Ash Wednesday Flashback: Turner Mocks Christian CNN Employees

February 6th, 2008 5:36 PM

Something from what I like to call the forgive but never forget file. From the MRC.org CyberAlert archives, March 7, 2001:

Ted Turner insulted attendees at Bernard Shaw’s retirement party, asking those on Ash Wednesday with a smudge on their foreheads if they were "a bunch of Jesus freaks," FNC’s Brit Hume reported Tuesday night.

Hume revealed during his "Grapevine" segment on Special Report with Brit Hume:

CNN founder Ted Turner, in town last week for a retirement party for anchor Bernard Shaw, left the staff stunned after meeting with them at the network’s Washington bureau. It was Ash Wednesday and a number of those present still had a smudge on their forehead. ‘What are you?’ asked Turner, ‘a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.’ Turner, it may be remembered, stirred controversy a decade ago when he said Christianity is, quote, ‘for losers.’ He apologized for that, but as recently as last August criticized Christianity for being, quote, ‘very intolerant.’

Sounds like he’s the intolerant one.