There is such a natural belittling of Judeo-Christianity in our nation and society, not in spite of our deep roots in the American republic, but because of them.

To curse Jesus is tolerance and hilarity to curse Muhammad is hateful and subhuman. South Park, Family Guy, The Simpsons, etc.) had already been dragging the entire personage, idea, image, name, and work of Jesus Christ through the worse-than-mud for decades already, without so much as a lifting of the head by the Christian community, let alone the secular media. Remember the uproar regarding Charlie Hebdo and their Muhammad cartoons? America stood in head-wagging shock at the audacity of such intolerance overseas, and yet virtually every American adult cartoon (i.e. The sad thing is, the majority of His “followers” don’t even notice it’s going on or, if they do, care. While blaspheming the name of Jesus Christ (or any Member of the Godhead, for that matter) has become more commonplace in recent years, what with the leniency provided by the FCC, it by no means lessens the severe disrespect engendered towards Christ or His followers. It reminded me distinctly of Robert Ludlum‘s 1970s or of any sitcom or episodic series of the early 2000s that wanted to sound edgy (I think particularly of Monk‘s first dive into the mainstream, the first episode of Season Two which blasphemed and cursed more than any other episode in the entire series, just because they could). It seemed that virtually every early page of dialogue shouted the name of “Christ” or “Jesus” without qualms or concern, as if every American spoke this way in the 1950s. Unluckily for him, however, I did put it down because he shamelessly and incessantly defaced the name and honor of the God of the universe, as if somewhere in the second half of the century, he pulled a Faust and sold his soul for the chance to sell novels. Luckily for Crichton, I didn’t put this particular novel down for either its inane plot structure or non-believable scenes or dialogue, as has happened in the past (consider the painful Timeline or the ridiculous Sphere). Sadly, however, I couldn’t delve very far into the book for the sake of Crichton’s incessant blasphemy, which will be my theme for this post. I’ve enjoyed watching films with similar story lines, and with Zika and the anti-antibiotic super-bugs threatening our fringes, I figured it would be a good time to give this book a read. I did so for the promised plot, a deadly virus in the 1950s American Southwest that threatens to kill off a large percentage of the world, if released. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment, but early this summer I opened up another novel by Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain.

The andromeda strain 1969