After all, one of the main characters in his syndicated comic strip “Kudzu” was the Rev. Will B. Dunn, a deep-fried Southern preacher who always remained optimistic, even as he battled with the insanity of modern life (especially trendy Bible translations).

Meanwhile, Marlette’s political cartoons often inspired readers to barrage editors with the kind of God talk that cannot be printed in family newspapers.

There was, for example, his caricature of Pope John Paul II wearing a “No Women Priests” button. The caption said, “Upon this Rock I will build my church” and Marlette drew an arrow pointing at the pope’s head. Another infamous cartoon showed an Arab terrorist driving a truck containing a nuclear bomb. The caption: “What Would Mohammed Drive?”

A cartoon on my office wall — a gift from Marlette as I left the Charlotte Observer — shows PTL televangelist Jim Bakker kneeling before a dollar sign that towers over a stone altar framed with candles. Bakker proclaims, with his boyish grin, “Gimme that old time religion!”

The cartoonist knew he was playing with holy fire. You can’t draw Jesus climbing Calvary on Good Friday — carrying an electric chair — and not expect people to react.

Marlette insisted that his goal was to remind his fellow believers to practice what they preach.

“As I look back through my work, I’m always amazed by how much of what I do just comes out of having gone to Sunday school,” he said, taking a break in his cluttered Observer office in the mid-1980s. “The perspective, the viewpoint, comes out of that. They don’t teach subversive ideas in the Magnolia Street Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi.”

Marlette, 57, was back in Mississippi recently when he died in a single-vehicle crash on a rain-swept highway while on the way to help a high school perform his musical, “Kudzu.” A true gadfly, he rattled cages for more than three decades and died with more than his share of faithful friends and fierce critics.

A native of North Carolina, the cartoonist and writer burst into print after studying at Florida State University, where he tried to study art but ended up majoring in philosophy. He took classes in New Testament and ethics but also, as he loved to note, classes in sports officiating. Marlette won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his work at the Observer and the Atlanta Constitution. He wrote two novels and, in 2001, became a distinguished visiting professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Marlette had a better grasp of the power of religion than most journalists, noted former Observer editor Rich Oppel, who led the newsroom during the PTL era. The cartoonist was a provocateur and, at his best, a prophet.

“After 10 years of our reporting, televangelist Bakker resigned from PTL and was later convicted of fraud and sentenced to federal prison,” noted Oppel, in his editor’s column at the Austin American-Statesman. “Bakker’s handpicked successor was Jerry Falwell, who came in to see me and ‘make peace.’

“From a corner, Marlette cast a gimlet eye on Falwell as the minister did his best Sunday school number on me. Marlette then retreated to his lair to pen a cartoon of the preacher as a serpent in the Garden of Eden. Falwell refused to talk to me again.”

When it came to religion, Marlette thought of himself as a Baptist’s Baptist, a fierce believer in the “priesthood of the believer,” the authority of human experience and the separation of church and state.

There are, he told me, people who become cynical about religion and he was determined not to yield to that temptation — very often. But there were many times when he preferred laughing, instead of crying.

While he took the Christian faith seriously, he also thought it was futile to obsess over details. There were times when he felt like a church of one.

“It’s my own church, my own perspective. It certainly doesn’t deserve to be institutionalized or taken more seriously than other people’s,” said Marlette. “It’s not infallible. It’s skewed. It’s mine. … It’s kind of like dissecting a frog. Once you get the thing cut up and taken apart, it’s not really a frog anymore. Something dies in the process.”

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Consider what happened recently after a staged emergency at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey. The police script for the drill called for armed men to crash the front doors, shoot several students and barricade themselves in the library with hostages. This document, according to the Burlington County Times, described the intruders as part of “a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who do not believe in the separation of church and state.” The two gunmen attacked because a child had been expelled for praying.

For some reason, evangelical pastors became alarmed. Thus, local officials and educators released a statement saying they regretted “any insensitivity that might have been inferred” by this scenario, including any offense taken by those who “inferred” that the mock terrorists were Christians.

I have no idea why pastors “inferred” that organizers of this tax-funded drill had in any way suggested that “right-wing” fundamentalists in a “New Crusaders” army opposed to the “separation of church and state” and angry about a “school prayer” dispute might be conservative Christians.

