Homer the Heretic

The Simpsons is/was a great show.

Today, Homer the Heretic aired.

It's funny, to be sure, but it's not too subversive, now is it?

For those who don't know, Homer wants to stay home from church one Sunday in the nice, warm bed and watch football and have fun, rather than freeze his butt off to a boring sermon for hours in church. And who can blame him? One reason many teens and kids loathe religion is the whole 'waking up early on my day off to be bored - that's what school's for' thing.

Marge pressures him to go back to church, but he refuses. She doesn't want to choose between her man and her God - God wins. She even tells the kids her father is wicked for refusing to go to church! That is messed up on too many levels, okay?

To his credit, he tries to tell of another 'wicked' dude who had long hair and wild ideas, didn't always do what was popular, you know, the guy who drove that blue car?

So he falls asleep with a cigar, lights the house on fire, and is rescued by people who he'd recently mocked for their religious beliefs. So he goes back to church, because God worked through "the hearts of your friends and neighbors when they came to your aid, be they Christian, Jew, or ... miscellaneous." God didn't set the house on fire, but he sent people to help.

So he goes back and falls asleep in church, naturally - wish I could get away with that - and has another dream where he talks to God.

I know it was in 1992, Bush Senior was president, but Christ! One of the most subversive cartoons of our time ends with him going right back to church? Ugh.

However, the beginning was hilarious - the opening scene, prenatal Homer in the warm womb, not going nowhere, yanked out into the cold reality of early Sunday morning. We've all been there, every single day we have to get up for work or school or anything that requires not staying warm in bed all day.

And I do love some of the quotes from the episode...

Homer: And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder! I've always wondered that, then I figured that any god that cared that much about how you worshipped, where you worshipped, and not what was in your heart and soul wasn't that great a god in the first place.


Ned: Homer, God didn't set your house on fire.
Rev. Lovejoy: No, but He working in the hearts of your friends and
neighbors when they came to your aid,
be they [points to Ned] Christian, [Krusty] Jew, or [Apu] ... miscellaneous.
Apu: Hindu! There 700 million of us.
Rev. Lovejoy: Aw, that's super.




I just don't get how not going to church means forsaking your faith, but then I don't get much of it.