Monday, April 05, 2004

I guess it fills the seats

An AP story reports:
Thou shalt not have a cow. So says the gospel according to The Simpsons. America's famous dysfunctional cartoon family will be the subject of a series of evening classes by the Rev. Robin Spittle on the Christian message in the popular show. "They are a churchgoing family and they make moral decisions, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't, but either way they are a great way to open up a discussion," said Spittle. ... Spittle says that each episode had Christian themes, even though Homer once described his religion as "you know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work in real life. Uh, Christianity." ... "They have a clever way of covering a lot of ground in a short space of time. Each 20-minute show gets a whole message across," said Spittle, who has previously held services in the local pub and used Hollywood films such as "Harry Potter" to teach the meaning of Easter.
I agree with Rev. Spittle that characters on The Simpsons do sometimes make moral decisions. This makes the show approximately as relevant to Christianity as every other piece of fiction ever. (And what is the meaning of Easter, anyway? Maybe the lesson we're supposed to take is that it's not really about chocolate and a big bunny and hidden eggs -- Easter is actually about teaching us that even if our families are horrible to us, we shoudn't worry, because any day now we're going to be whisked off to a new magical home by a friendly half-giant.)

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