Somehow I missed this...

.... And it's a three-month old story. And as Michael points out, Jerry Falwell being a total hatemongering prick isn't exactly news...

Falwell's comment came on "CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" in a debate with Baptist minister Jesse Jackson, who called the Iraq war "a misadventure" that isolated the United States politically and cost the country lives, money and "our character."

Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchnurg, Va., responded: "I'd rather be killing them over there than fighting them over here, Jesse. And I think you would. ..."

"Let's stop the killing and choose peace," Jackson responded. "Let's choose negotiation over confrontation."

"Well, I'm for that too," Falwell added. "But you've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

But I found it heartening that Falwell's coreligionists jumped all over him for it:

David Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, said he was "dumbfounded" by Falwell's comments.

"I could not believe what I was hearing from a Christian minister," said Currie, who holds a doctorate in Christian ethics from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Currie agreed with Gushee that the United States should hunt down terrorists, killing them if necessary to prevent further acts of terrorism.

"But Jerry Falwell is absolutely wrong in his theology and his politics to claim such actions should be done 'in the name of Lord,' that is, Jesus Christ," he said. "Jerry Falwell's remarks defame Christianity, my faith and the faith of most Americans. ...

"The message of Christianity is not war, hatred or murder. It is love, unconditional love. That is the nature of God. The war on terror is not a war between Christians and Muslims. It is a war between those who want peace in the world and those who want to destroy peace. To imply God has a side, other than peace, is poor theology.

"It defames Christianity to imply God and the United States of America have some kind of special relationship. It defames the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross for every person, regardless of race, nationality, sex or religion. It defames Christianity to use the name of God as a motivation to kill others. It defames Christianity to imply Christians--who are only saved because they admit their sinfulness and need of a savior--are morally superior to persons of other faiths."

and

Glen Stassen, professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., went further. Stassen, co-author with Gushee of "Kingdom Ethics," advocated "just peacemaking" as an alternative to war.

"Falwell's strategy was adopted by Russia against the Muslim terrorists in Chechnya, and it only increases the anger and the recruits to terrorism and the killing, as in North Ossetia," he said, referring to the recent massacre at a Russian school.

"Turkey instead used just peacemaking practices with its Muslim terrorists among the Kurds, and the Kurdish terrorism is completely ended," Stassen said. "They are not killing 'here' or 'there.'"

I also found it interesting that this story appeared in a Baptist newspaper and website... in Texas.