One Man's Blasphemer Is Another Man's Prophet

This one is kind of a tough one for me. What am I speaking of, here is the scoop.

Last week the creators of the Comedy Central cartoon hit, South Park, had planned to show an episode meant to deal with Islamic terror, through tyranny, in the form of a simple depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. The episode involved a discussion between the network executives of Comedy Central and the creators in which the creators were saying you cannot censure a depiction of one faith if you are not going to do it to all. The main statement made to the execs was, "censure one and you have to censure all." Meaning, censure a depiction of Mohammed then you have to censure any and all other religious depictions. In this piece they simply had Mohammed hand a football helmet to the "Family Guy." It was silly, no actually it was pretty stupid, but no real insult to the faith was depicted. Nevertheless, the network ended up blacking out the depiction of Mohammed.

Now this is where the story gets interesting and and the real controversy arose. As the network executives balked at showing a depiction of Mohammed, and made them black that scene out, the creators and writers featured a depiction of Jesus. Of course it was not just a simple depiction of Jesus defecating ("crapping" is the word they used) on an American flag and President Bush. Of course prior to that they had depicted President Bush defecating on people. It just spun out of control. Guess what? No blackout of that scene. Do you get the point?

Of course many Christian groups immediately screamed bloody murder. Unfortunately, I believe they missed the entire point. In fact South Park has made a statement that most pastors will not make, and in a dramatic fashion they will never make. And obviously no media or network executives have said one word, nor do I expect them to.

Was it rude, was it crude, was it insensitive; you bet it was, but did Comedy Central, or any one that had the power to stop this from being aired try? No, they did not, but a much less offensive depiction of Mohammed led to an immediate full frontal assault and a blackout.

The South Park guys have exposed a couple of things. First, is the fact that one could publicly commit the most base of acts upon our God, our Flag and our President, with absolutely no repercussion. Secondly, that we are a nation that is afraid. No one wants to admit it, but we are afraid. Do you think the Comedy Central executives really care one bit about Arab sensitivities? What they care about is Islamic death squads killing them in their NY and Malibu homes. This is a sad, but necessary commentary on the state of America and the world.

In a related matter just a few weeks earlier Isaac Hayes, who had been the voice of a regular character on the show quit the show supposedly in protest over an episode poking fun at Tom Cruse and his Scientology beliefs. Hayes, also a Scientologist, left the show in protest stating that he was offended at the shows attack upon religion. The creators asked the very relevant question of, where was his outrage when they had numerous time poked fun at Christianity, various Christian ministers and church groups. Isaac Hayes, whose music I love by the way, is just one of thousands of American hypocrites, who feel it is okay to attack what is not theirs, but are offended at any offense to their own sensibilities. This has to stop or it will not end well.

While I still find their methods crude and rude, and to tell you the truth, I have never watched one episode of South Park and never watch Comedy Central in general, I feel that I want to applaud South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, for their exposing what we all know but too many are afraid to speak of. That is that we are afraid.

I know I find myself at odds with friends and others of my own faith, who do not believe as I do on this matter. But I believe God has and will continue to use those outside the body to speak His message, when his appointed messengers will not. Many in the American media and government have no regard for anything to do with Christianity or Judaism. Add to this the fact that they and others, even many ministers of the Gospel, are afraid of the Arab world and Islamic terror; at the least they are afraid to speak out against radical Islam and the danger it poses at home and abroad and we get a strange silence. As long as we are afraid, all talk of what we want to do in the Middle East or the Arab World is just that, talk. They, in the Muslim world, know that we are afraid, and now we know it too. The only real question that remains is; what are we going to do about it?