"Is Sponge Bob gay?" That is the story that came on CNN as I ate my lunch today. The first thought that came into my head is "You've got to be kidding me." An evangelical Christian group called Focus on the Family was offended by the sexual content found within the kids show Sponge Bob Square pants. The TV showed militant fifth graders taking to the streets to protest this action and show their support for their beloved cartoon character by wearing sponge bob pajamas and sponge bob t-shirts. Now you'd think with all the disasters, wars, and general suffering going on in the world today people would find better things to argue over, but here we are arguing over the sexual preferences over a character who in real life is actually a hermaphrodite containing both male and female traits.
This reminds me of Russia in 1917 right before the Communist Revolution. The Russian Orthodox Church met in their national assembly to discuss the raging debates and the pressing issues of their time. Now you'd think they would discuss the growing threat of nihilistic philosophy creeping into their academic communitiy, the unrest of the poor, the growing threat of their neighbor Germany, but instead the raging debate was the proper color for the sacramental robes.
I understand that to these Christians, Sponge Bob represents the spiritual decadence of American culture, that we are a people who have grown calloused to the evil "manifesting itself in the gay community" and are naively exposing our children to the harmless evils that is slowly corrupting them. I can understand their concern and their fear. But the American Church is quickly becoming absolutely right and utterly irrelevant.
Christianity has so much to offer and to be reduced to this, quibbling over the sexual preferences of a cartoon character, saddens me greatly. Where are the thinkers of the Church who can wrestle with the questions of this age and offer wisdom and hope in these dark times? Where are the Augustines or the Chestertons of this age? It is little use to me, if a Christian can tell me whether Sponge Bob is gay or not. I honestly don't care. I'd rather have someone explain to me why I can't find it in myself to love anyone regardless of gender, or how these same Christians can honestly justify spending thousands of dollars on superflous items while their so-called brothers and sisters in third world countries starve to death. But instead they'd rather pick on Sponge Bob. Sponge Bob has become the sacremental robes of our times. If this is the caliber of contemplation that the Church's leading minds wrestle with, then our end is approaching faster than we imagine.
After 9/11 church attendance surged as people poured in looking for answers, hope, something to explain the destruction they had witnessed. But after a few monthes church attendance returned back to normal. Why is this? I think it's because people went to church and then left the church because they found the church had nothing to offer them. That is what it means to be absolutely right and utterly irrelevant."