'God is a Boob Man' ignites Christian anger

Vanessa Bayer stars in a "Saturday Night Live" spoof of "God's Not Dead 2"

Critics of the Christianity portrayed in the new movie God's Not Dead 2, which opened just this month with a stellar $8.1 million first weekend performance, have erupted because their opinion of the project has been challenged now.

The word fight so far has involved "Saturday Night Live," Salon, the New York Daily News and even actor, singer and Hollywood icon Pat Boone.

And it doesn't seem like it will be going away any time soon, with Gersh Kuntzman writing at the Daily News on Tuesday about Boone's "brand of Christian faith" being "idiocy."

Calling Boone, whose record sales rivaled Elvis Presley's when their careers peaked, a "glass of lukewarm milk," Kuntzman wrote, "Boone is a genuine idiot. Every time he opens his mouth, he reveals the foolishness of blind faith."

Kuntzman's exhibition of tolerance for another's faith came after Boone said a "Saturday Night Live" skit went too far when it distorted the movie's message. He called it "diabolical" because of its misrepresentations and its targeting of Christians.

"They know if they did this to Muslims they'd have to be put into the witness protection program," Boone told the Hollywood Reporter on Monday. "There's nothing sacred at 'SNL' – except maybe the words 'Muhammad' or "Allah.' They'd never take those names in vain, but when they called God a 'boob man,' they took his name in vain."

This is the skit that "Saturday Night Live" broadcast just days ago:

Two characters portray a homosexual couple demanding that a Christian provide a same-sex wedding cake. The baker refuses and is brought into court by fiendish opponents where even the judge pressures her to say God is "gay."

The punch line is that she says "God is a boob man."

Boone, in an interview, told WND, "The parody is a parody of a movie that doesn't exist. The movie that we made has nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality … there's not a reference to anyone Jewish. [There's] nothing whatsoever in the parody that relates to the film itself."

"It's made-up … and criticizing us for something we didn't do."

He suggested perhaps homosexuals should be offended, since they are "portrayed as more bigoted than the Christians. For them to be portrayed as demanding that God be declared gay is so over the top. I don't think any responsible member of the homosexual community would want to identify with that."

The attack on the film is part of an agenda, he noted.

"It's because the battle between good and evil is heating up. All you have to do is look at the enemies of America and democracy and Christianity, and for that matter Judaism. The enemies have become increasingly violent and depraved, very much outspoken in their ridicule," he told WND. "The anti-Bible people are more virulent, violent."

He said, "God is not thin-skinned. But he does demand reverence. If you have any brains at all you don't pitch yourself against someone who created all things, the God of the Bible."

He added, "They don't have to apologize to Christians [but] when you come against God and the Holy Spirit who are one and the same, you are bringing upon yourself eternal condemnation. … I shudder when I think about what [will happen] when they continue in this mindset. You can disparage deity, you can debunk divinity, and libel God, but when he says the only reason we exist is to fear him, to reverence him…

"For those who dissent and disagree and reject God there is a place already prepared – for the devil, his angels and those who side with him," he said.

"God's Not Dead 2" producer Michael Scott and Rice Broocks, who authored the book on which the first movie was based, both told WND they recognize humor, they recognize parody, but this went way beyond, distorting and twisting the message the movie portrays.

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The whole dispute launched when "God's Not Dead" was released in 2014.

WND columnist Lord Monckton explained how it packed theaters "it points the finger squarely at the increasingly vicious intolerance of Christianity on the part of a now militantly and poisonously atheistic-humanist political and academic establishment."

That story is about a college underclassman who is in Philosophy 150, where a sneering philosophy professor, played by Kevin Sorbo, instructs his class to write "God Is Dead."

Wrote Monckton, "This film is a brilliant exposé of the intolerance of all non-Marxist, non-atheist viewpoints that far too many academic establishments in the United States and worldwide now practice."

The trailer for first movie:

The first movie handled the question of the existence of God, and the second now the question of whether Jesus is man or messiah.

The makers explained they were inspired by a long list – dozens of cases long – in which real people have face "very real threats to religious liberty" in America's "public square."

