The crisis of faith, the discovering or loss of one's religion. There is perhaps nothing so profound, there is perhaps nothing so fitting to be tackled by sitcoms.
This next four-part blog series is going to be very daring. No, I'm not venturing beyond TV comedy, I'm not that daring. But in this blog, we're going to tackle comedy's treatment of religion, specifically a chronological journey through eight characters who have gone through crises of faith. We'll also delve a little into the message these episodes delivered regarding faith and religion, and how well it was delivered.
As a disclaimer, this blog is written by someone who claims no religious stance and while my background and beliefs may influence my views, I'm approaching this with an open mind. This blog is not about my journey of faith, after all, it's about these eight fictional characters'.
Okay, my personal experiences might come into play a little.
Prepare for tangents.
(And speaking of tangents: hi, there! I'm M's boyfriend S and I'll be chiming in periodically to pepper my two cents - sometimes more, sometimes less... but I feel like it'll all ultimately average out to $0.02 USD at the current exchange rate - into the conversation. I met M at the Christian college we both attended, where I majored in Philosophy and Religion. I also taught a class on World Religions once back when I taught Bible at a Christian high school in the Midwest, so I think she's under the impression I'll have something to add here. I guess we'll see how misguided this ultimately ends up being. -S.)
In our first installment, we're covering a cartoon that came out in the 80's (by a hair) and one that came out in the late 90's, and two precocious kids who ask questions their parents can't necessarily answer.
1. Lisa Simpson - The Simpsons (Faith Is Dependent Upon "The Church" and Yes, It Is a Building)
This is the oldest of the shows that I'm covering. While parents were horrified by the sassback of this show, oh my God, the sassback, the Simpson family were regular churchgoers. I don't think they thought too much about their faith, it was more of a tradition that needed to be observed, as it was by many standard middle-class Americans at this time.
In The Simpsons, everyone in town goes to church. Everyone in town goes to the same church. As Grandpa Simpson might say, "It was the style of the times." And, maybe life used to be like that, but that shows you how much things have changed since The Simpsons came out. When Simpsons characters meet in church, it's a totally normal plot point. It's kind of like their town hall, if everyone actually went to town hall. Decades later, if the Bob's Burgers family went to church regularly, it would seem like some kind of stance. Because it's no longer a given that your typical relatable family goes to church every week.
I didn't grow up going to church, and have never been a member of a church. But I guess I was kind of a Christian by default, as there were Bibles in my house and I did go to the local youth group in junior high and then to a religious high school and a religious college. So I might have a different perspective from young Lisa Simpson, as my explorations of faith have never been tied to a certain practice or denomination.
In early episodes, Lisa is the most pious one in the family. When Homer is stealing cable, or when she sees Marge sneaking a grape at the grocery store, she's fearful for their souls. (She should be really worried about Bart's soul, but, based on how initially cruel she was to him in the episode "Bart Sells His Soul," maybe he's not that high on her prayer list.) But then, in season 13, we get to an episode that really unsettled me when it first came out.
Lisa Abandons Christianity for a Dumb Reason
Homer and Bart are playing around with a mail-order rocket and they end up destroying the church. And we realize that to the citizens of Springfield, being a Christian means going to this specific building for one hour every week, and without that building they are lost. They basically all have the mindset of a character I'll cover in part 3 who believes by going to church he has all his bases covered and doesn't have to think about anything or worry about being virtuous the rest of the week.
You know how people always harp on how The Simpsons predicts the future? Well, they kind of did in this episode. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on the Springfieldians' faith, an extremely wealthy man decides to expand upon his wealth and power by affiliating himself with religion, and everyone in town accepts this because if this is what church is now, they'll follow, and if this means they need to vote for Mr. Burns for president, they will, it doesn't matter that he once tried to blot out the sun. Mr. Burns builds a megachurch that is basically an indoor amusement park spewing advertisements and propaganda. Lisa is appalled by the materialism and walks out.
