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Religion

Although The Simpsons often mocks religion, it has still received support from people who practice religion. In a 2001 article for The Christian Century, John Dart argued that "the enormous popularity of The Simpsons, now in its 12th television season, suggests that religious people have a sense of humor — contrary to the usual wisdom in Hollywood. The program takes more satirical jabs at spiritual matters than any other TV show, yet the erratic cartoon family has an appreciative audience among many people of faith and among many analysts of religion. The reason? Perhaps it’s because The Simpsons is an equal-opportunity satire: it shrewdly targets all sorts of foibles and hypocrisies, not just religious ones. Perhaps it’s also because the show is exceptionally aware of the significant place religion has in the American landscape."

The Simpson family is often seen attending church, a practice described by Dart as "rarely seen or mentioned in other TV shows." The characters in the family are also often seen praying to God. William Romanowski, author of the book Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life has noted that "The Simpsons is not dismissive of faith, but treats religion as an integral part of American life. Episodes that I’ve seen are not so much irreverent toward religion, but poke fun at American attitudes and practices."

The Bible

Simpsons Bible Stories

"Simpsons Bible Stories" contains several references to the Christian prophets, holy book and the religion as a whole, as well as films based on the Bible. Each segment is based on a biblical story, mostly from the Old Testament. The first segment is based on the story of Adam and Eve, who, according to the Book of Genesis were the first man and woman created by YHWH, the God of the Hebrew Bible. Ned Flanders has the role of God, while the serpent that lures Marge into eating an apple from the forbidden tree resembles Snake Jailbird. The Garden of Eden was the place where Adam and Eve lived after they were created by God, according to the Book of Genesis.

The second segment parodies Moses who, according to the Book of Exodus, freed the Israelites from the Egyptian Pharaoh. Milhouse has the role of Moses while Skinner has the role of the Pharaoh. When the Pharaoh asked who vandalized his sarcophagus, the burning bush tells him that Bart did it. When Bart is seized by the Pharaoh's guards, he exclaims "No, the bush set me up!" Bart's line refers to the 1990 arrest of Marion Barry who, while being arrested by the FBI for smoking crack cocaine, exclaimed "No, the bitch set me up!" In a scene in the segment, Milhouse and Lisa can be seen pouring frogs into Skinner's tent. The scene refers to the second of ten Biblical plagues that were imposed on Egypt by Yahweh, in chapters 7-12 of the Book of Exodus. While they are inside the torture chamber, Milhouse and Lisa walk past an orb. The orb is called "Orb of Isis" and played a big part in the season 9 episode "Lost Our Lisa". In another scene, Milhouse parts the Red Sea so that his fellow slaves can escape. The execution of the scene is based on the one seen in the 1956 American epic film The Ten Commandments, in which Moses parts the Red Sea. The shot in which Pharaoh and his guards are drowning is also taken from the movie.

In Homer's dream, Homer has the role of King Solomon who, according to the Books of Kings and Book of Chronicles was a King of Israel, as well as one of the 48 prophets according to the Talmud. Bart's dream shows Bart as King David and, rather than telling the story of David and Goliath, Bart's dream is a "sequel" to the story. The segment is inspired by and contains references to several films by Jerry Bruckheimer, including Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, and borrows elements from other action films. At one point in the segment, Bart's dog Santa's Little Helper starts talking to him. The dog's voice is similar to that of Goliath in the Christian stop-motion animated television series Davey and Goliath. Inside the whale skeleton in the episode, Bart finds the remains of Jonah. Jonah was a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel, according to the Hebrew Bible. Nelson lives in the Tower of Babel which, according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower that the humans built in order to reach heaven. After being defeated by Bart, Nelson reappears while a variation of Modest Mussorgsky's composition St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain plays in the background. At the end of the segment, Bart is arrested and Chief Wiggum says "Where's your messiah now?" Wiggum's line was also taken from The Ten Commandments.

Catholicism

Lisa Gets an "A"

After its original broadcast, the episode garnered scrutiny from The Catholic League, an American Catholic anti-defamation and civil rights organization. In a scene in the episode, the Simpsons are on their way home from a church service, and Bart says "I’m starving. Mom, can we go Catholic so we can get Communion wafers and booze?" To which Marge replies "No, no one is going Catholic. Three children is enough, thank you." In an issue of the Catholic League's monthly newspaper Catalyst, the organization wrote "The Fox animated TV show, "The Simpsons," is loved by millions for its engaging characters. It was with regret, therefore, that we were forced to take issue with its November 22 episode ["Lisa Gets an 'A'"]." They added that William Anthony Donohue, the current president of the organization, had sent a letter to Fox, reading "Can you possibly explain why this dialogue was included in the show?" In response, Thomas Chavez, Fox's manager for broadcast standards and practices, wrote a "lengthy" letter, in part re-printed on the same issue of Catalyst. It read:

