In the World

"And Jesus had killed them all."

I'll join the chorus maintaining that this SNL sketch is aimed at Tarantino, not Jesus, and/or at bizarre distortions of Christianity, not Christianity itself:

      

But the reason I'm posting is to link to Fred Clark's post on those Christians who were offended by this video. Fred's spent a lot more time with the Left Behind series than I have—a feat I hope never to challenge—and he shares an excerpt from book 12:

Rayford watched through the binocs as men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. . . . As those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgiving brightness of the glory of Christ. . . . And Jesus had killed them all.

I've omitted the most graphic parts. Fred then offers this:

This is received not as the most pernicious blasphemy imaginable, but as wholesome, biblical, family-friendly entertainment for good evangelical Christians. It’s seen as edifying. It’s part of a beloved and phenomenally popular series of books, published by a respectable evangelical Christian publishing house and sold in every Christian bookstore chain in the U.S.

Now, his first sentence doesn't have a subject, and I know plenty of evangelicals who do find this stuff offensive. The AFA, however—which came out hard against the SNL sketch—sells the Left Behind films on its website. Why the double standard? Just the fact that one thing was created by evangelical insiders and the other by the Liberal Media?

Steve Thorngate

The Century managing editor is also a church musician and songwriter.

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