This is where young me started to feel uneasy. This is obviously just one church in one town that is under the thumb of Mr. Burns, so maybe don't go to church anymore, I mean, I never really went to church, but the smartest character on the show just immediately turned her back on Christianity. This was a time in my life when I was doing a lot of soul searching, I was going to a Catholic school, I had a lot of religious friends, and I was trying to be a Christian. Why did Lisa not try to "fix" the church in her town? Why did she instantly abandon Christianity and start a quest to find a new religion? Was she not worried about her soul? Had she never actually had any personal faith, was just going through the motions of going to church like everyone else?
I always found these snap changes in religious beliefs kind of troubling in fiction, and buckle up because there are going to be a lot of those. But, hey, this happens in real life too. Remember when The Da Vinci Code took the world by storm? I was already struggling in my quest to find the religious security that my church-raised friends had, but now the whole world was embracing a new narrative as truth where Jesus did not die for our sins, because the book had short chapters with cliffhanger endings and Tom Hanks is going to be in the movie. More about The Da Vinci Code in my next entry.
Marge is horrified that Lisa isn't going to church anymore, because that means Lisa can't go to heaven. So, she tries to bribe Lisa into coming back, including a ruse to make Lisa think she will get a pony for Christmas if she goes back to celebrating the holiday. At the end of the episode, Lisa agrees to go pay lip service to Christianity every week, and that makes everyone happy. Except there's the detail that
Lisa Is Kind of a Jerk About Her New Faith
Remember when Lisa became a vegetarian and wasn't content to let other people continue to eat meat, so she sabotaged her dad's barbecue? She's kind of the same way when she converts to Buddhism. Lisa seems to thrive on feeling intellectually and morally superior, so just as vegetarians are morally superior and jazz is the only real music, Buddhism is the only right religion.
I was actually under the impression that you could be both Buddhist and Catholic because one of my high school friends was trying to do just that, but with Lisa it's a very either/or situation.
(S here! IIRC from the World Religions class I taught, Buddhism is fairly open and accepting regarding other religious beliefs - itself being an offshoot of Hinduism - concerning itself more with 'practice' than with things like 'dogma.' So this is probably why, despite both being practicing Buddhists, we still see Lenny and Carl at that one church in Springfield pretty consistently and why Richard Gere says Lisa can still go all-in on Christmas and still be Buddhist. I once knew someone who claimed to have met the Dalai Lama several times and he said that dude was pretty chill about everything. Guy apparently tried to convert His Holiness to Christianity too, but was predictably unsuccessful. Wild. Bottom line: I think Lisa's either/or on Buddhism mostly comes down to the writers on The Simpsons thinking of Buddhism like most think of Christianity, which is almost certainly the wrong way to look at it in the long run. -S.)
In a season 31 episode, Todd Flanders announces in church that he no longer believes in God because his mother died and she's never coming back. Lisa ... smiles and gives him a thumbs up. She is pouncing on him with a Buddha statue and a brochure the next day, trying to convert him. She cannot read the room when he is clearly not interested.
Todd has a much more rational approach to his crisis of faith (Todd Flanders is smarter than Lisa Simpson? In this episode, yes). He doesn't immediately feel the need to latch on to a new religion; he's ready to do some difficult soul-searching. Ned Flanders, who is having a hard time dealing with his son's separation from the church, gets drunk and gets hit by a car. In the hospital, Marge asks Todd if he'd like to pray for his dad.
Todd: I don't pray anymore. I don't know if anyone is listening.
Marge: You don't have to pray to God. Prayer can just be a conversation with yourself. Think about what you want, and listen to what your heart tells you.
So, Marge has come a long way since season 13, and Todd prays to ... anyone who's out there, the way a hopeful agnostic prays, and Ned pulls through. Todd is so happy that he believes again, and Lisa is peeved because she lost one (that she was never going to win anyway) for team Buddha.
The episode ends with Lisa being disappointed she couldn't win this one for Buddha, but hey, maybe she can convert Ralph Wiggum. Ralph has about half the IQ of a chipmunk, but she might be able to get him to pay lip service to Buddha like she is paying lip service to Christianity.
Lisa Returns to Christianity for a Dumb Reason
Lisa is open to being a Christian again when the church gets a hot new pastor.
