Benny and the Gits

Back in the '80s, when I still watched TV, I used to tune in to the televangelists for entertainment. Remember, this was when Jim and Tammy Faye and Jimmy Swaggart were still in the line-up. It was about the best thing on TV in the '80s after they took off "A Team." I particularly liked Kenneth Copeland, and though I am irreligious, I do love a good sermon, and he could bring it. That's what I call preaching. Especially compared to the wooden and soulless delivery of D. James Kennedy.

Benny Hinn I barely remember. He didn't make much of an impression on me as a preacher, but he was good at knocking people down with the Spirit. When he knocked 'em down, they stayed down.

That and the hair. And the name. Which always sounded to me like he was going to call himself "Benny Hill" and bit it off at the last minute because he remembered that one already was taken. "I'm Benny Hi- ... nnnnnh."

So those two people got cross-wired in my head, and when I read about Benny Hinn, there's some sort of radio station interference from Benny Hill. Like, unconsciously I expect the televangelist's weekly program opens with Henry McGee (moment of silence) shouting, "Yes! It's The Benny Hinn Show!"

So when I heard Chuck Grassley was prying into the passbooks of televangelists, I got this image of Hinn running around the English countryside in fast motion, pursued by a pack of IRS auditors, while "Yakety Sax" plays.

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