Who knew?

Steven Baldwin is an actor who defines himself as an evangelist., and is happy to permit others, including the White House to define him that way also. Salon magazine has an interesting article about his qualifications, his following, his friends.

To plenty of passersby strolling on the mall that day, Baldwin’s nouveau Bible-thumping to the kids and parents gathered before him may have seemed like a desperate attempt by a B-list movie star to attract an audience. But, in fact, Baldwin’s youth ministry has gathered tens of thousands of decision cards — and faith-professing e-mails — in the past couple of years. These days, Baldwin not only has the ear of young boys who cleave to his fundamentalist reading of the Bible, and whatever skein of celebrity still clings to his Jesus T-shirts. He has been named a cultural advisor to President Bush, a formidable follow-up to his invitation to speak at the Republican National Convention, where he announced proudly from the podium, “I’m here because of my faith.”

When Baldwin isn’t collecting names, he is doing events with his friend Ryan Dobson.

This is worth the read,  it’s well written, and a good glimpse into the moneyed world of ‘Christian’ celebrity.

It’s same old, same old. In the 1980’s the height of christian glitz was ‘ministries’ like the PTL club. Tammy and Jim Bakker’s son Jay Bakker is also a celebrity Christian now, with a book under his belt, and working in New York. He has a  six part documentary coming out October 18th, called ”One Punk Under God, “and a budget a lot of businesses would envy.