“ In your letter you questioned an exchange in dialogue between Bart and his mother, Marge. Because Bart is starving, he suggests they convert to Catholicism since he is aware communion wafers and wine are dispensed in the Catholic ceremony. Just like other children that are not knowledgeable, Bart sees the wafer merely as food and wine as a forbidden drink. Because many families wait to eat after they have attended Church, it is not atypical that a child would pose a question such as this unknowingly. The writers chose not to have Marge respond to Bart’s ridiculous desire to satisfy his hunger with the Sacrament but rather, elected to have Marge respond by stating why she would not be comfortable converting to Catholicism. Her views regarding birth control are obviously contrary to the Catholic Church’s belief. While Marge’s response may be perceived as short and curt, it also conveys the impression that one’s choice of religion is based on more than the religion’s rituals. ”

According to Mark I. Pinsky of The gospel according to the Simpsons: bigger and possibly even better! edition with a new afterword exploring South park, Family guy, and other animated TV shows, the Catholic League was "not persuaded" by Chavez' letter, and stated that they "sarcastically" responded in Catalyst: "Now why didn’t we think of that? Just goes to show how thoughtful the Hollywood gang really is." According to Pinsky, the controversy did not have any impact on the show and was "simply ignored" by The Simpsons' staff.

Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

The beginning of the episode's third act shows Marge and Lisa watching a Super Bowl commercial. In his book The gospel according to the Simpsons, Mark I. Pinsky described the commercial: "A car pulls into a windblown gas station in the middle of nowhere. The driver gets out and, seeing no one, honks the horn for service. Out of the station file three buxom, scantily clad young women provide 'service.' One lifts the hood suggestively while another slides the gas pump nozzle into the tank in an image too obvious too ignore, but the driver's eyes are riveted to a shiny cross dangling from one woman's quivering cleavage as the rock music soars. What is this all about? The voice-over explains: 'The Catholic Church: We've made a few... changes.'" The scene was inspired by real-life Super Bowl commercials in which, according to Scully, "you don't know what the product is" because there is "so much going on [in the commercial]." It was also based on a music video by American rock band ZZ Top. Although they had come up with the commercial's premise, they were not sure of what its tagline would be. Eventually, Martin, one of the episode writers, suggested "The Catholic Church... we've made a few changes." It got the biggest laugh from the other writers and was subsequently included in the episode.

The scene garnered scrutiny from members of The Catholic League, an American Catholic anti-defamation and civil rights organization because of its depiction of Catholicism. The league had criticized The Simpsons' depiction of Catholicism before, namely in the episode "Lisa Gets an 'A'", which aired the year before. The scene included an exchange between Bart and Marge that the League felt was hurtful to Catholics. William A. Donohue, the president of the league, wrote Fox a letter asking them to explain why the dialogue was in the show. After failing to receive an answer several times, Donohue was at last given a reply written by Thomas Chavez, manager for broadcast standards and practices. The league were not satisfied with Chavez' answer. After "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" aired, the Catholic League issued an article in their news magazine Catalyst. In it, they mentioned the scene in "Lisa Gets an 'A'", and wrote that The Simpsons had "struck again, big time" with the Super Bowl commercial in "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday". They wrote that they had sent a complaint to Chavez regarding the scene, and encouraged others to do the same; "We wrote to Mr. Chavez again, but we also told him that he’d be hearing from you, too. So don’t disappoint us."

Following the episode's broadcast, the Fox network received several angry letters and e-mails from concerned Catholics, who were uneasy with the commercial scene. According to Scully, the letters were worded the same, and all started with "My family and I have always enjoyed The Simpsons, until last night..." Nevertheless, the letters provoked a reaction from The Simpsons staff, and in an interview, Scully said, "We got a couple of hundred letters, and it was very obvious from reading a majority of them that [the Catholic letter writers] had not seen the show. Some of them were from third-graders, all saying the same thing: 'Please don't make fun of my religion.' Which we all know third-graders are very adamant about."

Several months later, the Catholic League contacted Fox again, asking that the word "Catholic" be excised from the voice-over when the episode repeated in September 1999 on the network, as well as in its subsequent syndicated airings. The network agreed, and Roland MacFarland, Fox's vice president of broadcast standards, ordered Scully to cut the word from the episode or eliminate all reference to religion. Scully refused, and after a long argument, MacFarland offered to replace the protesting denomination with a Protestant substitute - Methodist, Presbyterians or Baptists. Scully then asked MacFarland "What would be the difference changing it to another religion, and wouldn't that just be offending a different group of people?", to which MacFarland replied that Fox had had already had trouble with the Catholics earlier that season.

