I Must Be Getting Older Than I Thought

Most Sundays you won't find me sitting in the front row at church. Or, in any other row for that matter. Not that my parents didn't do a good job of making sure Pastor Dan had his shot at me every Sunday morning when I was growing up. They did, and most of what he had to teach has stuck with me in one form or another even if I don't offend those around me by "singing" the weekly selections from the hymnal.

I preach a pretty good tolerance game, while at the same time have no trouble crossing the line into being horribly offensive to those who can't or won't take the time to see the deeper subtext hidden by the surface words. Perhaps I am guilty of the latter offense, particularly as I have pretty well judged this particular book only by its cover.

During an assignment to California for most of 1999, I became somewhat hooked on the KFI morning show done by Bill Handel. Through the years I kept up with the show and the station whenever I found myself in the Los Angeles area, and then later on a far more regular basis as streaming internet radio became available. It is through the KFI webcast that I first became aware of The Jesus Christ Show.

The first few commercials I heard let me dismiss the show as standard Sunday morning fare. The more of them I heard, though, the more obvious it became that there was this guy who was identifying himself in the first person as Jesus Christ. I finally broke down and tuned in one Sunday morning. Sure enough, the host ran through his opening spiel and concluded with "I am your Holy Host, Jesus Christ". That was a bit of a stunner, even for someone like me who will let a joke wander far away from the straight and narrow if it helps to get a point across.

I chose to ignore the show, and to ignore examining exactly why the concept disturbed me so much. After all, I didn't live in the Southland and didn't need to have any more exposure to a purely local phenomenon than I chose.

Clear Channel doesn't see it that way. In recent weeks, they have added The Jesus Christ Show to the Sunday morning lineup on XM Radio channel 158 at 9:00 AM Eastern, following me anywhere my radio has line of sight to the satellite. Yes I can still avoid the show if I choose, and so far have.

My concern is, when did I become that intolerant SOB who gets his hackles up just because he is confronted with something that is so obviously offensive and wrong? Particularly since I'm guilty of passing that judgment based upon a handful of commercials and three minutes of an opening monologue.