As usual, the so-called “Christian” conservatives don’t get why the joke’s on them — or how their own culture of hate and violence, and their own behavior, made this SNL video possible. And, maybe even necessary.
Saturday Night Live (SNL) ran an irreverent spoof of “Django Unchained,” called, “Djesus UnCrossed,” and it’s making conservative groups positively apocalyptic.
READ:Â Leading Christian Conservative: Jesus Wants You To Have Guns
Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America – which has a director who  likens gays and lesbians to necrophiliacs, pedophiles, and people who have sex with animals — is pretty pissed.
The Hill reports:
The skit played on many of the familiar tropes of Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds” and “Django Unchained,” and featured “SNL” host and Tarantino regular Christoph Waltz portraying Christ. In the video, Christ is depicted with a crown of thorns and cross strapped to his back, seeking revenge on the Roman soldiers and officials who tried and executed him.
Nance said the show “stooped to a new low.”
“Unfortunately, they crossed the Rubicon from the clever, irreverent show of my youth to a stagnant, predictable troupe that often relies on shock to make up for a gross lack of creativity. Too bad,” Nance said. “What they fail to recognize is that Christians can laugh at ourselves — and do so often — when the joke is funny. But SNL’s treatment of us and others in recent years is meant to degrade and taunt.”
Nance also objected to the decision to air the skit during Lent, saying producers went “out of their way to mock Jesus Christ and Christianity during our most important religious season.”
The group, which promotes Biblical vaclues and familiy traditions and counts half a million members nationwide, went on to urge members to complain to the show’s advertisers.
“The First Amendment protects their right to offend, and it also protects our right to complain to NBC and the advertisers that sponsor SNL,” Nance said. “Funny how that works both ways.”
Meanwhile, it didn’t take long for the misnomered One Million Moms to get involved.
“Kmart, Sears and J.C.Penney throw financial support behind anti-Christian contempt,” One Million Moms, an arm of the certified hate group, American Family Association writes via Facebook. “This past weekend, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” aired an extremely violent and gory segment mocking Jesus Christ…just for laughs. And, it’s available now online thanks to Kmart, Sears and J.C.Penney. Kmart, Sears and J.C. Penney have the responsibility to demand their brands not support programs that mock people of faith. Sears, Kmart and J.C. Penney are underwriting this attack on the Christian faith on NBC network. Let them know you are offended.”
Of course, the American Family Association themselves are furious, calling the SNL video “a violent and gory mocking of Jesus.”
And of course, outrage rather than introspection is always the default stance for these, and many, radical Christian conservatives.
But in a revealing piece, the Christian Post gets it:
Blogger David Henderson, who is a postulant for the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, says the satire revealed what American Christians have been trying to make Jesus Christ out to be for years.
“We have tried to arm him with our military-industrial complex, drape him with our xenophobia, outfit him with our weapons, and adorn him with our nationalism,” wrote Henderson. “We’ve turned the cross into a flagpole for the Stars and Stripes. We have no need for Tarantino to reimagine the story of Jesus into a fantasy of violent revenge. We’ve done it for him.”
Catholic blogger Frank Weathers says the skit is more of an indictment against popular culture than it is against Jesus Christ. The skit shows how absurd it would be for the Messiah to die and rise again only to go on a killing spree, he wrote, even though many first century Israelites were hoping their savior would deliver them from Roman rule.
“SNL may not realize it, but their skit points to the reason why the first century Israelites didn’t get their temporal deliverer,” wrote Weathers. “And they ingeniously point out why we don’t either. The world will not be redeemed through killing, though it is redeemed through the death of the Christ.”
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Here’s the original:
http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=n32896
And here’s the director’s cut:
http://www.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=1jx4_dewbk6igmmzd_9diw
Editor’s note: A few of our Facebook fans have questioned the use of “Apocalyptic” as opposed to “Apoplectic.” I assure you the usage was intentional, a bit of a biblical reference joke and a play on the fact that conservatives just don’t get it. Of course, if you are forced to explain your jokes…