Kathy Griffin Doesn't Love Jesus: Updated

A couple of days ago, while accepting her Emmy, actress & comedian Kathy Griffin had some choice words about Jesus.

Griffin, a self-professed athiest, said: "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now!"

E! is editing her comment out of their Emmy coverage. Christian organizations are in an uproar. Many are demanding she apologize or be punished. They're calling it "hate speech." How is refusing credit for your victory to the god of the national majority "hate speech"?

The head of the Catholic League said it himself: "Griffin’s verbal assault on 85 percent of the U.S. population..." Eighty-five percent! If you fill a room with 20 randomly-selected Americans, 17 of them are statistically Christian, and 3 aren't. Unless those 3 are Spartan warriors, they rely on the rule of law and the good will of the 17 Christians to be allowed not to believe in Christ without being killed or tortured for their non-belief.

She didn't threaten them with violence. She didn't advocate violence against them. She didn't claim that they were somehow inferior. After others had come up and thanked Jesus like he was a mobster who had put in the fix for them, she went up and basically said that Jesus wasn't picking the winners, she did this without his help, and she refuted the thanks others had given to him. Fair enough.

But this isn't about fairness. If E! was playing fair, they'd edit out all the speeches where Jesus was thanked too. They'd pull all references to Jesus, good or bad, so they could be fair to all. But this is much less about fairness than it is about being boycotted by major religious groups that represent 85% of your market (note how the Catholic League's statement, quoted above, reminded E! of how much market share Jesus has). E!'s actions aren't out of respect for Jesus, they're out of respect for Mammon.

We can all take offense when someone contradicts our religious beliefs or even attacks our god.

But reacting with condemnation, rhetoric, and vitriol is not the "Christian" way of doing things, as I understand it. First, you're not turning the other cheek. Second, you're not loving the sinner while hating the sin. Third, you're putting Griffin on the defensive, where you may eventually force an apology out of her, but because you're backing her into a corner, it will never be sincere or change what's in her heart. In fact, it may just turn her heart further from Jesus, because so many attacked her in His name.

WWJD? He'd ask her for a private sit down and talk to her with love, accepting that if he could not change her heart, it wasn't the time for it to change. He wouldn't wage a very public campaign to shame her, He wouldn't try to put her words on the level of KKK and Nazi nastiness in the public's mind by calling them "hate speech", and He wouldn't demand an apology. He would know that only when freely given and from the heart does an apology mean anything, and the surest way to harden someone's heart is through public attack and shame.

Update; October 3

Kathy Griffin ain't got nothing on me. I couldn't help it. I call it Bitchslap Jesus.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Politics & Religion.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.