What Have We Wrought In Thy Name, O Lord?

Remember when religion was a great source of inspiration, and that inspiration became great art?

For example, Michelangelo's "Creation of Man" from the Sistine Chapel.

Or how about John Donne's Meditation XVII, known for the following passage:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Or Beethoven's 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy)?



Oh Lord, how far we have fallen. Look on these works, ye mighty, and despair! Because now there's this:
















where Jesus looks like a lost member of Alabama. All that's missing from this picture is a jug with three "X's" on it.

Oh, and then there's "Footprints"














which I think is one of the world's greatest insults to poetry.

Once on vacation, my family was staying in a place that had the poem framed on the wall. My sister treated us all one evening by reading it aloud. However, when she got to the portion about "I don't understand why in times when I needed you most, you should leave me" she added for Jesus "Uh, I had to go to the bathroom."

Sadly, it was a vast improvement.


But now, O Lord, there is this, by far the greatest travesty of all: Christmeliscious.



Was there ever a clearer case of using the Lord's name in vain? Oh we are all doomed. DOOMED. It's bad enough that the original song has more in common with a spelling bee than a hymn - most of the lyrics are merely spelled out rather than the artist taking the time to write actual words (this is generally known as cheating). But the original tuneless, untalented performance suffers even more through the vast number of tuneless, untalented children.

Oh Lord, where are thy smiting thunderbolts?!