Reverend Lovejoy's young, handsome replacement loves Jesus and Buddha, and pretty much everyone and everything, including vegetarianism and jazz. His sermons are all about celebrating life and loving each other. Church is fun now. And, just like when Burns took over the church, everyone just goes along with "this is what church is now" when Bode takes over the church. As Agnes Skinner says, "You gotta believe this stuff, that's how you go to heaven." Even Homer loves church now that Bode is the pastor, and Marge is thrilled she won't have to be single in heaven. The only people not happy are Reverend Lovejoy and Ned Flanders, but more about that in a little bit.
Lisa doesn't hide the fact she's enamored with Bode, and does a fairly painful musical number with lyrics like "He will sermonize, with those hazel eyes" and "I have science and Buddha and now Jesus makes three." Lisa even starts reading the Bible (though she's taking copious notes on racist and sexist content).
Her return to Christianity doesn't last very long. Reverend Lovejoy is determined to find some dirt on Bode, and it turns out the man Lisa has been swooning over burned a Bible in his youth. Lisa, like me, believes burning a Bible is an egregious act.
Lisa: Why did you do it?
Bode: I don't know, I was 19. I saw how people were using the Bible to divide and exclude. They were using it as a roadmap instead of trying to reach the destination.
Lisa: Then why didn't you just say that? That was fine! No fire.
Bode: I was 19.
Lisa and Bode agree that Springfield is not ready for his style of religion ("This town doesn't get subtext," Lisa advises), and it's time for him to move on.
What Is the Show's Stance?
The Simpsons has been around for over 30 years. In the early seasons, all of the characters went to church because that's the norm, and it would have been just as big of a stance to have them stop going to church as it would be if a similar show debuted now and the characters going to church was a plot point. The Simpsons have always gone to church and always will.
I remember having a conversation with some of my more religious friends who were kind of scandalized that I watched The Simpsons.
Me: The Simpsons go to church.
Friend: Well, they go to church, but they're not Christians. The Christian on the show is their neighbor, and they just make fun of him all the time.
The thing is, though, in the world of The Simpsons, going to church is what makes you a Christian. It's a relic of an era when everyone went to church but no one really thought about it too hard. I think that the general stance of the show is that they would side more with Bode. (Though, the episodes with Bode were written by the actor who voiced him, so there may be some bias there.)
(FUN FACT: The actor who voices Bode is comedian Pete Holmes who at once time was, if I'm reading his Wikipedia page correctly, studying to be a youth pastor - that loftiest of clerical pursuits! I kid... though I myself was once a youth pastor in the Long, Long Ago. I feel like that factoid adds a bit of nuance to these proceedings, as it were. ALSO, if you will permit me the chance to offer some '90s church-kid context. There was a fairly popular saying amongst Christians in the late-'80s/early-'90s that was effectively a variation on "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to McDonald's makes you a Big Mac." Exchange the fast food restaurant and signature sandwich of your choice, but that was the basic riff. It was an ideological shift from the prevailing attitudes of the previous decades, which is likely what M referenced in the previous paragraph. -S.)
Ned Flanders is upset with what happened to the church, so he has a scripture-off with Bode, with them hurling Bible verses at each other. Ned's verses are all about punishment and suffering, while Bode's are all about mercy and love for all. You get the feeling that Ned, Reverend Lovejoy, and the old-school Christians were brought up to believe that religion is all about penance and suffering and is not supposed to be fun, while Bode preaches that belief in a higher power should bring nothing but happiness.
(More '90s kid religious context/trauma with S! I recall a song I used to sing in children's church as a wee tot that taught the way to 'spell JOY' was 'Jesus, Others, and You' - the implication being that you and your needs were always to be subservient to both Jesus and Others. "Put yourself last and spell JOY," the song declared. It wasn't until I was already well into adulthood that I realized how damaging an outlook like that truly is. And if that's what we're feeding children, I'm sure you can only imagine what they're giving the adults! Anyway, I thought that fit in with the Flanders/Lovejoy focus on penance and suffering M mentioned above. -S.)
Overall, I feel like church was grandfathered into The Simpsons but it's not something any of the writers initially thought that hard about. Unlike the writers of our next show, who I think thought about it a lot...