No way. Why would anyone “infer” something like that?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Boredom is rarely a problem for journalists on the religion beat. That’s why I mark this column’s anniversary every year — this is No. 18 — by offering a grab-bag collection of strange stories that I didn’t have the chutzpah or the time to cover during the previous 12 months. So hang on.

* During holiday seasons, I get all kinds of email and often it’s hard to tell when people are joking. For example, I received an copy of “The Two-Minute Haggadah: A Passover service for the impatient.” It condensed the rite’s pivotal four questions to this:

(1) “What’s up with the matzoh?” (2) “What’s the deal with horseradish?” (3) “What’s with the dipping of the herbs?” (4) “What’s this whole slouching at the table business?” The answers? “(1) “When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread.” (2) “Life was bitter, like horseradish.” (3) “It’s called symbolism.” (4) “Free people get to slouch.”

* No joke. The KFC restaurant chain did ask Pope Benedict XVI to bless its new “Fish Snacker” product, which the company said would be “ideal for American Catholics who want to observe Lenten season traditions while still leading their busy, modern lifestyles.” Apparently, the pope declined.

* Try to imagine the media response if President George W. Bush ended a United Nations address with a call for the second coming of his Messiah and pledged to help this apocalypse happen sooner rather than later.

Would this make headlines? Thus, I was surprised when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drew little fire when he ended his fall U.N. speech by saying:

“I emphatically declare that today’s world … above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet. O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return.”

* Candid religion quote of the year? Asked by Vanity Fair if she is a Christian, columnist Ann Coulter replied: “Yes, sort of a mean Christian.”

* Church PR efforts are getting edgier. An Episcopal parish in New Jersey issued a “Message to Disaffected Roman Catholics” proclaiming that many “whose spiritual lives are grounded in the Mass and in the sacraments are, nevertheless, unable to concur with the Vatican’s position on issues such as the role of women in the church, contraception, remarriage of divorced person, homosexual relationships, or abortion. … If you are among them, you may find a comfortable spiritual home at Grace Church in Newark.”

* In a list of 100 men and women who are “transforming our world,” Time editors included 27 “artists and entertainers,” 16 “scientists and thinkers” and many other powerful people. However, the list included only three religious leaders. This is the planet earth we are talking about, right?

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On his way home from a business call, he drove past the Greater Pleasant View Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tenn. As usual, the no-tech sign out front offered a folksy thought for the week. This one caught his eye.

“He who kneels before God can stand before anyone,” it said, in black, movable letters inserted by hand into slots on a plain white background.

Seitz pulled over and got out of his car to study the sign.

“It’s all about timing,” he said. “I’ve driven past thousands of church signs in my life, but this was the right sign on the right day. It got me. That’s the thing about these signs. They grab you when you least expect it. They move you, somehow.”

Before long, the president of Redbird Music crossed the line between intrigued and somewhat obsessed.

Along with his wife and their young son, he packed their car full of camera equipment and “lots of sippy cups” and hit the road. His goal was to find as many of these old-fashioned signs as possible — the kind that say things like “Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous,” “Exercise daily, walk with the Lord,” “God answers knee mail” and “Give God what is right, not what is left.”

They spread their trips over three years and Seitz stopped keeping track of the miles after they passed the 20,000 mark. The result was “The Great American Book of Church Signs,” which contains 100 photographs taken in nearly 40 states. The pilgrimage, he said, was like reading “one long American sermon.”

Seitz did have questions. He wondered if these signs are still common at rural churches, but rarely used by city megachurches. Also, do some denominations embrace them, while others they are too simplistic? Would he find a red-church vs. blue-church pattern?

Many of his preconceptions were based on his experiences living and driving in the Bible Belt, especially two-lane roads in the Southeast.

“This book could have been done in Tennessee, alone. In fact, I think I could have done a whole book in Nashville,” said Seitz, laughing. “In this part of the world, you can throw a rock in just about any direction and hit four or five churches that have these signs. …

“Church signs are more common in some places than others, but if you keep looking you’ll find them at all kinds of churches all over the country.”

Thus, the Harmony Hill Church of God in Fayetteville, Tenn., proclaimed, “Faith is a journey, not a destination.” But Seitz also found a sign that said, “Love God with all of your heart, then do whatever you want” in front of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, New York.

