That Fox & Friends has become a bizarre hybrid of the National Enquirer and the 700 Club was made manifest yesterday when Fox bubble headed bleach blonde, Ainsley Earhardt credulously interviewed a Christian pastor who believes that he died in an auto accident, went to heaven, and returned to tell the tale on Fox & Friends. But this wasn't the first time that magical mystery tourists were warmly embraced on Fox & Friends. In 2010, Gretchen Carlson interviewed an 11 year old who went to Christian heaven and met Jesus. After Newtown, she wept while another returnee spoke of his experience. In April, Gretch spoke to a celestial voyager who could smell God. Tuesday, Steve Doocy showcased a Christian boy who not only had angelic visitors during his cancer treatment but was cured of his cancer by Jesus. Never mind tabloids and religious broadcasting. Fox & Friends is rapidly becoming its SNL caricature.
Earhardt is just bursting with the love of Jesus. In September, she provided Christian fellowship for some Texas Christian cheerleaders whose Christian banners, unfurled at public high school football games, were the source of some community complaints. And yesterday, she was positively awestruck about a Texas pastor's voyage, as described on the visual backdrop, "to heaven and back."
She introduced her piece as a "great story" about a pastor who claims that he was killed in a 1989 car accident but returned to the land of the living after 90 minutes elapsed. But during that time, he just wasn't floating around in the ether. His time was taken up with a short visit to heaven. Earhardt noted that this experience is detailed in the pastor's new book, "90 Minutes to Heaven." Earhardt couldn't contain her joy as she asked the Don Piper to describe his experience. Earhardt recounted how, when another pastor prayed over him while singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," Piper woke up. She asked him to describe what he saw in heaven. The chyron presented, as Fox fact, that this is a "Magnificent Memory, Pastor Recalls Visions from Heaven."
Piper depicted heaven as having twelve gates which, as he noted, is the description found in the Christian book of Revelation. Pastor was either in heaven or doing some really powerful LSD because the gate he stood in was like the inside of an oyster shell complete with pearl walls. He said that he saw his close friends and relatives who had preceded him in death. Ainsley grinned as she recalled that he had seen his grandfather who "looked beautiful."
Piper's wife then spoke about how Don didn't tell her about the experience until a year later. At that time he was experiencing some depression which, according to the wife, was due to the difficulty of adjusting to his demotion back to earthly status. The Chyron: "Strength in Spirtuality, Wife Looked to God During Recovery." Earhardt described Piper's book as "mesmerizing."
Fox & Friends' high ratings truly underscore how ratings don't necessarily comport with the quality of the material. Rather, it is an indictment of the quality of the viewers who appear to be those whom PT Barnum described as being born every minute!
And BTW, if a Muslim wrote a book about going to Paradise and meeting Mohammed, do ya think Fox & Friends would be so, uh, fawning?
