It is being reported today that Christianity is undergoing yet an assault via loons in the entertainment industry. There’s not much new about that. In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David urinates on a painting of Jesus, causing a woman to believe the painting depicts him crying, as if a miracle has occurred.
Two things cross my mind as I read more about this story. First, as Christians why is this so shocking? It is disturbing, but these are not followers of Christ perpetrating these actions. It’s not like we can expect them to act as believers if, indeed, they are not.
Secondly, perhaps we actually contribute to the problem of political correctness by demanding that we, as representatives of Christianity, be treated with the same so-called tolerance and respect offered to other worldviews. I hear it framed this way frequently by conservative pundits, let me apply it to this case: “Well if this was a picture of Mohammad you would act less offensively.”
No doubt Christianity is the red-headed step child (how’s that for pc?) of contemporary culture, but this provides for an opportunity to speak truth, not suppress it in some sort of worldview fairness doctrine.
October 28th, 2009 | 2:18 pm | #1
You have a valid point. However, there remains some scriptural validity in holding out fairness as important, because scripture does this again and again.
The trick is that Christ knew fairness to be important to his Father, but he submitted to unfairness willingly so that something more glorious could be revealed.
The difference between unbelievers and believers is that unbelievers hold fairness to be an end in itself; i.e. if everybody were just “fair”, the world would be at peace.
Believers know that fairness is merely a means to the true target, which is godliness. So, we strive for fairness so we can be like God, not because we think it is the be-all and end-all.
So when we encounter the PC version of fairness doctrine, we should continue to point it out–not because we’re upset about being mistreated, but because we want to unveil the idolatry of the unbeliever. He claims to hold fairness as his god; yet, he doesn’t even really pay proper homage to his god. He commits plenty of unfairness when it serves him.
When we do this, we should do it with a twinkle in our eye, rather than foam in our mouth.
October 28th, 2009 | 7:15 pm | #2
I saw the episode and, believe it or not, I thought it was done rather well. The picture of Christ happens to be hanging in a half-bath, on a wall beside the toilet. Larry David accidentally “splashes” the painting because the medication he is currently taking causes him to urinate with extreme force. As a result, a very small drop happens to land on Christ’s cheek and trickle downwards – creating a tear-like effect.
Before leaving the bathroom Larry realizes what he has done, but is ethically torn about what to do; is it worse to smear the painting in the process of wiping or to leave it as is? Larry choose the later, which precipitates a chain of events resulting in the friend believing a miracle has happened in her bathroom. So excited by this, she quits her job and buys an RV to travel the country and share with everyone the miracle painting.
So the commentary behind the comedy is about how some Christians witness false “miracles” (like seeing Jesus in a piece of toast) and the extremes to which they are moved by it.
In otherwords, it’s really about Idolatry.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:42 pm | #3
[...] challenged the supposed fairness of our critics. Malkin challenged the social justice (in this case media justice) movement and [...]
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