Tucker Carlson loves a good debate.
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As television host of several political talk shows, including "Crossfire," he has honed his skill for wide-ranging discussions.
Yet for Carlson, who was baptized as an Episcopalian but didn't attend church growing up, the question of God's existence was settled with two words.
As a high school junior, Carlson was reading, "Wishful Thinking," a book by author and minister Frederick Buechner, when he said he heard a voice.
"I was reading this book and all of a sudden, God just spoke out loud to me, in my room, totally randomly, out of the blue and said, 'I exist.' So I took him at his word. And that was it," Carlson said.
The MSNBC correspondent's account of his spiritual awakening was one aspect of a far-ranging discussion he led Monday night at Theology on Tap, a monthly program of theological dialogues sponsored by St. James Episcopal Church.
Carlson, whose wife lived in Lancaster County as a young child, is family friends with a local couple who asked him to speak here.
In the hour-and-a-half-long session, Carlson entertained the audience on the second floor of Annie Bailey's with an insider's view of the mainstream media, complete with some funny stories about politicians, including one about Hillary Clinton winning over a voter by returning a middle-finger salute.
The vote was from Carlson's television producer, a huge hockey fan whose hatred of Clinton manifested itself when he spotted her in her vehicle outside a campaign event and gave her the finger.
"She dropped her cell phone, flipped him the bird, and as she did, she smiled," said Carlson, recalling an act that immediately won the producer's admiration and his vote.
Carlson said the anecdote illustrates that Clinton is "the toughest human being in the world" and exactly the right person for secretary of state — an appointment he said is a major a credit to President-elect Barack Obama.
"He really doesn't like Hillary Clinton and he appointed her anyway. He's an adult," Carlson said.
Carlson, who describes himself as a libertarian, didn't vote for Obama but says the president-elect has a lot of things going for him.
"His tone is not annoying, and that is no small thing, that is a big thing," Carlson said.
Yet, Carlson criticized Obama for not doing enough to temper the zeal of some of his most ardent followers, who he says are headed for a letdown.
"The expectations are unsustainable. When he is inaugurated in two and a half weeks and the lame don't walk and the blind don't see, there's going to be some gravely disappointed Starbucks baristas out there," Carlson said.
The mania for Obama's candidacy even extended to the media, signaling for Carlson that the long-standing journalistic ideal of objectivity was being abandoned.
"The love the press felt for Barack Obama is like the love that you really have to be a 14-year-old boy to understand," Carlson said.
For example, on Election Night, several news correspondents wept openly with joy at Obama's win and were given kudos by their editors for their honest reaction. But imagine, Carlson said, what would have happened to a reporter who had wept for joy in 2000 at the election of George W. Bush.
"He would be canned, union rules or not, he'd be gone," Carlson answered.
"The problem is that when the press abandons the pretense of objectivity, when we don't even try anymore, we convey to our viewers and our readers that there is no objectivity," Carlson said.
Also, when the media buy into a single storyline about Obama's candidacy, or other important issues, people lose the chance to be convinced by opposing viewpoints and gain some wisdom, Carlson said.
"If you're over 10, you know that the growing moments in your life are almost invariably when someone said 'That's stupid, what you're saying is not right, here's the right thing,'" Carlson said.
Staff writer Chad Umble can be reached at cumble@LNPnews.com or 481-6031.
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