At the Salt Lake Tribune, “Focus pulls interview over Beck’s Mormon faith.” What a fine exhibition of the Christmas spirit of togetherness, tolerance, and good will. What was pulled was an interview with Beck about his recent book, The Christmas Sweater. It seems Focus on the Family readers were not adequately warned that Beck is a Mormon. Imagine, without a warning some of those folks might have actually touched a copy of Beck’s book and picked up Mormon germs! Please, someone explain to me why Evangelicals, as a collective body, so often display all the maturity of an 8-year-old when it comes to dealing with other people and other religions.

Here’s a statement from Beck’s website responding to the decision:

The Christmas Sweater is a story about the idea of Christmas as a time for redemption and atonement. Whatever your beliefs about my religion, the concept of religious tolerance is too important to be sacrificed in response to pressure from special interest groups, especially when it means bowing to censorship. I’m humbled and grateful that hundreds of thousands of people from different faiths have read the book and have appreciated its uplifting message for themselves. At a time when the world is so full of fear, despair, and divisions, it is my hope that all of those who believe in a loving and peaceful God would stand together on the universal message of hope and forgiveness.