The Tompkinsville (Ken.) Church of Christ’s sign warned rural drivers that, “A dam holds water back. It’s not my last name. God.” On the other side of the doctrinal aisle, the sign at the South Church Unitarian Universalist sanctuary in Portsmouth, N.H., announced — with typically broad-minded sentiments — that, “True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.”

Seitz said he was surprised that he saw very few signs that included political themes, although it was easy to read between the lines of one that said, “The Ten Commandments are still posted here.” It was

also easy to interpret another marquee that stressed, “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.”

This is not advanced theology. The message on a typical sign is only eight words long and is the product of a volunteer’s clever imagination, research in old church bulletins or, in the digital age, a quick search on the World Wide Web. Most combine a chuckle with a moral message that strives to appeal to strangers as well as members.

After all of his travels, Seitz decided that the archetypal church-sign message was this one: “Life is fragile. Handle with prayer.”

“It’s succinct, it has that little pun in there and it’s powerful, if you think about it for a minute,” he said. “That’s the essence of a good church sign message. That’s what you’re trying to do — get people to stop and think for a minute.”

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“The 84-year-old John Paul was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments, his head covered with a white bishop’s miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows,” wrote Ian Fisher of the New York Times. “Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crow’s ear, that he had carried in public.”

Get the joke?

You see, that ornate silver shepherd’s crook is actually called a crosier (or “crozier”), not a “crow’s ear.”

This is the kind of error that believers love to cite as evidence that too many journalists don’t know which way is up when it comes to religion. Believe me, I receive more than my share of emails offering other examples. Did a BBC producer really write a subtitle saying that “Karma Light” nuns had gathered to mourn the pope?

Part of the problem is that religious people often speak in unknown tongues and it’s hard for journalists to tell what they’re saying. Thus, mistakes happen. It’s a bad thing to mess up the words when many of the words are sacred.

Sometimes, it helps to laugh.

Once a year, I mark this column’s anniversary — this is No. 18 — by collecting some of the strange words and events from the previous 12 months that just didn’t fit anywhere in particular. Obviously, I know that journalists make mistakes on the “God beat.” But, believe me, the folks in the pulpits and pews can get pretty strange, too.

* Pope John Paul II made headlines in 1986 when he visited a synagogue. Thus, a BBC writer said that the new Pope Benedict XVI’s “visit to the Cologne synagogue ? will mark only the second time in history that a head of the Catholic Church has entered a Jewish place of worship.” A reader sent me that item with this postscript: “Not counting the apostle Peter, obviously.”

* I thought this was a hoax. But it does appear that South Bronx Episcopalians have created a hip-hop Book of Common Prayer. Thus saith Bishop Catherine Roskam: “If Jesus were alive today, he would have been a rapper.”

I also love that the Episcopal Network for Animal Welfare is selling its own barbecue apron. Grill on.

* Anyone seeking information on the year’s hottest musical trend should visit www.hasidicreggae.com. Yes, you read that right.

* Back to Pope Benedict XVI. It seems that someone at the Associated Press needs to bone up on church history. A story from Vatican City on Nov. 27 began this way: “Pope Benedict XVI ushered in the Christmas season Sunday, calling it a time for joy when Christians should find it within themselves to hope that they can change the world.” Actually, the pope was marking the start of Advent, the penitential season that precedes Christmas. The 12-day Christmas season begins on Dec. 25.

* Speaking of the Christmas wars, a journalist sent me this rather understated headline from Miami Beach: “Blindfolded Santa Hanging From Noose At Home Upsets Neighborhood.” I can understand that. What I cannot understand is why some schools allow students to sing “Feliz Navidad (happy Christmas),” but not “White Christmas” and other songs that contain the C-word.

* You knew this was coming. The truly devoted can now buy an “iBelieve” device that clicks on to the top of an Apple iPod Shuffle and turns it — yes — into a large white cross that can be worn around the neck.

I believe that has a bit more class than those gym shorts with the words “Left Behind” printed, well, you can imagine where.

* The publication of 12 caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad upset many readers. However, other readers were just as upset when newspapers declined to publish them, with editors saying — to a chorus of snickers in many pews — that they did not want to offend religious believers.

