cojones–because they all know that mega-evangelist demon stomper Todd Bentley is IN THE HOUSE for one night only.

Loving Harry

John Bloom — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:54:23 -0500

Harry Guetzlaff–the puckish Managing Editor of The Wittenburg Door, who died Sunday morning–spent his whole life searching for unconditional love. He was a romantic in the old-fashioned sense.

Benny Gets an A, Kenny Gets an F

John Bloom — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 21:05:30 -0500

The big surprise from the Grassley Six progress report yesterday was that Benny Hinn–not known as the most transparent guy in the world--decided to step up and give the senator what he wanted.

Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, released an extensive statement revealing, among other things, that he had never heard of the “prosperity gospel” until he started this oversight investigation last November

Joe Bob Parties With the Atheists

Joe Bob Briggs — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:02:08 -0500

The biggest security guard I’ve ever seen in my life–this guy could work for Blackwater, and he’s got the coiled listening device spilling out of his left ear to prove it–has parked his burly self squarely in front of me, making it clear that I’d best slink back against the wall while the Rock Star of Atheism makes her entrance and a hundred entranced admirers take a collective breath, not quite believing they’re in her presence.

Why Benny Hinn Became Our Wacky Neighbor

John Bloom — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:27:51 -0500

If you drive west from Dallas, through the neo-moderne lunarscape of a pod city called Las Colinas, past a massive international airport on a denuded prairie, into the warren of faceless office buildings that make up cosmopolitan Grapevine, you'll never find Benny Hinn.

He wants it that way. The nerve center of his worldwide organization is tucked away in a group of cheap white nondescript buildings that look like the kind of domiciles favored by Mafia fronts on the wharves of New Jersey. Inside, several dozen employees process an estimated $100 million per year in donations from people who believe in Hinn as a sort of Elmer Gantry for the 21st century. (Obviously they didn't read the novel.)

Now go the other way, into the cul-de-sacs and barrios of deep East Dallas. On a dead end street next to a nursing home, in an expansive two-story house once owned by the Dallas mob, the Trinity Foundation works 24/7 trying to find out just how much money passes through Grapevine, where it comes from and where it goes, running undercover operations, infiltrations, spying, surveillance, the cultivation of disgruntled ex-employees, and even going through Benny Hinn's garbage in an effort to . . . well . . . to make him prove he's not a fraud.

Jeremiah Overboard

John Bloom — Thu, 1 May 2008 10:17:10 -0500

Did I just see what I think I saw?

Did the media tell Barack Obama, “If you’ll denounce and disavow your pastor, we’ll let you continue running for President”?

I have two questions, one for the press, one for Obama.

First the press:

What happened to the Mitt Romney Agreement?

Jeremiah Wright 1, Sound Bite 0

Kevin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:34 -0500

Since when do you have “amens” at the National Press Club? Apparently when Jeremiah Wright is the speaker!

I once knew a city editor in Philadelphia who would say “amen” to a dry Rob Roy at 2 in the afternoon, which is the closest anyone ever came to exuberance in the newsrooms of my youth. But anybody who watched any cable this past weekend could be forgiven for thinking that Rupert Murdoch just launched a new Jeremiah Wright Channel,

Stein Nukes Dawkins, Then Freaks Out

Kevin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:24:57 -0500

By Heidi Martinuzzi

Richard Dawkins is going to be very sorry today. There's a moment in Ben Stein's new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed that the revered biologist is not going to like at all.

Internet Criminals Make Garrison Winner of March Indulgence Awards

Michael — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 22:37:34 -0500

By John Bloom

One way we can tell that a Door article is really really popular is that people steal it, filch it, grab it, download it, and post it all over the Internet, sometimes giving us credit, sometimes treating us like The Wittenburg Doormat,

Larry Norman: The Original Jesus Rocker Goes to Jesus

Michael — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:29:32 -0600

Much of the world scarcely noticed when Larry Norman passed away last Sunday at 2:45 a.m., but thousands of music makers, both Christian and non-, mourned and wept.