Anchoress: Jesus Finds Perhaps An Odd(?) Defender In Stephen Colbert

The Colbert Report is something I sometimes catch glimpses of while I'm at work (as the ambient noise of a juvenile detention center). I doubt I've seen any of it all the way through, but I got the premise nearly immediately: Stephen Colbert is a satirical take on the supposed "quintessential" Fox News Journalist (you know how the media is all overpopulated with big fans of George Bush and all). Aside from its 180-degree axio-perversion, Colbert is nonetheless a funny and quick-witted talent.

So I'd normally just sluff off the following story as part of Colbert's over-the-top portrayal of right-of-center, bible-thumping lunatics (that sentiment of course the bedrock for the delivery).

The reason I depart from ignoring it is because The Anchoress, a blogger for whom I have profound respect despite major doctrinal differences (she is a devoted Catholic), thinks there might be more to Colbert's roundly hard treatment of Bart Ehrman, an atheist who somehow manages to find himself as chair of the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina. Ehrman is on Colbert's show to defend his book, Jesus Interrupted.

In another situation, I'd be tempted to post the video as a stand-alone with my own commentary. But The Anchoress is brilliant herself, and should have the outlook that made me even take a second look at this promoted. I simply find myself thinking more deeply every single time I read her blog--and though she probably won't figure out who I am, she was a blogging acquaintance and traffic-buddy of mine once upon a time, in another blog incarnation. But I'll let that lay for now.

Go and check out the video at The Anchoress' site. Besides chortling why an atheist is concerned at all with presiding as a religious studies chair, you'll just come away going, "hmmmm." Especially as Colbert's "4 blind men" analogy at the end seems to go south into satire, until it (oddly) makes sense.

-R