I Can’t Decide Whether to Laugh or Cry
Posted by Cory Tucholski on July 11, 2007
Every once in a while, I see something online that gives me a dual reaction. I want to be outraged or upset, but I’m not sure if that is the right way to go. Then, part of me sees value in it only for the humor.
I’m talking, of course, about these Jesus action figures. Yeah, you read that right, Jesus action figures. They have Jesus riding a bull at a rodeo, Jesus playing football, Jesus on a Harley, Jesus playing soccer, Jesus surfing, Jesus skateboarding, and Jesus rock climbing.
The two that I question are Jesus begging for food and Jesus dressed in military fatigues carrying a dove. In the toy line, these are titled “I am hope” and “I am peace.”
Jesus begging for food? In the opening verses of Matthew 4, Jesus is tempted by Satan and He refuses to accept physical food, saying that man does not live by bread alone. This teaching is echoed in John 6, when Jesus refuses to give physical food to the followers, saying that it is spiritual food that they are in need of. These points are driven home nicely, albeit in fictional format, in Frank Perretti’s The Visitation (or watch the movie if you don’t like to read). This action figure is not consistent with Scripture.
Another danger of that action figure is the thought of Christ begging in general. People already have this idea–mainly from megachurches and from other places like those that teach extremely watered-down theology–that God through Christ is on His knees begging you to accept salvation. We have this idea that our humanity somehow completes God, or that He for some reason needs us.
Nothing could be further from the truth! It is the other way around. We need Him! He is not lucky to have us on His side, we are lucky that He still makes use of us sinful humans to glorify His name.
As for Jesus in military fatigues, mostly I think that it just gives the outspoken atheists (such as Dawkins and Hitchens) more ammunition in their quest to destroy religion. This just gives them something that they can point to and say, “See! See! The Christians are planning on going to war with the world! Look at this doll! It is one of an entire line! This is what they teach their young. Now, to further illustrate my point, let me play the movie Jesus Camp again.”
July 12, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Most people understand that blasphemous humour only shows the views of the blasphemer, so I think your uniform feats may be ill-founded.
I agree that the beggar is tasteless and the biggest pointer to it being a hoax. But in terms of accuracy, I also had a problem with the surfer dude: He didn’t *need* a board!
I doubt it’s a real product: there’s no info on the company producing it, ordering info, etc. Looks like a hoax site, or possibly astroturfing for the next Dogma, (they look like Dogma’s “Buddy Christ”), like the “iRobot.com” site did for the “I, Robot” movie.
Of course, like Buddy Christ, they might *become* real, if the meme becomes popular enough to create demand.
Let’s do some digging. Start at domaintools:
http://whois.domaintools.com/wearefishermen.com shows it registered to R. Mitchell, Inc, 806 E 60TH ST, LA, CA 90001
On to hotfrog:
http://www.hotfrogusa.com/Companies/R-MITCHEL-INC
Now we have a website…
http://www.rmitchel.com/
OK… Not a LOT of info there, but they’re apparently a “World Leader in Integrated Circuit Tray Recycling”. So, they recycle plastics. Plastic action figures seem maybe a little more likely, then. All the info on their “contact us” page matches the contact info from domaintools. Could be a hoax, or a disgruntled ex-employee, but that seems a lot of work just for that.
Maybe it is true. Call them and ask?
July 16, 2007 at 12:57 pm
You spelled ‘whether’ wrong in your heading.