2. Stan Marsh - South Park (Can't We All Just Get Along)
There is a ton of religious commentary on South Park. I unfortunately have probably seen only about 10 - 15% of the episodes of this show, since I didn't watch it growing up and have caught it only sporadically. But I think I've caught enough religion-themed episodes to write cromulently about this, and The Book of Mormon (brought to you by the creators of South Park) is my favorite musical of all time, and that has to count for something.
Let's just start out by talking about The Book of Mormon, shall we? It's a musical about a Mormon missionary who loses his faith while preaching in Africa and has to abandon the mission to his inept partner, who confuses Mormonism with Star Wars. (Look, they both involve different planets. Feels like an easy enough mistake to make, TBH. -S.) When the African people discover that what Elder Cunningham has been preaching is not necessarily true, the female protagonist is devastated, but everyone else in the tribe understood the whole time that this was a metaphor ("You don't think 'Salt Lake City' actually exists, do you?") and should just be used to find happiness in their earthly lives. This culminates in one of the most feel-good closing numbers ever.
"Who cares what happens when we're dead, we shouldn't think that far ahead! The only latter day that matters is tomorrow!"
South Park came out almost a decade after The Simpsons, and you get the feeling that the creators grew up going to church, but, unlike the citizens of Springfield, they actually thought about it pretty hard and they have some baggage.
This is a show about three boys (I'm not counting Kenny, because he exists merely to die a lot) in your typical American town. (This is Butters ERASURE and I will NOT stand for it! -S.) Cartman is occasionally a Christian but is mostly a sociopath, Kyle is Jewish, and Stan, the character I'm going to focus on, is "my family is like, Catholic, or something" (or so he says when Scientologists try to convert him).
There's really a whole lot to unpack with Stan. But let's start with...
What We Tell Our Children
Stan knows that he's "Catholic or something" but he's clearly conditioned by what his parents, who have never thought about this very seriously at all, have told him. And it's pretty hard to differentiate between truth and lies when you're in elementary school and your parents are telling tales of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy while also telling tales of Noah's Ark and the parting of the Red Sea. When Stan befriends a Mormon child and is told about the Book of Mormon, he goes home and demands from his family, "Why have you been keeping Joseph Smith a secret from me?"
This is a normal question for a child to ask. Some grown-ups just told you about their religion, and you believe what grown-ups say, but you're confused about why what these grown-ups said differs from what your parents have always told you. Stan's father, Randy, goes to confront the Mormon family and is promptly converted to Mormonism.
Stan is really never afraid to ask questions. At one point, while the family is coloring Easter eggs, he asks his parents what this has to do with Easter. "I mean, I think between Jesus dying on a cross and a giant bunny hiding eggs, there may be a huge gap in information."
I'm not a parent. Parents who have had your kids believe in the Easter bunny, how do you address this question when the kids try to connect the wildly disparate two components of Easter? Well, South Park handled this in the most insane way possible, as they are wont to do. It turns out, there is a very clear connection between Jesus and the Easter bunny. In a clear parody of The Da Vinci Code, Stan discovers that when you drill down to the original layer of paint in "The Last Supper," there is an egg on the table, and St. Peter is a rabbit.
This, of course, leads to further insanity, including Jesus coming back to life and Kyle having to kill him because he only has super powers when he's dead ("I'm a Jew, I have serious hangups about killing Jesus"). In the end, Stan decides to stop asking questions and just go through the motions because life is too complicated otherwise. "I've learned to not ask questions, just dye the eggs and keep my mouth shut."
Does It Have to Be One or the Other?
In one episode of South Park, teacher Mrs. Garrison is seduced by the incredibly sexy Richard Dawkins and starts teaching evolution in school. Stan raises his hand and asks, "Couldn't there still be a God? Can't evolution be a matter of how, not why?"
It's the smartest thing anyone in the room is saying, but Stan is forced to sit in the corner, wearing a dunce cap that says "I have faith."
I have always felt uncomfortable with the opposition of creationism and evolution, and Stan asked the question I think all of us should ask. I went to a Catholic high school that (sort of) taught both theories, and I don't see why they would need to be mutually exclusive unless you are adhering to a book that has been translated millions of times and assuming that the units of time at the beginning of the universe are exactly the same as the units of time today.
