Lengthy Jail Term Really Brings Out Ol’ Time Religion

Let me be first to holler hallelujah at James Barstad’s conversion to Christianity.

Yes sir, there’s nothing like the prospect of growing aged inside four drab prison walls to give a fella one righteous dose of that ol’ time religion.

Do I hear an “amen” out there?

Brother Barstool, who snuffed out two unsuspecting souls last Memorial Day weekend, was in a Spokane courtroom the other day to receive 50 years - the stiffest drunken-driving sentence ever.

But before Superior Court Judge Thomas Merryman performed this refreshing judicial slam-dunkectomy, Barstad was allowed to spew Bible verses and proclaim his newfound faith with the screechy zealousness of an Old Testament prophet.

The Rev. Jimmy’s rap, however, came off sounding as self-interested as a call for bucks by a televangelist flim-flammer.

In between Scripture passages, Barstad said he feared becoming a victim of “those seeking revenge rather than justice.”

Victim?

Time for a Bible lesson, Jimbo.

The Good Savior didn’t wipe out two lives at Mission and Hamilton. He was blameless and yet they nailed him to a cross.

Now that’s injustice.

Barstad, however, is guilty as original sin.

Like a drunk firing a pistol into a crowd, he got tanked out of his gourd and then gunned his macho truckster through the intersection with disregard to any humans in his way.

He slaughtered Julie Allen, a 14-year-old North Pines Junior High student on her way home with her mom, who was critically injured in the crash.

He slaughtered Karen Sederholm, a 26-year-old woman who handled lost-baggage claims for Southwest Airlines.

For this heinous act he got 50 years.

Barstad should stop complaining and count his blessings. His sentence is still so much more merciful than the cruel fate he meted out to his victims.

Now he’s lost his tie-dyed haircut and bad boy attitude and gives interviews about how he wants “to be an inspiration so others won’t drink and drive.”

“Please, in the name of Jesus, stop running those red lights,” Barstad wrote in a letter to this newspaper.

Please. Few things are so predictable and lame as the jailhouse conversion and I’m sick of hearing from these clowns. Prisons are packed with felons who conveniently find Jesus as they await judgment.

More often than not, like Barstad, they yank out their born-again status as a thinly veiled attempt to mitigate their sentence.

“I know I was bad, judge,” they snivel, “but I’m way different now. I got Jesus in my heart.”

These frauds sing “I’m a believer” more than the Monkees ever did.

It seems to me that a real Christian would emulate Christ and take his lumps in silence. There’s no whining to be found in the story of the crucifixion.

The time to assess the legitimacy of a jailhouse conversion is years after the fact.

Regardless of what anyone thought of Nixon hatchetman Chuck Colson, who went to prison for his dastardly Watergate deeds, nobody can say his turning to Christ was phony baloney.

More than two decades later, Colson still lives a godly life beyond reproach.

Let’s see if our pal Barstad’s bringing in the sheaves 20 years from now.

Here’s hoping he celebrates a Merry Christmas and ushers in the first of many, many, many, many more Happy New Years.

Behind bars right where he belongs.

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, DataTimes