Jesus is played by the show's producer, Neil Saavedra, who belongs to no denomination and who is "usually too tired to attend church after his program." Saavedra calls the program "interactive radio theater to teach people from all walks of life about the historical person of Jesus Christ." As a matter of practice, Saavedra refers to himself as "your holy host" and God as "my father," asks that people pray "to me," and that "the way to salvation is through belief in my sacrifice."Of course he doesn't really believe he's Jesus, but does that make it okay? I'm going to say no, but listen for yourself. It's not specifically the pretending to be Jesus that feels blasphemous to me. After all, I'm not necessarily offended by the Passion of the Christ movie. It's that he speaks for Jesus, but uses his own wisdom. Many of the topics sounds more like a question for Dear Abby than for Jesus.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Jesus Christ on the Radio?
Heard this radio show while driving recently:
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Oh, I've heard about this show! My immediate thought--which hasn't really changed--is that I'd be totally okay with it IF his conception of Jesus is sufficiently compatible with mine.
ReplyDeleteI should feel bad for thinking that way, but dadgum it, if 99 percent of the American population gets to think that way, then so do I.
You're spot on, Harrison.
ReplyDeleteIdk, hard to find a hard line on this in the Bible. But why try finding where the line is if he can avoid it altogether by not doing the show as Christ? At best, he's walking a fine line, at worst he's committing heresy on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteIf this isn't okay, then South Park should burn all their shpeel on Muhammad and other deities. Does being on the radio or public radio make "parodying" (and I use that term loosely for this specific example) more offensive or more censor-able? Granted I've only heard tidbits of the program I can understand that for a Christian it is somewhat insulting for another person to impersonate your messiah. But this is America a pluralistic society where we are free express our opinions in so many ways. Everyone is going to be insulted by someone at some point due to all the varying opinions and the large quantities of people being on broadcast tv or radio.
ReplyDelete-Andrew Park
True, but I assume the creators of South Park aren't Christians. So why would they treat Jesus with due respect. The "holy host" of this show claim to be a Christian and still "parodies" Jesus.
ReplyDeleteAndrew--no one here is advocating that what this guy is doing should be illegal or that force should be used to stop him from what he's doing. Harrison just said it is unwise. There is a BIG difference between saying that portraying yourself as Jesus on the radio is unwise and threatening force against someone for making a cartoon of Muhammad. I would certainly say that much of what South Park airs is unwise (to say nothing of crass and many times even humorless). But I would never advocate force against them for it.
ReplyDeleteOkay I get what you're saying now.
ReplyDeleteSo this guy is just another proclaimed Christian (who may delude himself into believing he's Christian and advocating God's message to the world via radio). I think we have a lot of those types already, just none of them thought of dressing up/impersonating Jesus and starting a self-help program.
We certainly do. I'd also point out though that I'm not claiming (and I doubt Harrison is either) that this guy isn't a Christian. All Christians, including myself, do unwise things.
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