Cartoon Knife in Back Revisited!

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Phoenix Preacher over this cartoon that I posted the other day. My cartoon on nakedpastor only provoked 7 comments. But Phoenix Preacher is getting a vast range of responses. Some are offended and repulsed by it. Some identify with it.

I rarely comment on other blogs. I should do it more often. But I felt like participating in the conversation. Here’s what I said:

Hey everyone. Quite a conversation!! Maybe I can shed some light on the cartoon by explaining what motivated me to draw it. It always amazes me, in the church… because that’s where I spent over 40 years of my life so that’s pretty much all I have to go by… how people could really hurt each other totally unaware of the wounding they’ve caused and just go on as if nothing happened. I don’t know how many times I received words “from the Lord” that should have never left the mouths of the people saying them. But because it was all prefaced with “thus saith the Lord” it was excusable. That’s just a for instance.

Despite people’s opinions about nakedpastor and the biting critique my cartoons sometimes provide, I do believe that almost all churches and Christians sincerely mean well. I don’t know of any Christians who would intentionally hurt someone. (Well… maybe just a few!) We find other ways of achieving our sometimes selfish and harmful agendas by veiling them with a thin cloak of good intentions.

I assert: This cloak of good intentions that veils our selfish and harmful agendas is almost always the function of religion and spirituality.

What do you think?