Jesus Christ: In The Name of The Gun
***Updated***
Each week, I go through the comic book new release list, looking for any interesting titles that I may otherwise have missed. Last week, a title jumped out at me as something I must absolutely find out more about. Jesus Christ: In The Name of The Gun. Now that does sound like a comic worthy of a Pop Culture Christ review, doesn’t it? I did some research and found that before being published in print form, Jesus Christ: In The Name of The Gun existed as a page-a-day webcomic. So I checked it out. Wow. There’s a whole mess of things to talk about here.
Jesus is up in heaven waiting for God to return from his centuries long wanderlust. When the Big Fella does show up, he is distant and uninterested in all the suffering going on down on earth. So Jesus decides to get proactive. He gets reborn in early 20th century Germany, grows up, gets his hands on a sniper rifle and prepares to assassinate Hitler. What we get from that point is a weird mismatch of “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks”. Ernest Hemingway, time travelling assassin. Werewolf Hitler. Jesus with explosive diarrhea. A whole bunch of swearing, violence and crude humour.
Have you ever wanted to see a buddy cop movie starring Jesus as a foul-mouthed, anger fueled, gun totting force of nature running around in sandles and a robe killing nazis? Then maybe you’d be interested in JC:ITNOTG. Want to see a comic where Jesus is created with respect and love because he is the sovereign lord over all creation? Then keep on moving because this book is not for you.
If this book had featured the prophet Mohamed instead of Jesus Christ, there would be riots. That’s how disrespectful this book is. I could go on about the non-caring, Marlon Brando suspended head God. Or that Jesus and God are very much not one and the same. Or that Jesus’ power is limited and constrained. There is so much I could pick apart here, but I’m not sure how helpful that would be.
At it’s heart, this book seeks to answer why Jesus allows events like the holocaust to exist. So the author has him rock up to Germany and go all Rambo on everyone. What we see in the Bible is vastly different. God, aware of all the sin and suffering in the world and wanting to do something about it, sends his son Jesus to earth. And then we kill him. But his death and resurrection do something that was otherwise impossible. It makes it possible to be in a relationship with God. It saves us from our sin. And one day, Jesus will return in glory. The forces of evil will line up to face the King in battle. But instead of a Schwarzenegger orgy of violence, it’s an anti-climax. In Revelation 19:19 the battle is about to begin. In 19:20 the battle is over. The forces of evil don’t even stand a chance when faced with the power of Christ. That’s the power and strength of the real Jesus. And that’s why JC:ITNOTG can’t even begin to show us the real Jesus.
Jesus Christ: In The Name of The Gun can be found here. I can’t recommend it. There’s very little about this book that is redeeming in any way. But in the name of freedom of speech and wanting you to make your own mind up I’d be negligent if I didn’t give you the opportunity to read it for yourself.
***Update*** Co-writer and artist Ethan Nicolle has written about his work on JC:ITNOTG and has apologised for any disrespect it may cause. Well worth reading what he says.
Pop Culture Christ 
I thought Jesus Christ: in the name of the gun was really funny.
Yes it is disrespectful, and that is what is funny about it.
It is precisely because the depiction of Jesus here is so far from how he is normally depicted that makes it funny.
When you take something (be it a concept, a person or a event) and declare that no body is allowed to make fun of it, it makes it inherently funnier to mock it mercilessly.
All ideas should be open to ridicule and mockery, religion cant get a free pass on this.
Also, I have to ask, would Jesus really care if someone mocked him in a very silly comic that is obviously not meant to be taken seriously?
If someone made a comic about me that made fun of me, making me look silly or incontinent or doing the exact opposite of what I normally do, I cant say I would care that much. In fact I would probably find it funny. So can I take a joke better then our Lord?
I like to hope God would find this sort of thing amusing or at worst, irrelevant and unimportant.
The idea of a God so insecure that he cries or gets angry when people laugh at him paints a picture of a universe run by an infant.
Also, when Jesus ran up the stream of urine to kick a guys head off…that was AWESOME!
I agree that there is a place for humour in the Christian faith. Jesus is not immune to satire. But there is a huge difference between satire and “ridicule and mockery”. Jesus in South Park is a great example of satire, which takes the common conception of Jesus and exagerates it to show how it is flawed. Ridicule and mockery, however, exist purely to put something down. There is no higher purpose to this humour, it’s just plain mean. The Jesus in this comic is so far from the truth that it actually defames Jesus. It doesn’t illuminate any hidden truth or comment on the Christian faith or its followers. When one of the creatives behind the comic steps up and says that this was a very bad idea and he should never have done it, you have to wonder if it really was a mistake.
Well, the South Park Jesus was better, but this one has potential, if he wasn’t so crude. The idea of Jesus as an action hero is genius, Jesus could get angry in the Bible, he wasn’t just a nice hippie. Christians should be reminded of that: Don’t piss off Jesus (he might or he might not forgive you for your sins).
Yes it is crude and direspectful and the humor isn’t even that funny. It’s was quite boring actually and I dispise the way angels and God are portrayed. God is a floating head and the angels are men with wings. Pathetic.
And why the hell is Jesus killing Archangel Michael? I don’t care if the author apologised. He’s still creating the comic and showing scenes like this. The Arch Angels are holy beings and it was Michael who defeated Satan and kicked him out of Heaven according to God’s will. Archangels are servents of God but they deserve respect too.
I have no problem with the comic calling Jesus a seperate entity from God. That’s not where the disrespect occurs as there are Christians who hold this view.
At times it’s quite confusing too. I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.
As far as I can see from his apology, he’s not still creating the comic. He says “I had decided to quit the irreverent Jesus Comic”