ANTI-TEACHING

Sometimes, the best way to teach what is right is to put what is wrong on full display. I will do this in October, after returning from New York.

Many people believe that God is a well-intended old man who had such high hopes for his creation—up until Satan ruined his plans in the Garden of Eden. (I call this eternally disappointed personage, “the Christian God.”) Since then, the Christian God has scrambled night and day to salvage something, anything, of his universe. He sent his own son, Jesus Christ, to save as many as he could from a fate worse than death: burning in hell forever. 

Burning in hell forever is the worst thing imaginable. In fact, it is so bad, so evil, and so nightmarish (and so freakishly hot), that no one can possibly imagine it. Not even the Christian God can truly wrap his poor demented mind around it. He is sorry about it, really. But this is just what happens to people who don’t love him. All people have to do is love him. Is that so hard? The Christian God spends many long hours stroking his long, white beard in quiet contemplation, wondering why so many people can’t manage so simple a thing as loving him. Isn’t he the most loveable being in the universe? Of course. So why doesn’t his favorite saying, “Love me, or else!” attract more devotees?

The problem, of course (well, one of the problems), is that the Christian God gave every human being a free will. So while he may wish to influence these humans and bring as many as possible into his heavenly, air-conditioned home, he can’t. Once he gave away his sovereignty, he couldn’t get it back. Now, the best he can do is hope everything somehow works out. (He knows in his own heart—the one with the aorta and all the ventricles—that this is probably not going to happen. But it doesn’t mean he can’t wish for it.)

I have already shown you the Christian God in several of my Crack O’ Dawn Report videos. In case you have forgotten, here he comes now:

Some people get nervous about me portraying God. They think it’s sacrilege. But I’m not portraying God, I’m portraying a caricature of God—the weak, bumbling, co-dependent “deity” of the Christian religion. I can teach the truth about the true God straightforwardly, and often do. But sometimes the better thing is to let the error act and speak—give it its say—and let people see and hear for themselves how wrong it is. (This is the “show rather than tell” principle.)

I can stand under a tree, in a video, and—with accompanying violin music—talk about how great and wonderful the true God is. (Can you hear clicking sounds? That’s the sound of thousands of twenty year-old YouTube watchers rolling their eyes and moving to another channel.) Or, I can arrange for the Christian God to have his own comedy show, and put him on a stage before a live audience, to explain his sorry self.

I asked the Christian God about this possibility, and he jumped all over it. In fact, he was so excited he smoked seven filtered cigarettes. (Seven is the number of perfection.)

I have booked him into the famous Laura Ingalls Wilder Comedy Club in De Smet, South Dakota, for a series of engagements. The thing about this is, the Christian God is not intending to do a comedy set. He thinks he’s finally getting the opportunity to explain himself on YouTube in front of a friendly audience. See, I kind of didn’t tell him it was a comedy club. I kind of told him he’d be “giving a talk” at De Smet Community College. You may think it is mean to deceive the Christian God in this manner, and maybe it is. I am doing this for the greater good. When people start rolling in hysterics at the Christian God’s most earnest elucidations of how the universe got so whacked (“Shut up! What's so funny? You try creating tall grass, and then see if you can keep track of all the snakes!”), maybe he will get a clue.  

Here he is, last week, testing the sound system:

THE POP-ICON JESUS

The Pop-Icon Jesus is also booked into the Laura Ingalls Wilder Comedy Club, but on different nights. The Pop-Icon Jesus, however, knows it’s a comedy club. I told him, and he embraced my concept. He, too, wants to tell his story. He knows how funny utter futility can be, and is ready to let 'er rip. (Here he is at the dress rehearsal.)

The Pop-Icon Jesus is not the true Jesus. He is the handsome, popular Jesus whose glittering jewelry adorns the necks of rock stars and Super Bowl heroes. The events of the past two millennia have very much disturbed him. In the old days—as recently as the 1960’s—the Beatles were more popular than he. But now, he has all the frenzied teenagers eating out of his hand. It disconcerts him. He never wanted to be a cult-leader, he says. He suspects that his father—the Christian God—has something to do with the downhill roll of things since Calvary, and is quite happy to incriminate him. (“He has a bee in his bonnet, that one. Or a crawfish in his crotch—something. Everyone is afraid of him. It’s great for the money plate, but I used to fling that stuff across the sanctuary in the good old days.”)

The Pop-Icon Jesus looks back at those ancient days—at how un-popular he was then—and instinctively recognizes them as days of truth. The mainstream religion (as well as the mainstream media) snubbed him, yes, but that’s because his message was spiritual, rather than emotional. His no-frill message rarely appealed to the carnal nature. There were no titillating songs back then repeating his name 95 times so that people swayed and swooned and wanted to make love to him. There was no stained glass back then, no large cathedrals, and no marble statuary honoring his dear mother. Back then, his mother baked fig bars whenever he brought “the boys” over for a visit. She had no halo then, and the paparazzi shunned her. (I am not disparaging Mary; her fig bars were moist and delicious.)

Treading the road less traveled is so timelessly true. The real Jesus knows it, as do we who seek Him. “Wide is the way that leads to destruction,” He said in the day. In this day, the popular path finds happy receipt in every pulpit. The Pop-Icon Jesus hates that, and now he'll have his say.  

Tickets are still available for both shows. Call today. Operators will be wearing riot gear. 

© 2012 by Martin Zender