(S back again! The Christian high school I attended as a youth was pretty big on the whole Creationism/Evolution debate, to the point that Creationism was taught in our science classes to the exclusion of every other theory and likely why, upon reflection, no one in my AP Biology class passed that damn AP test at the end of the year. That said, the 'hand-holding' form of Creationism is what is called 'Old Earth Creationism' and essentially posits that evolution is the means by which "God created the heavens and the earth" [Gen. 1:1]. The Flanders crowd mentioned in the previous entry would likely have a problem with that, but this was effectively what was taught by the science department at the Christian college I attended and, honestly, makes more sense than a literal reading of Genesis 1... and this is coming from a guy who taught that text for almost a decade. -S.)
Another issue of duality, one that seems to be specific to this time period, is the trope that you're either a Christian or a Jew. The problem is that Jews are the minority while Christians are the majority, so if you're not Jewish, you are by default a Christian, even if you're like Stan, who thinks his family is "Catholic or something," even if you've never been to church in your life but you aren't specifically Jewish. You can count as a Christian even if all you do is sing "Silent Night" once a year and dye some eggs.
Fortunately I think our culture has generally shifted away from this, but this was apparently the mindset of the late 1990's. The next entry in my list came out just after South Park and really leaned into the Jewish stereotypes.
What Is the Show's Stance?
With South Park, it is really hard to tell. Is religion a good thing, or is it a bad thing? While the show brutally mocks pretty much every major religion, it seems to promote that religion can be a force for good, which is something I've always supported. As Bode said in The Simpsons, the backbone of religion is bringing people together. The characters in Book of Mormon decide that whether or not the Book of Mormon is literally true, it's a source of hope and joy, and why not derive as much joy as we can during our days on earth? Stan's Mormon friend states at the end of his episode, "I don't care if Joseph Smith made all of this up, I'm happy."
Organized religion is depicted in a dim light, but it seems like typically it is shown as somewhere between a source of comfort and a necessary evil (other than Scientology, they really hate Scientology). In one episode, Cartman accidentally travels 500 years into the future and religion has been obliterated, but people are still at war, even if everyone is required to be atheist. They now use swears like "science damn it" and, as one of the characters says, "Using logic isn't enough - you have to be a **** to anyone who doesn't believe the same way you do." This episode ends with the revelation that "maybe just believing in God makes God exist."
There's a lot to unpack as far as South Park's stance on religion, but ultimately I feel like it portrays the power any organized religion has to do good and also to do harm. Church can be inspirational and community-building, and it can also be a source of persecution and war. And, just like in The Simpsons, this show depicts how being loyal to a church can cause you to be very stuck in your ways and prefer to believe what is convenient now rather than examining the source material.
(I think what M says above about Matt & Trey's stances on religion is pretty accurate. I remember reading that they'd said that The Book of Mormon was "an athiest's love letter to religion" and that feels pretty in keeping with what they did on South Park as well. For all the shit religion has done over the centuries, it is ultimately something that helps people live as best as they can and provides hope for a better tomorrow. -S.)
When Jesus comes back to life in South Park, the heads of the Catholic church tell him, "Jesus, oh, we thought you died in Iraq" and blow him off. Likewise, when Jesus returns to earth in the surprise next show I'm going to be covering, he is introduced to George W. Bush and tells him, "You did not consult with me about this war. You know nothing of my teachings, and how you ever got to be president baffles me."
It seems that South Park wants you to believe whatever is right for you, if it's a higher power or no, but not to be a slave to organized religion. And you'd have to say Stan is more progressive than Lisa, who had the courage to leave her church when she no longer agreed with the sermons, but had to immediately latch on to another organized religion, which she could also be turned from in an instant if anyone complimented her saxophone playing or offered her a pony. Cut her some slack. She's eight. Stan is ten. She'll get there. No, she won't. Simpsons don't age.
Anyway, in my next installment I'm going to cover two turn-of-the-millennium shows and two characters who are the most neglected members of their respective families, and the very different ways they reacted when religion was presented to them as a potential solution. Get hyped!
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