Thus, one Bob Flavell wrote to the Boston Globe and said: “I find all of your editorial cartoons deeply offensive, morally, religiously, philosophically and spiritually. In fact, I don’t like your editorials, either. And the editorializing in your news coverage is annoying as well. In keeping with your cowardly policy not to offend anyone, kindly cease publication at once.”

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Eric Metaxas thinks that anyone who truly wants to understand the righteous and jealous God of the Bible should try meditating on a different image. Metaxas is thinking about Motown, rather than Vatican City.

“I admit that the Bible does not specifically mention Aretha Franklin,” said Metaxas, a humor writer and speaker best known for his work with the Manhattan-based “Socrates in the City” lecture series. “But when it comes to thinking about God, most people’s minds are full of all those familiar images and they just get stuck. … So why not Aretha? She’s big, she’s bold and you’re going to have to listen to what she’s saying.”

And everybody knows what the Queen of Soul is going to say: “What you want, baby I got it. What you need, do you know I got it? All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit). ? R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.”

Hold on to that image for a minute, because there is a method to his madness and it’s at the heart of his quirky book “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask).” Metaxas is a friend of mine and the best way I can explain where he’s coming from is to say that he’s a former editor of The Record at Yale University, America’s oldest college humor magazine, and he’s written for thinkers as diverse as Chuck Colson of Watergate fame and Bob the Tomato of VeggieTales.

The key is that Metaxas (www.ericmetaxas.com) thinks humor is serious stuff and that most religious leaders haven’t grasped this basic fact about modern life. He is convinced that Americans are not going to listen if theologians and clergy keep offering dense doctrinal arguments when making a case for a traditional faith. Instead of talking about how many angels can dance on a copy of the Summa Theologiae, modern missionaries and apologists need to consider the strategies they would use to talk to Comedy Central fans over a few beers and a bowl of mixed nuts.

Which brings us back to Aretha Franklin.

Many modern seekers, said Metaxas, are curious about God and they wish they could find some answers to their tough spiritual questions. But, at the same time, they have trouble accepting the traditional Christian belief that God is God and that there is only one way to find salvation. These claims sound petty and intolerant.

“Here’s a comparison that might make sense,” argues Metaxas, in a book chapter entitled “How Can Anyone Take the Bible Seriously?”

“If a guy is married and he tries to persuade his wife that he needs to have a few other women on the side, his wife will likely say, ‘Sorry, Romeo, but that’s not going to fly. If you want to be married to me, you have to forego those other women. Period.’ It’s just like that with God. He doesn’t force us to pick him, but he does force us to choose between him and the others. We can’t have both.”

In other words, God demands R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Metaxas has other skewed takes on big issues. He thinks that using sex for self-gratification makes as much sense as using Rembrandt paintings to line birdcages. He’s interested in life’s big questions, questions like how the universe — including all those Chevy Camaros in Queens and Staten Island — exploded out of something smaller than the period at the end of a sentence.

Is this theology? No, it isn’t the way that intellectuals talk in cathedral pulpits and faculty clubs, said Metaxas. But it is the way that ordinary people talk on Friday nights while hanging out with their friends.

“At some point Christians are going to have to use humor and parody because that’s the language of the culture,” he said. “That’s what people consider sharp and entertaining and real. ? You can keep serving up tea-and-crumpets moralism and logical arguments and it’s not going to matter because people aren’t going to listen.

“You may as well be speaking Ukrainian. That isn’t going to work, unless you happen to be speaking to Ukrainians.”

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Mel Gibson’s hit is “deeply sadistic” and “militaristic,” said history professor Robert Orsi, during a panel discussion.

“Pornographic,” added New Testament scholar Ellen Aitken, speaking with what a press release called “biting contempt.” The always outspoken Harvey Cox called it a “celebration of apocalyptic violence.” Make that “obscene” and “blasphemous,” according to writer James Carroll.

The room was packed but, apparently, there were no dissenting viewpoints. Which is interesting, if you think about it. I have found legions of intelligent, articulate people whose views of Gibson’s work are all over the map, from ecstatic praise to incisive damnation.

Perhaps it’s hard to find such diversity at Harvard. Perhaps there were some people present who liked the film — even parts of it — but didn’t feel free to speak. It might have taken courage to speak up in such a “tolerant” setting.

