Jay Bakker

Substitute hosting on HLN's The Joy Behar Show, on Tuesday, CNN's Don Lemon prodded Jay Bakker, the son of televangelist Jim Bakker, to accuse Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann of exploiting fears of Christians as he claimed that the GOP presidential hopefuls were: "playing to a group of people who deal a lot with fear and using fear to control folks."

The dismissive Bakker then asserted: "I feel like they've kind of hijacked Christianity," and added that he thinks the Perrys and Bachmanns were advancing "fairy tales" that global warming doesn't exist and claimed they wanted to "ignore" science.

(video after the jump)

Rebellious son of infamous 1980s televangelists returns (sort of) to the faith of his parents, pastors a church, but now takes a decidedly liberal tack on the Christian faith.

That's certainly a compelling story for a secular magazine to cover, especially in this Lenten season.

But with her March 15-published  interview with Jay Bakker, a self-styled "evangelical punk preacher," Time religion writer Amy Sullivan failed to critically evaluate Bakker's claims or present challenges to Bakker's theology from within the mainstream of orthodox Christian thought.

Indeed,Sullivan seems to sympathize with if not outright agree with Bakker's take on how Scripture can justify his stand on homosexuality (bolded sections are Sullivan's questions, unbolded are Bakker's responses):