Dissing Jesus

is now becoming a sport . OK, it was a roast , it was a roast of sportscasters (two guys I like, by the way), and it’s easy to go too far. My question is: Why was Jesus the object of Dana Jacobson’s obscenity-laden rant? Because Notre Dame’s coach happened to be in the audience? Because the mural known as “Touchdown Jesus,” associated with the school, was just too easy to leave alone—and so she was on a kind of Jesus rhetorical roll? Or has blasphemy simply become cool? (We’re talking strictly about references to Christianity, of course. Insert “Muhammad”—or a racial or ethnic minority group—for “Jesus” and see how quickly Jacobson would have been filling out paperwork at the nearest temp agency.)

In other words, whereas a shot at church or clergy would have been edgy before, has New Atheist bestsellerdom, and the general coarse level of discourse in media in general, made derogating the figure of Jesus himself a way of proving your bona fides as a fearless commentator (not to mention first-class jerk)?

By way of Mark Stricherz at Get Religion .