Which is quite sad, I think. Every year, I mark this column’s anniversary — this is No. 16 — by sharing some of the year’s offbeat anecdotes that didn’t fit into any particular column. If I have learned anything on the religion beat it is that sometimes you have to let people say what they really want to say and then just quote them saying it.

This gets wild, when people start opening up on matters of faith.

Trust me. Here are some recent examples.

* Speaking of the Passion phenomenon, the Glassport (Pa.) Assembly of God caused a stir with its civic Easter program that included the mock scourging of a youth minister in a bunny suit. The goal was to show that Easter is not about a bunny, but the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Associated Press reported that some viewers were confused. Melissa Salzmann said her 4-year-old son J.T. was “crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped.”

Clearly, the AP showed restraint. Obvious questions remained. Was the bunny in chains? And with what was the wabbit whipped?

* Yes, it’s a cheap shot. Addressing the election of gay Bishop Gene Robinson, the Los Angeles Times opined: “The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church’s founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife Katherine Howard and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on our traditional Christian marriage.”

What’s next on that story? Keep in mind these words from Karl Marx: “The English established church will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 Articles (of Religion) than on 1/39th of its income.”

* Speaking of the Los Angeles Times, critic Mark Swed called the opera “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” a “glorious and goofy pro-life paean.” But some someone changed “pro-life” to “anti-abortion,” which would have been a different opera. Or did the editing software do that?

* The British edition of Cosmopolitan has decided there may be more to life than sex and credit cards. The magazine’s new “spirituality editor,” Hannah Borno, wrote: “I’ve come to the painful realization that men and shoes are not enough to make me happy. The key to true contentment lies elsewhere.”

But not in a pew, she said. “We’re looking at spirituality rather than organized religion, because that’s where there seems to be a demand from our readers. They want something a bit more alternative.”

*A reader sent this: Gilligan equals sloth and the skipper represents anger. Then Thurston Howell III equals greed, Lovey Howell is gluttony, Ginger is lust, the professor is pride and, finally, Mary Ann represents envy. Who knew?

* The interfaith scribes at Beliefnet.com asked religious leaders to complete this statement: “If I were God for a day I would…” Phil “Bob the Tomato” Vischer of the VeggieTales offered this: “I would, with the noblest of intentions, make a monumental mess. Having seen the sort of messes I can create in my personal and professional life with my tiny little powers, I can only imagine what horrific catastrophe I could engineer with omnipotence. I’ll leave God right where he is, thank you.”

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The business card is deposited anonymously with the loose bills and change at the offertory. It states: “You have been visited by the Mystery Worshipper.” This means a detailed review of their church will soon be posted for all the world to see at the humor site www.Ship-of-Fools.com.

Were the pews comfortable? Was the service “stiff-upper-lip, happy-clappy, or what?” How was the preaching, on a scale of 10? Was the coffee good? Did any part of the service offer a glimpse of heaven? How about a whiff of “the other place?”

Mystery Worshippers have, during the past six years, slipped unannounced into 750 pews in England, North America and, occasionally, more exotic locales.

On the pop side of the aisle, one critic in Ohio survived a Christianized version of the racy Ricky Martin hit “Livin’ La Vida Loca” — at Easter. Video clips from “The Matrix” spiced up the service.

Meanwhile, the incense swingers at St. John Chrysostom in Manchester, England, received top marks: “The thurifer was superb and was of the standard that made even the most complex of swings and twirls look smooth and effortless. … I have to say that more perfume and less fog would be my personal taste.” Ah, but the wine was thin.

Ship of Fools has corned the market on truth-is-stranger-than-fiction ecclesiastical silliness — from “Signs and Blunders” to the “Fruitcake Zone.”

Recent offerings in the “Gadgets for God” pages — real items sold elsewhere — included boxer shorts covered with crosses, but with the fly sewn shut. Other links yielded bobble-head dolls of the Blessed Virgin Mary and flashing cell-phone crucifix covers. In one “church organists behaving badly” report, a Scottish musician was caught playing “Send in the Clowns” as the elders processed. A Brooklyn organist snuck a few bars of “Roll Out the Barrel” into the funeral of a popular pub patron.

But the long-running “Mystery Worshipper” feature is a clue that the site has a serious side, said editor Simon Jenkins. The goal is to reach out to “people on the fringes” who are either fleeing the church or just starting the process of investigating the faith. Almost everyone knows what it is like to be a stranger in a pew.

