Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Jesus Action Figure?

This 43-second YouTube clip is totally offensive, but who's to say the Jesus Action Figure won't show up at your local Christian bookstore and gift shop next week? Might even be there now. Anything's possible these days.

It's revealing as a metaphor. How far will we go to turn the gospel story inside out in the name of connecting with "seekers." How far removed is this fake ad from a Passion of the Christ full-length film? Aren't they both selling Jesus? Watch and discuss.

Walk on Water Action! The Holy Grail accessory comes in the box. (Cross not included).

UPDATE: Now Wal-Mart's in on the action.


Technorati Tags: Jesus Action Figure, Christian humor, satire, humor

2 comments:

Eric said...

Offensive...yes. (But the kid's head blowing up when he open the Ark was a nice nod to Raiders!)

But what do we expect when we live in a society where nothing is really off-limits anymore? There are those who will say, "Lighten up...it's just a joke!" "You're too anal about stuff. Even Jesus laughed!" (Insert comment about Rick Warren's poorly exegeted sermon on laughter here.) It's so much easier to shrug and say, "I don't care if it bothers you, I enjoyed it." We are a lazy society and when society becomes lazy and doesn't stand up for certain things, it tends to spiral into decay and opens itself to takeover.

It's happened before...Rome I think it was...or maybe Athens....or...

Eric

Anonymous said...

My parents gave me a Samson action figure and my brother a Noah action figure for memorizing the books of the Bible. I don't remember if we ever re-enacted the massacre of the Philistines or the flood, but I imagine if we did we'd sound a lot like the kids in that commercial.

As for putting things off-limits, a society that refuses to poke fun at itself becomes rigid and immune to critique, and tends to spiral into totalitarianism.

It's happened before...Germany I think it was...or maybe China...