Blasphamy is in the Eye of the Beholder

Although we Protestants don’t really observe it next week is listed by the Roman Catholics as Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ ministry before his death and resurrection. This is a time when Christians around the world should pause to reflect on what the death and resurrection of our Savior means to us, and it has become a time for another tradition, an attempt by the main stream media and others to trash our faith. Last year it was the rightly forgettable Lost Tomb baloney, the year before, I believe, was the Gospel of Judas, and who can forget Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (I guess I could, because it honestly took me several minutes to remember the title!) the year before that?

I don’t know about any others, I’m sure there are probably some, but the writers of a nationally distributed comic strip about life in an office are doing their part this year. Earlier this week they introduced a character named Jesus, and although they make sure to add the disclaimer that the name is pronounced Hay-soos, the attempted parody is obvious. Through today, Wednesday, the Hay-soos character has made a bald character’s hair grow just by touching him, the same character can see without glasses and Hay-soos changed coffee into wine. He also gathered a group of twelve to work on an office project, and the last strip I saw had one of the main characters coming to the company’s CEO and offering to point Hay-soos out for forty shares of stock.

As I said this is an attempted parody, but in actuality it is open mockery of the Biblical account of JESUS of Nazareth. One question it brings to my mind is how many “Christians” are going to be offended enough by this to do anything, even posting a blog entry about it? My guess is, not very many. The second question is, why are the writers doing this?

There are several answers to this question, and one is that the writers honestly think it is funny. Another possibility is that, since it is the Easter season, this series is a way to draw readers (and thus revenue). And a third possibility is they think they can get away with it, and they’re probably right. There probably aren't many “Christians” who would write the papers this trash is appearing in to complain, much less cancel any subscriptions to said papers, and certainly Christianity is so marginalized in the minds of many that the series will pass without comment. If, on the other hand, these writers had dared to do a parody about Mohamed, if any paper dared to print it the entire Muslim world would rise in fury and demand not only the blood of the writers, but those who dared publish it.

Finally, this brings to mind two questions every Christian should ask themselves: One, how much longer is the Creator of the Universe going to allow His name to be mocked like this? And when He finally moves, what is our response to this attitude going to be?