We, the editors on Spirited Animation podcast Dr Tim Jones and Pastor Erin Jones, conclude our guest-edited theme on Profane Animation, with reflections on irreligiousness in animation from a working congregational pastor – the Reverend Katy Sachse. The Spirited Animation podcast blends scholarly analysis with sacred reading practices. In the Lutheran tradition to which both Pastor Erin and Pastor Katy belong, pastors are textual scholars. This helps to gain a perspective on different reasons and approaches to teach a so-called profane text:
Finding meaningful, engaging, honest, thoughtful, and not-terminally-boring material with which to teach junior high students about the Christian faith is ridiculously difficult. And so, when faced with yet another evening surrounded by the death stare of middle schoolers, I turned years ago to the animated TV show which most consistently tackles topics of faith and church life: The Simpsons.
Need to talk about Reformation history? Watch the Halloween episode where Lisa creates life in a petri dish and, noticing that one of her creations has nailed something to a door, says, “Hey! I’ve created Lutherans!”[1], see video clip 1. Need a conversation starter about temptation? watch throughout the seasons Reverend Timothy Lovejoy dealing with his gambling problem. Trying to hold a conversation about dilemmas of suffering, faith, and prayer? watch “Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?” from season 31, episode 9. Questions of faith show up occasionally in lots of television shows, but none deal with faith and faith community as regularly as the Simpsons. People go to church as an ordinary part of their lives; Reverend Lovejoy and the super-Christian Flanders family are an integral part of the Springfield community. Whereas some shows might showcase questions of faith and doubt in a special episode, the Simpsons does it all the time, in ways both big and small. Foolish characters like Homer might say exceptionally wise things and the picture-perfect Flanders family makes mistakes. Reverend Lovejoy is both a caricature of sanctimonious religiosity in some moments, and thoroughly human the next.
As a Lutheran pastor, I am particularly passionate about our tradition’s approach to the paradox of “saint and sinner” – to the paradox that we are, at the same time, both deeply holy and deeply flawed. To be a saint is not to reach some height of perfection, but simply to partner with God as best we can. To be a sinner is not some punishment handed to us from the garden of Eden, but a truthful recognition of how broken we are, and living in a fractured world. We are within the same sixty seconds, to borrow the words of Dickens: “the best of times and the worst of times” (1859: 3). Although, truthfully, I have not memorized every episode, I have never heard the Simpsons use formal theological language . The characters in the show do not need to explain what is clear simply in the way they are portrayed. Yes, some of them are pure stereotypes, like Phil Hartman portrayed as the character Troy McClure was unmatched at this. But most of the characters are a messy, inconsistent combination of intelligence, foolishness, wisdom, and idiocy. Lisa is a genius; and frequently irritating. Bart is a stinker – and surprisingly kind in moments. Homer is, to be frank, a moron. And yet occasionally he says something more truthful than even he realizes. Saint and sinner, drawn to life.
I first started using clips from The Simpsons some twenty years ago, and wondered if I might get pushback from the parents of students who are preparing for Confirmation. The show, after all, had been famously criticized at its start for the foul-mouthed, poorly behaved Bart. Whereas these days, “eat my shorts” seems pretty quaint for profanity. But what kids wanted to talk about was the world as they experienced it, and the lives they were actually living. Trying to tell them biblical stories from thousands of years ago could be a stretch. Watching a colorful, hilarious, occasionally crass cartoon show gave them a different way to start the conversation. Because many of them, at the time, watched the show regularly, they could pay attention to its conversations about faith differently once we had called them out during confirmation class. They could recognize that faith communities have always been full of hypocrisy, generosity, curiosity, and stupidity – all at the same time. If faith could be a regular part of the Simpsons’ world, it could be part of theirs too.
The show has lost some of its cultural influence in the past decade, and I do not use it as much anymore. But there is still no better television show that bridges between the profane and the sacred, between the saint and the sinner in us all, than the Simpsons. There is still no richer trove of conversation starters than the animated town of Springfield. As people of an incarnated God, made fully human in Jesus Christ, we can be glad for the fully-human, if also fully animated, world of the Simpsons, where something holy and something disgusting are almost sure to happen at the same time. Just like in real life.
References
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Edited and with an introduction and notes by Richard Maxwell. London: Penguin Classics (1859/2003).
Pastor Katy McCallum Sachse serves at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, in Kirkland, Washington. In addition to her love of The Simpsons, she is an inveterate reader, occasional gardener, and mother to her very own middle schooler. She is passionate about storytelling, the radical generosity of God’s love, women’s rights to bodily and vocational autonomy, and the Seattle Mariners.
[1] For more on The Simpsons, check out Spirited Animation’s season 1, episode 11 podcast “Tree House of Horror” with Kevin Schreck, created and hosted by pastor Erin Jones and animation scholar Tim Jones who are guest editors on the Profane Animation theme for this blog.