26 Apr 07 Demonic Smurfs and Born-Again Cartoons

Christian singer Chris Rice wrote a song called “Cartoons” in which he muses about what it might be like if cartoons became born-again Christians, singing the word “hallelujah” in extremely good impressions of various children’s cartoon figures — Astro from The Jetsons, the Smurfs, and so on.

The lyrics are here. (By the way, I love the banner ad on top of that page: “We make the clothes. You live JesusBranded.” Oh, Lord, they know not what they doeth!)

Rice writes about it on his site, and it’s inadvertently hilarious commentary on fundie Christians. The thing I found particularly funny is that he wrote it as a joke, not seriously, and yet it took off and became the number one most-requested song amongst Christian music stations.

But unfortunately, the song’s immense popularity of the song completely misses the point Rice was trying to make:

[It's] a satirical song about the modern Christian tendency to ‘Christianize’ everything. I was hoping everyone would get the satire, but they missed the satire, and embraced the song as legit.

Moreover, he was both taken to task over it:

The song was immediately met with a sudden uproar by fans who disagreed with the song and its “theology.” Hundreds approached me and wrote to me to voice their opposition to the song. Some of their reasons were:

1) “Hallelujah” is a Hebrew word that means “Praise the Lord”, so I was misusing the Lord’s name by changing the phrase, and using it in such a flippant and silly way.

2) By not letting Beavis and “that other guy” get saved, I was giving the wrong message to people, that God only loved certain types of people.

3) I should not refer to Beavis and “that other guy” in a Christian song, for “obvious reasons.”

4) I should not refer to the Smurfs in a Christian song, because they do magic, and are therefore demonic.

*pause* Yup. Demonic Smurfs. I’ll let that idea rest with you a moment.

Anyway, to continue, he was simultaneously taken to task over it by Christian fans with no sense of humor, and opposing factions requested it so endlessly at concerts that he had to finally retire the song in 2004 just to get a little peace.

Kinda telling fable of that particular subculture of Christianity, don’tcha think?