Last week’s edition of “Saturday Night Live” contained an epic send-up of the religious right’s persecution complex. Well, that didn’t sit well with Pat Boone. He’s spent most of this week warning the “SNL” crew that they may have punched their ticket to hell for cooking up such a skit.
Near the end of the show, Vanessa Bayer starred in “God is a Boob Man,” a skit in which a Christian cake baker refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. In response, an ACLU lawyer tried to get her to declare that God was actually gay. In case you missed it, watch it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDDAa1If-u4
The skit was an obvious parody of the “God’s Not Dead” series. When Boone, who plays Melissa Joan Hart’s dad in “God’s Not Dead 2,” saw this, he hit the ceiling. The former crooner has been a mainstay on the religious right circuit for the better part of four decades. He told The Hollywood Reporter that by making such a “diabolical” skit, “SNL” was “taking Satan’s side.”
However, he thinks it’s a waste of time demanding an apology for this “outright sacrilege.” Why?
“They don’t answer to me. They answer to the one they defame, and there are consequences.”
Boone claimed that there was no way “SNL” would have been able to get away with such a skit mocking Islam. Ironic, since with this screed he sounded a lot like ISIS, the Taliban, and the mullahs in Iran.
Boone kept it up the next day in an interview with WorldNetDaily. He claimed the SNL parody was a sign that “the battle between good and evil is heating up,” and that those hostile to Christianity have become increasingly “more virulent, violent.” However, he had a warning for them.
“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.”
Boone went on to say that SNL and others who “come against God and the Holy Spirit” are taking a big risk–“eternal damnation.” That’s not a risk he thinks anyone should take since “the only reason we exist is to fear him, to reverence him.” For those who don’t heed that warning, “there is a place already prepared – for the devil, his angels and those who side with him.” Again, I ask–how is this any different from the hateful bilge we’ve heard from Islamist jihadists?
On Thursday, Boone doubled down in an interview with Glenn Beck. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Boone reminded Beck’s audience of the story of Korah in Numbers 16. When Korah tried to seize the leadership of Israel from Moses, God opened up a hole in the earth and buried he and his followers alive alive. As he saw it, those who “speak against God and his purpose” should know that “they’re answering to Him, not us.”
He then suggested that by putting together this skit, Bayer and the rest of the “SNL” team had blasphemed the Holy Spirit–which is named as the one unforgivable sin in the Bible. For that reason, Boone isn’t angry at “SNL.” Rather, he feels sadness for them and others “doing these things,” since they don’t know that the proverbial lightning bolt could hit at any time.
This sort of talk sends a chill down my spine. Many of you know that I was tricked into joining a borderline cultish hypercharismatic campus ministry during my freshman year at Carolina. I managed to get out with my integrity intact, and was not shy about speaking out against them. Whenever I did so, some of my former “brothers” and “sisters” frequently warned me to “be careful what you say.” For example, one of them warned me against saying “bad things about Christians”–and if I kept it up, “one day, God’s gonna shut your mouth.” And yet, when I was in there, we were frequently told that people would hate us “because of what we believe.”
What Boone is saying is no different. He whines about persecution, then in the same breath declares no one has the right to speak against Christianity. How is that any different from ISIS’ message? Perhaps we should ask Boone ourselves–politely, of course. Let him have it on Facebook and on Twitter.
