This piece surprised me, because it isn’t something I’d expect to see. But here it is.

Baptist bloggers have finally begun writing about the war between Israel and Hezbollah after weeks of blogging about Baptists and alcohol, the election of a new Southern Baptist Convention president and a host of personal esoteric issues.

They write with a much different tone than the outspoken fundamentalist preachers, one of whom said on Sunday that a war against Israel is a war against God.

Ergun Caner, president of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Theological Seminary, said the fighting in the Middle East was “a war against the God of Israel.” Caner accused evangelical Christians who did not support the Jews as beings “as bad as those who persecute them.”

Jerry Falwell accused Iran of starting the war and rhetorically asked, “So why should we harass Israel for defending their citizens?”

Other Baptists criticized both the governments of Israel and the United States.