Last night I watched Sarah Silverman's "comedy" show on cable TV.
I am the opposite of someone easily offended, but I was offended.
In the episode I saw, the premise was that Ms. Silverman was dating God. She happened to run into God in a park after they had had a sexual encounter in the past.
Wait - It gets worse.
At one point, after they have resumed their relationship, she asks him if he has any children.
He says "No."
OK - I get it. She's Jewish and wants to be shocking and thumb her nose at Christianity and cause a furor.
All I can say is "Mission Accomplished, Sarah."
"Thanks for pointing out in the most graphic and offensive way possible that you don't believe in Christianity and want to mock those who do."
I was truly offended, which is saying a lot.
I support her right as an American to exercise free speech, and I almost appreciate the fact that she managed to really make the stomach of a fairly tolerant and liberal fellow such as myself turn a few flips.
But People! Do we need this type of blasphemy on our television sets?
I think where she made her mistake is when she suggested that she had had sex with God. I think even religious Jews would find that to be an offensive story line.
Without the cover of claiming that her critics are simply anti-semitic, which will be impossible if the religious Jews speak out, she might be actually vulnerable to a backlash if people of faith speak out against her.
I am used to seeing gays like her sitcom neighbours on TV - so that just slides by. I am used to the constant drug references. So that slides by.
But do we have to have a TV show where a woman claims to have sex with God and has the God character deny that He has a Son?
Is this the best we can do?
Every couple of years when I hook the cable back up to keep an eye on what is happening in the world I am shocked, even though I think I am beyond being shocked and I prepare myself ahead of time for the fact that mores in America are quickly devolving.
But openly mocking God and denying Jesus?
Doesn't regular TV do that effectively enough? Do we have to come right out and say it?
Part of me wants to congratulate her for having broken through the media clutter and captured my attention so strongly. Part of me wants to have her show cancelled and exile her to somewhere from whence she will never be heard again.
I have decided that this is an issue beyond a letter-writing campaign, or a display of outrage. They would just feed off of that.
I would ask that everyone who reads about this will pray. For a world that seems to have gone so bad and seems to have lost any sense of shame.
Sarah Silverman's program is not a job for us, or for the FCC, or for her advertisers, or any other form of political action.
Her show is a call to quiet prayer and contemplation.
As Fr Seraphim Rose always said, "It is later than you think. Hasten now to do the work of God."
What other real answer can there be?
-Stumbler, a poor sinner