“There is no shortage of Mystery Worshippers,” Jenkins said, during a U.S. speaking tour that included a stop last week at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Charlotte, N.C.

“I think one reason so many people volunteer to do this is that everyone can identify with the whole process of visiting a new church. Church shopping is such a pain and it kind of helps to laugh. We know what people are going through.”

For many Mystery Worshippers the most challenging part of the review process is its requirement that they test the degree to which each church welcomes strangers. The instructions are clear. At the end of the service, they are asked to stand alone in the back of the church for five minutes — looking sad and lonely. The goal is to count the number of people who approach them to chat.

Nearly 50 percent of the time, the answer is “zero.”

“Clergy dread this part of our reports,” said Jenkins. “It is sad to have to see the church like that. But it can be good, too. … Like it or not, this is a chance to see what their churches really look like to those who are on the outside.”

Year after year, the “friendliness factor” is the bad news. The good news, said co-editor Steve Goddard, is that the online form’s request for “heavenly moments” in worship almost always leads to results.

This is not a matter of old churches vs. new, or big vs. small.

“I think the good news is that there are genuinely spine-tingling moments of spirituality happening in pews out there,” said Goddard. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a smells-and-bells church or a rock-the-flock church. We get reports from people who find a sense of worship in all kinds of places.

“What matters is genuine reverence and a sense that people are truly seeking the presence of God. That’s what the Mystery Worshippers are looking for.”

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The challenge must be especially daunting for liberal clerics who walk a tightrope between ancient doctrines and their own postmodern beliefs. They must say something innovative and daring — Christmas after Christmas, Easter after Easter, Earth Day after Earth Day.

Which brings us to a recent epistle by Bishop Charles E. Bennison, Jr., of Philadelphia, an ultra-candid voice in the Episcopal Church establishment. In “The Challenge of Easter” he claims that the ministry of Jesus was rooted in irony and transcended imperialistic laws, codes and creeds. He worked by trial and error. He bent the rules.

“This is what causes fear — Jesus forgives sins,” wrote Bennison. “He claims the authority of God in doing so. … He acknowledges his own sin. He knows himself to be forgiven.”

Wait a minute, said many careful readers. Jesus was a sinner? Says who?

Bennison quickly issued a statement saying he didn’t mean to contradict scripture and centuries of doctrine. But he stopped short of a clear retraction.

And so it goes on the religion beat. Year after year readers send me bizarre items from all kinds of sources, from church bulletins to the World Wide Web. Some of this stuff is too good to throw away. Thus, I always mark this column’s anniversary — this is No. 15 — by sharing out-takes.

It helps to read between the doctrinal lines.

* According to a survey by the Barna Research Group, non-Christian Americans rank “evangelicals” 10th out of 11 categories of people. Evangelicals, for example, were viewed less kindly than real-estate agents, movie stars and lawyers. They placed just ahead of prostitutes.

* Media stereotypes are hard to defeat. Carl Rosen of New York Magazine notes: “When VeggieTales first came out, my office received promo copies of the first three videos. I saw the word ‘Christian’ and threw them away. Then my wife bought one without reading the fine print and we watched it with our son and we all thought it was great.”

* For a decade or two, social activist Tony Campolo has been firing up audiences by asking if it’s a sin for Christians to drive BMWs. Now, saints and sinners alike are pondering the significance of last year’s “Chevrolet Presents: Come Together and Worship” concert tour. Inquiring minds want to know: What would Jesus drive?

* Catholic prelates in Germany have expressed dismay that the Langnese company is marketing ice creams named after the seven deadly sins of envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath. “Gluttony” ice cream I can grasp. What would “sloth” taste like?

* Does anyone know why the anti-war anarchists — www.actagainstwar.org — who are trying to paralyze the streets of San Francisco keep meeting at the St. Boniface Catholic Church? Just asking.

* The most popular satire site in cyberspace is www.theonion.com. Now, some Eastern Orthodox Christians with too much time on their hands have created its Byzantine counterpart — www.theoniondome.com. Anyone seeking evangelical satire should visit www.larknews.com. Meanwhile, I can’t decide if www.yourgoingtohell.com is satire or not.

