wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Homer's 'Boswell' going online

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Note #7347 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

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Homer's 'Boswell' going online

'Gospel According to Simpsons' writer appearing on PresbyNet

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - The Simpsons are coming, The Simpsons are coming! 

Next month. To PresbyNet.

Well, not exactly The Simpsons: It's the author of The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family. Journalist Mark Pinsky will be online to reflect a bit on the success of his slim book and to take questions from readers.

Pinsky will be accompanied by Skip Parvin, one of the co-authors of a study guide produced recently to go with Pinsky's best-seller, which has sold more than 70,000 copies in less than a year.

To take part, just sign on to PresbyNet as usual. New users will have to register by going to the main Web site of the Presbyterian Church (USA), www.pcusa.org, then clicking on the PresbyNet link.

"This will be a seriously fun opportunity for ecumenical leaders to look at faith practice," says PresbyNet's Elinor Mosser, who will be coordinating the event. "If you don't like The Simpsons, you are in good company; Mark Pinsky had reservations when he started watching the show with his children. But The Simpsons - in sophisticated, simple and embarrassing ways - reflects our faith practices."

The conversation will start on Aug. 5 and go through Aug. 30, Mondays through Thursdays, covering one chapter a day.

Pinsky, who has done a lot of talking about the book since its publication last year by Westminster/John Knox Press, says his audiences usually can be divided into three groups: fans of the program, including some viewers for whom it is "a secret vice"; public-radio listeners familiar with discussions of religion and culture; and religious people, including many who enjoy the show's gentle jabs at mainline Protestantism.

"When you talk about The Simpsons or Disney or the Evangelical Lutherans' Davy and Goliath or The Andy Griffith Show or The Brady Bunch or The Beverly Hillbillies, people know what you're talking about the minute you start to talk," says Pinsky, a religion writer for the Orlando (FL) Sentinel. "You have a foundation to have a discussion of serious matters right away. You don't have to ask, 'Did you do the reading?'"

Pinsky and Parvin will be online intermittently all day. Among the more provocative chapter titles: "Personal Prayer: Dear God, Give the Bald Guy a Break!"; "Heaven, Hell and the Devil: I'd Sell My Soul for a Donut"; "The Bible: I Think It May Be Somewhere Toward the Back"; and, "Catholics: That's Catholic, Marge ... Voodoo."

Pinsky's fame reached a new level last week when U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft, a prominent evangelical, read bits of The Gospel According to The Simpsons to reporters.

The author is under contract to produce another book, on the gospel and Disney, for Westminster/John Knox Press.
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