liberals, unite!

Your country needs you. (Someone has to slap some sense into it.)

Or does the idea of taking the Christian fish symbol and putting the president's name in it not seem like a really idiotic thing to do? That's exactly what the folks at Bushfish.org have done.

I don't think they're claiming that Bush is God, but they sure are co-opting the religious imagery to shore up Bush and make supporting him not just a moral obligation for all Americans, but a religious observance for Christians. Infusing religion with such rank nationalism leaves me fit to be tied.

One friend of mine described it as the most offensive thing he's ever seen on the Internet, so I guess he agrees with me. And another friend said, "That is wrong in so many ways," which about sums it up.

But you know, since they seem to be sharing all the comments they get,whether positive or negative (and kudos to them for that), I decided to send them the following compliment on their most amusing product web site. I don't know if it'll make them reconsider the wisdom of their position, but I'd like to think it will.

Hey, I have to hand it to you for having an absolutely sublime sense of humor. You obviously put a lot of work into this joke, not just creating a fake product but creating pictures of people apparently using the product on their vehicles too. I'm impressed when I think of the amount of work you must have put into this. (You ought to consider doing some stuff for www.WittenburgDoor.com -- they love religious humor like this.)

I doubt anyone on the Left could have skewered the Fringe Religious Right better than this -- sometimes it really does seem as though people believe that supporting President Bush is an act of religous devotion, and assume that those who criticize his policies are bad Americans and bad Christians too.

Infusing religion with that sort of nationalism (what C.S. Lewis called "Christianity and") can be a frightening and dangerous thing, since it often leads to Christians putting their faith and hope in the kingdoms of this world, expecting them to bring the deliverance that will come only when Christ returns.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on like that. Like I said, it's an amusing site, and I've shared the URL with a number of other Christians who I thought would get a kick out of it.

Keep the laughs coming,


David Learn

Moments like this make me yearn for the good old days of the Evil Christian Fellowship back at college.