Among them:

Dr. Mike Adams was denied a promotion at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington after becoming a Christian and conservative writer. He was successfully defended by Alliance Defending Freedom, and the university was ordered to promote him.
The University of Illinois fired Dr. Kenneth Howell after one of his students was "offended" by his description of Catholic teachings on sexual behavior. He was successfully defended by Alliance Defending Freedom and reinstated.
Professor June Sheldon at San Jose City College was fired for answering a question about heredity and homosexual behavior from the class textbook, and a student claimed to be "offended." She was defended by Alliance Defending Freedom and reinstated.
Librarian Scott Savage at Ohio State University-Mansfield suggested four conservative books for the freshmen reading list and three professors filed complaints about him. Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit, and the university dropped the charges.
Michael Lucas, a former football player for the Colorado School of Mines, wanted to sponsor a new locker with a plaque that contained two scriptural references. But the university refused. Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit on Michael's behalf.

And so on for dozens more.

Scott told WND in an interview criticisms such as the "SNL" skit can "push things too far" and "cause divisions."

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Broocks said the downfall of the skit was that it used a separate social issue – demands by homosexuals that Christians' beliefs be put in second place to their homosexual agenda – to criticize the movie.

Boone, too, told WND that the issues highlighted by "SNL," homosexuality and even anti-Semitism, simply are not in the movie.

The production is about Christian faith in the work place and classroom, and whether America will allow it, Broocks said, not the LGBT campaign.

He said there was a passing reference to the Houston Five, pastors in Texas whose sermons were subpoenaed by then-Mayor Annise Parker when they opposed her transgender and homosexual agenda, but "we didn't pick up and make that a specific issue."

He said the point is that the First Amendment "protects everyone … whatever your religious beliefs."

Scott said that there comes a point when taking things out of context and pushing them too far becomes disrespectful.

And Broocks said the message was twisted and the satire was of something "we didn't say or come close to saying."

The trailer for the second:

When it opened at the beginning of the month, the film starring Melissa Joan Hart and Boone played in 2,419 theaters.

The original movie, which starred Sorbo on a budget of $2 million, netted $9.2 million its opening weekend and went on to gross more than $60 million domestically.

The "SNL" sketch was not the only attack on the motion picture.

At Salon, Silpa Kovvali wrote "It's impossible to stress how deeply unrealistic the film's premise is," despite the long list of similar real-life scenarios on record.

"The movie suggests the persecution of Christians in our society is readily apparent in the real world, and not just as artistic license. ('Join the movement,' the closing credits implore). Then why on earth would its writers and producers have to invent such a case out of thin air, rather than portraying one of the multitudes of victimless crimes for which Christians throughout the country are presumably being prosecuted? Perhaps because employees demanding contraceptive coverage or gay couples service might be more sympathetic than fiendish ACLU lawyers?" Kovvali wrote.

"Or perhaps because no such case exists? In my personal experience at a diverse public school in the notoriously blue state of New Jersey, my teachers frequently discussed Christianity from a historical and political perspective as well as a literary one. (In a heavily South Asian school district, Hinduism was discussed only during a middle school unit on world religions, during which, for the first time in my 13 years as a practicing Hindu, I had to memorize the names and descriptions of the various castes.) The only complaint I ever heard came from a Catholic student who disapproved of our English teacher's reference to Christian 'mythology'," he wrote.

Then came the "SNL" skit and Boone's criticism of its overreach.

The Hollywood Reporter quoted him saying, "God has a sense of humor. Why else would he invent the porcupine and the giraffe? Something can be devilishly funny, but this skit is diabolical. God has only one real enemy – Satan. Satan ridicules faith, and they're taking Satan's side. They're also ridiculing me and the film, telling impressionable young people not to see it because it's ridiculous. Then they throw in that the lawyer is Jewish to make the Christian look even worse, but it's just anti-Semitic."

He told the Reporter, "They went over the line, and believers in God deserve an apology."

Following immediately was Kuntzman's blast at Boone at the Daily News.

"Where to begin," he wrote, "Even if you accept Boone's creationism – and the suggestion that God creates animals simply for the sheer amusement of it – Boone's logic falls apart. If God created some animals for our amusement, He might also have created (Lord forgive me for saying this) Lorne Michaels to also amuse us. (Granted, a porcupine Lorne Michaels would be even funnier. So why didn't God create that, Pat? Huh?)"