No obituary this week can do full justice to Dr. Gene Scott, the most contrarian Christian ever to have his own TV show. His hometown papers, the Los Angeles Times and the Pasadena Star-News, cover the wildest highlights. NPR offered an interview with religion scholar Richard Parker of Harvard University, who spoke for many observers of American religion when he said, more than once, how much he will miss Scott's presence.
I consider it poignant that Scott and Hunter Thompson have died in the same week. Though I was never as spellbound by Thompson's writing as by Scott's performance-art preaching, I sensed more than a few common threads in these two men's lives (with apologies to Entertainment Weekly):
| Hunter Thompson | Gene Scott | |
| Communication style | Discursive and self-obsessed | Discursive and obsessive |
| Favored anesthetic | Chivas Regal | Various wines |
| Preferred smoke | Cigarettes (in a holder) | Cigars |
| Parodied by | Doonesbury | Saturday Night Live |
| Security | Shotguns | Hired guns |
| Nemesis | George W. Bush | The FCC |
| A good neighbor? | If you like shotgun golf | If he liked your cause |