Following the complaints, Fox removed any mention of Catholicism from the scene, resulting in the line "The church..." Scully was reportedly furious with Fox's actions. In an interview in Los Angeles Times, Scully said, "people can say hurtful things to each other about their weight, their race, their intelligence, their sexual preference, and that all seems up for grabs, but when you get into religion, some people get very nervous." Marisa Guthrie of Boston Herald also criticized the network, describing it as "caving in" to the Catholic League's protests. She wrote, "Hollywood has always been gun shy of controversy, but recent displays of self-censorship on the part of entertainment industry executives make us cringe [...] Granted Catholics, as a group have endured an ample amount of bashing, but The Simpsons is an equal opportunity offender." Howard Rosenberg, a writer for Los Angeles Times, criticized Fox's actions as well. He argued that the network had a biased opinion towards Catholicism and that, had the scene mentioned a different religion, it would have been accepted. He also wrote, "Given its famous flaunting of sleaze and death-defying motorcycle leaps, the big news here is that Fox has standards. Its latest production is Censors Who Kill Jokes."

In an issue of Catalyst, the Catholic League responded to Rosenberg's article. They argued that Rosenberg was biased against Catholics, in that he was content with the series lampooning Catholicism, but not other religions. They wrote, "all along we have been told by Fox that none of our complaints were valid because none of the material was truly offensive. But now we have a Fox executive producer disingenuously giving away his hand by protesting why it should be okay to offend another group of people with the same material he initially said wasn’t offensive to Catholics! And isn’t it striking that Rosenberg is upset with the fact that the double standard—which now, for the first time works positively for Catholics—is a real problem. Never do we remember Rosenberg protesting the double standard that allows 'artists' to dump on Catholics while protecting most other segments of society from their assaults." The League also complimented the members' participation, writing, "It only goes to prove what can be done when Catholics get actively involved."

The controversy surrounding the scene has since been referenced in later episodes of the series. In the season 11 episode "Behind the Laughter", Bart is featured on tee-shirts saying "Life starts at conception, man!", and in another episode, Waylon Smithers rushes into a downtown church to confess his sins, only to find Police Chief Wiggum has been listening in on him. While the censored version of "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is still in syndication, it was left uncensored on its release on The Simpsons - The Complete Tenth Season DVD box set.

Soul

Bart Sells His Soul

Kurt M. Koenigsberger comments in Leaving Springfield that "a good deal of enjoyment" is to be had from the episode, due to "the exposure of the hypocrisy behind 'the finance of salvation' and the ambivalent operations of the commercial world". Don Cupitt, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, believes that when Lisa lectures Bart about the soul, she "shows a degree of theological sophistication which is simply not tolerated in Britain." Paul Bloom and David Pizarro write in The Psychology of The Simpsons that although Lisa does show "healthy religious skepticism" she still believes in an eternal soul. However, Lisa tells Bart at the end of the episode, "some philosophers believe that no one is born with a soul, you have to earn one through suffering". Bloom and Pizarro acknowledge "Indeed, some philosophers and theologians say that without belief in a soul, one cannot make sense of the social concepts on which we rely, such as personal responsibility and freedom of the will."

M. Keith Booker cites the episode in Drawn to Television, while discussing The Simpsons treatment of religion. Booker cites a scene from the episode where Milhouse asks Bart what religions have to gain by lying about concepts such as the existence of a soul – and then the scene cuts to Reverend Lovejoy counting his money; Booker believes that this implies that religions create mythologies so that they can gain money from followers. He juxtaposes this with Bart's realization later in the episode that "life suddenly feels empty and incomplete" without a soul, which suggests "either that the soul is real or it is at least a useful fiction". Mark I. Pinsky and Samuel F. Parvin discuss the episode in their book The Gospel According to the Simpsons: Leader's Guide for Group Study, and use examples from it to stimulate discussion among youth about the nature of the soul. Pinsky and Parvin note Bart's statement to Milhouse from the beginning of the episode: "Soul — come on, Milhouse, there's no such thing as a soul. It's just something they made up to scare kids, like the Boogie Man or Michael Jackson," and then suggest questions to ask students, including whether they know individuals that agree with Bart, and their views on the existence of a soul.

In Planet Simpson, Chris Turner quotes Bart's revelation to Lisa that he sold his soul to Milhouse for five dollars and used the money to buy sponges shaped like dinosaurs. After Lisa criticizes Bart for selling his soul, Bart responds: "Poor gullible, Lisa. I'll keep my crappy sponges, thanks." Turner comments "Here Bart is the epitome of the world-weary hipster, using the degraded language of modern marketing to sell off the most sacred parts of himself because he knows that some cheap sponge is more real, hence more valuable, than even the loftiest of abstract principles."

