Well,
a Christian conservative sidekick to Sean Hayes’ character, Jack, who hosts his own talk show, on the April 13 episode, the network said.
Jack’s fictional network, Out TV, is bought by a Christian TV network, leading to Spears contributing a cooking segment called “
Cruci-fixin’s .”
Christians will protest furiously if the
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to say that Christians are engaging in the hysteria Muslims do where blasphemy or even mild criticism of their religion is concerned. We’re not burning flags, making bomb threats, and threatening to kidnap people. However, of a billion or so Muslims, most of them are not either. They may tacitly agree with it – many have said in interviews or on websites that they find it understandable – but the actions of most are to boycott, sign petitions, and make phone calls. Are they correct in demanding that newspapers refrain from printing cartoons that depict their faith in an unflattering light? Can we demand to be free from the possibility of being offended and still remain a free society?
Let’s keep in mind that the gospel offends. Someday our “freedom” to not be offended by entertainment may turn into someone else’s freedom to not be offended by the gospel.
Update: NBC pulled the plug on this part of the episode.
Laura,
Commenting specifically on your final paragraph in boldface: I agree! Jesus says, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Excelent post,We as Christiand are not to be directly confrontational, or in tour face type of people! We but live our lives in the maner that Christ laid forth, and allow our lives to be a testimony to his sovrenty! We are to teach the word not shove it down peoples throats! We are to be the salt of the earth, the light upon the hill shining the light of truth out for the world to see.
We can however let it be known that we are not pleased about the way we are depicted, and the oft times negative portraials of christians in the media.This latest afront by ABC is but one in a long line of attacks upon the Christian way of life.
To Charlotte
Yes; Christ spoke the words “Father forgive them for they know what they do” while he was on the cross! This was a prayer for the father to forgive those who had crucified him,mocked hin, spurged him, etc!
I agree that being overly demanding is not biblical and I certainly agree we have the right to complain. However I don’t appreciate what’s coming from Muslims (i.e CAIR) these days and I don’t think we ought to emulate it. But aside from a need to protect our witness, we are fortunate enough to live in the most free country in the world. For the most part we can say what we want and practice our faith as we please. We need to keep it that way, and that means having to tolerate being offended by people who frankly don’t know any better, or even those who know exactly what they are doing and are being deliberately provacative.
Every time something offensive like this comes up, we should balance our outrage with the knowledge that we have the legal right to proclaim the gospel, which deeply offends the type of people who think it’s amusing to mock Christianity. The more we are attacked, the more we should step up our efforts to daily live out our faith and to evangelize.
Excellent! I couldn’t have said it better myself with my mouth duct-taped (kidding about the tape part). Christians need to be more concerned how they are affecting society rather than how society is affecting them.
That last line, Daniel – very, very well put. I’ll be quoting you in future posts.
Very good questions you bring up. Here is the dilemma for Christians as I see it. If we rant and rage every time something like this happens, the true gospel gets clouded by our “moral arguments.” But if we don’t object, then unbelievers might tend to think that we don’t care and anything goes with us…in other words, they might think we have lax morals too. It’s a big dilemma which I don’t hear our Christian leaders tackling well at all.
To sumarize, where is the fine line-boundary between objecting so much that the gospel gets lost; and not objecting at all thus not standing up for the moral values contained in the gospel? A very difficult dilemma indeed.