* Someone needs to check the urban legends files. Wire services report that a 30-year-old Dutch student named Jennifer Hoes has set her wedding date. On May 28 she plans a civil ceremony in which she plans to marry herself.

* This was a wild year for Patricia Heaton, the outspoken star of the hit sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.” In addition to walking out of the raunchy American Music Awards, she continued to speak out against abortion. Is she feeling the heat in Hollywood? “When my final judgment comes,” Heaton replied, “I don’t think I’ll be answering to Barbra Streisand.”

* Need an unofficial “Harry Potter” school tie? It turns out that the maroon-and-gold ties sold in the Calvin College bookstore are dead ringers for the tie in the young wizard’s school uniform. Was this predestined?

* And finally, Canadian newspapers reported that Anglican bishops are complaining about Father Dorian Baxter’s popular “Elvis Priestly” ministry, in which he performs weddings and funerals in a velvet Elvis suit.

The bishops believe this is in poor taste. Perhaps the priest is merely being ironic.

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We’re not talking about the big hair, molasses and glitz humor that makes so many televangelists laugh-to-keep-from-crying funny. No, this preacher was using humor to communicate. He knew his people and he knew how to make them laugh.

“It was very, very funny. But he was doing this in his own pulpit for his own people,” said Nawrocki, who is “Larry the Cucumber” for 25 million Veggie video buyers. “I don’t know if this preacher would have felt free to be that funny anywhere else. I don’t know if he could have been funny outside his church.”

Making ordinary people laugh is serious business to Nawrocki and his colleagues at Big Idea Productions, an independent company near Chicago built on the silly idea of vegetables acting out Bible stories. The twist in this tale is that the VeggieTales people have created a brand of humor that sells in mainstream superstores as well as in small Christian outlets. They don’t just joke with the choir.

Now Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, Junior Asparagus and the virtual vegetables have jumped to the big screen, where they face the long knives of secular critics and consumers. “Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie” opens this weekend in 1,100 theaters nationwide. Once again, the Big Idea team is chasing kids 8-years-old and younger, while wooing parents with in-jokes about Monty Python, “Jaws,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Blues Brothers” and pop culture.

Industry experts are watching to see if the VeggieTales are truly funny — not church sanctuary funny, but suburban multiplex funny.

“We all know that Christians have trouble with humor,” said Nawrocki. “Part of the problem is that all humor is irreverent, in one way or another. But the biggest problem Christians have with comedy is that they’re afraid of offending other Christians. ^?So much of humor is rooted in hard truths and Christians are not fond of hard truths, especially if they’re about the church itself.”

Nawrocki and Phil “Bob the Tomato” Vischer have wrestled with these issues ever since they were tossed out of Bible college in the mid-1980s. Soon, they were combining their puppetry and comedy skills with computer animation and dreaming about taking on Mickey Mouse.

Meanwhile, they watched their hip friends turn into pastors and youth ministers.

“The implicit message I received growing up was that full-time ministry was the only valid Christian service,” said Vischer, the founder of Big Idea. “Young Christians were to aspire to be either ministers or missionaries. … But I wanted to make movies. And from the movies and TV shows I watched growing up and the influence they had on me, I figured God could use a filmmaker or two, regardless of what anyone else said.”

The key, said Vischer, is that he was raised in a culture in which everybody went to church. Then he ventured into the harsh world of advertising and corporate media and he had to reach people who never went to church. When he created Big Idea, Vischer was determined to create humor that blended both cultures.

Vischer and Nawrocki wanted to make videos, and now movies, that were openly religious, but not aimed at pews. They did not, in other words, want to settle for making “Christian movies.” As another Christian in the entertainment industry, David McFadzean of the sitcom “Home Improvement,” once quipped, the typical “Christian movie” is very similar to a porno movie. ” It has terrible acting. It has a tiny budget. And you know exactly how it’s going to end.”

That quote is funny, yet painfully true, said Vischer.

“We seem to think every artistic expression by a Christian artist, to be valid, must end with an ‘altar call.’ It’s the equivalent of saying every valid football play must end in the end zone,” he said. Thus, “many of our efforts are so philosophically aggressive that they read more like war propaganda than entertainment, effectively limiting our audience to only the most committed faithful.

“The end result is that our work and our worldview have little or no impact on the broader culture. We’ve effectively taken ourselves out of the game.”

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