The episode has been used in church courses about the nature of a soul in Connecticut and in the United Kingdom, and was shown by a minister in Scotland in one of his sermons. A 2005 report on religious education in secondary schools by the UK education watchdog group Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) noted that the episode was being used as a teaching tool.

Cultism

The Joy of Sect

David Mirkin as attracted to the notion of parodying cults because they are "comical, interesting and twisted." He conceived the episode after hearing a radio show about the history of cults whilst driving home one night. The main group of writers that worked on the episode were Mirkin, O'Donnell, Jace Richdale and Kevin Curran. The episode's title "The Joy of Sect" was pitched by Richdale. Steven Dean Moore directed the episode.

Aspects of the Movementarians were inspired by different cults and religions, including Scientology, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, the Heaven's Gate group, the Unification Church, the Oneida Society, and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In particular, the leader driving through the fields in a Rolls Royce was partly inspired by the Bhagwans, and the notion of holding people inside the camp against their will was a reference to Jim Jones. The name "Movementarians" itself was simply chosen for its awkward sound. The scene during the six-hour orientation video where those who get up to leave are induced to stay through peer pressure and groupthink was a reference to the Unification Church and EST Training. The show's producers acknowledged that the ending scene of the episode was a poke at Fox as "being the evil mind controlling network." The episode's script was written in 1997, at roughly the same time that the members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed mass suicide. The writers noticed strange parallels between Mirkin's first draft and Heaven's Gate, including the belief in the arrival of a spaceship and the group's members wearing matching clothes and odd sneakers. Because of these coincidences, several elements of the episode were changed so that it would be more sensitive in the wake of the suicides.

Chris Turner's book Planet Simpson describes the Movementarians as a cross between the Church of Scientology and Raëlism, with lesser influences from Sun Myung Moon and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Planet Simpson also notes the Simpsons' chant at the conclusion of the episode as evidence of a "true high-growth quasi-religious cult of our time," referring to television. The book refers to a "Cult of Pop," which it describes as "a fast growing mutation ersatz religion that has filled the gaping hole in the West's social fabric where organized religion used to be". Martin Hunt of FACTnet notes several similarities between the Movementarians and the Church of Scientology. "The Leader" physically resembles L. Ron Hubbard; the Movementarians' "trillion year labor contract" alludes to the Sea Org's billion year contract; and both groups make extensive use of litigation. The A.V. Club analyzes the episode in a piece called "Springfield joins a cult", comparing the Movementarians' plans to travel to "Blisstonia" to Heaven's Gate's promises of bliss after traveling to the Hale-Bopp comet. However, it also notes that "The Joy of Sect" is a commentary on organized religion in general, quoting Bart as saying, "Church, cult, cult, church. So we get bored someplace else every Sunday." Planet Simpson discusses The Simpsons' approach to deprogramming in the episode, noting groundskeeper Willie's conversion to the philosophy of the Movementarians after learning about it while attempting to deprogram Homer. Author Chris Turner suggests that Marge should have instead gone with the "Conformco Brain Deprogrammers" used in the episode "Burns' Heir" to convince Bart to leave Mr. Burns and come back home.

In The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer, the authors cite "escaping from a cult commune in 'The Joy of Sect'" as evidence of "Aristotle's virtuous personality traits in Marge." As the title suggests, the book The Psychology of the Simpsons: D'oh! examines "The Joy of Sect" from a psychological point of view. It discusses the psychology of decision-making in the episode, noting, "Homer is becoming a full-blown member of the Movementarians not by a rational choice, ... but through the process of escalating behavioral commitments." The Psychology of the Simpsons explains the key recruitment techniques used by the Movementarians, including the charismatic leader, established authority based on a religious entity or alien being (in this case "Blisstonia"), and the method of taking away free choice through acceptance of the Leader's greatness. The book also analyzes the techniques used during the six-hour Movementarian recruitment film. In that scene, those who rise to leave are reminded that they are allowed to leave whenever they wish. They are, however, questioned in front of the group as to specifically why they wish to leave, and these individuals end up staying to finish watching the film. The book describes this technique as "subtle pressure," in contrast to the "razor wire, landmines, angry dogs, crocodiles and evil mystery bubble Marge confronts to escape, while being reminded again that she is certainly free to leave." The Psychology of the Simpsons writes that "the Leader" is seen as an authority figure, because "He has knowledge or abilities that others do not, but want." Instead of traditional mathematics textbooks, the children on the compound learn from Arithmetic the Leader's Way and Science for Leader Lovers.

In Pinsky's The Gospel According to the Simpsons, one of the show's writers recounted to the author that the producers of The Simpsons had vetoed a planned episode on Scientology in fear of the Church's "reputation for suing and harassing opponents". Pinsky found it ironic that Groening spoofed Scientology in spite of the fact that the voice of Bart Simpson, Nancy Cartwright, is a Scientologist, having joined in 1989.