review of "Father, Son and Holy Guest Star"

"You can save a lot more souls with easy bake ovens than with THIS two-thousand year-old pill"- Timothy Lovejoy (Simpsons DABF02- season 13, episode 6)

I caught the simpsons this past sunday, and it was one i've already seen. But I LOVE it! not to mention how much i laughed at stuff like the saint who appeared to Father Sean before his conversion and called him a wanker and told him to "repent or sod off". There was also the priest and all the nuns who were ALL Irish for some reason, then the different afterlive's for protestants and catholics- starting with the protestants being all stuffy and the catholic heaven having hispanics cooking, italians and Irish- which ended with Marge wanting to talk to Jesus, who'd gone over to Catholic heaven and they all began riverdancing... I'm seriously thinking Catholic heaven is where I want to go- it's more lively and more fun (although try going to mass- it's so dry...)

I was also impressed with the way the priest dealt with lisa being a buddhist- he laughed and told her that lots of kids have imaginary friends.

Ok, well, on with the real meat of this... which has to do with the quote above. It seems like... Well, let me put it this way. Just because cool people are Christians doesn't mean Christianity is cool. Or just because Christians do "cool" things, that doesn't make Christianity legitimate! Case in point- they were trying to bribe Bart back to being a protestant again- they took him to a Christian teen festival- with an 80s band and paintball. Bart responded with something to the effect of "just because some old band plays the christian festival doesn't make it cool"... and then he sees the paintball and is enthralled...

it's a wonderful sequence. And I have posed for years that there are wonderful things to be learned from popular culture. And I love making connections like this. Luke blogged about this back when he was on blogger, but i don't think the post made it to his new site- but... Just because Mel Gibson is a Christian, does that make it cool? Christians seem to love to herald around their popular people- atheletes, actors, musicians, and more. It's like- we need to make our faith legitimate. Almost like- see, it must be cool cuz the '96 Green Bay Packers all go to bible study and Reggie White is a Christian... Jeff Gordon drives a car, and he's a Christian, too- that means it's great, right?

Christianity doesn't need popular people. Our faith is stronger than that! It doesn't require having cool people... And, oh yeah- just a reminder aobut the Christian past- the early church wasn't "cool" and didn't have celebrities on their side! It was a religion of the outcasts and it was hope for the hopeless... now it's like the country club- some kind of social status or symbol...

what's next, Christian video games? oh, wait... check this...