What’s with shows actually portraying Christians in a positive light this week? After NBC's You, Me and the Apocalypse had a Catholic priest beautifully minister to a man in need, ABC's Last Man Standing had a nice message about Jesus’s love.
In the episode titled “Eve’s Band,” Mike Baxter’s (Tim Allen) namby-pamby, hippy-dippy liberal son-in-law Ryan (who got into it with him last week over Obama) gets upset when he hears that his friend Kyle told his son Boyd about Jesus – the horror!
The worst part for Ryan? That learning about Jesus made Boyd finally confess to stealing candy from a friend – “I want Boyd to tell the truth because it's the right thing to do, and not because he thinks he's gonna be punished by an angry God.” Um, Ryan? Where do you think we get the idea that telling the truth is the right thing to do?
But Kyle’s simple, heartfelt response about Jesus’s unconditional love shuts Ryan up real quick:
-Kyle: Hey. Ryan, what's going on? You sounded upset on the phone.
-Ryan: Uh, yeah, actually I am. Boyd finally confessed to us that he stole the candy.
-Kyle: No.
-Ryan: And he told us it was because you told him about Jesus.
-Kyle: No!
-Ryan: You have no idea why I'm upset, do you?
-Kyle: No.
-Ryan: Look, I want Boyd to tell the truth because it's the right thing to do, and not because he thinks he's gonna be punished by an angry God.
-Kyle: I never said that. Boyd was scared that if he told you what he did, you wouldn't love him anymore. So I said you were like my friend Jesus, and even if I do something bad, as long as I'm honest, he still loves me.
-Ryan: Oh. Well, uh, Mandy drank all of our wine.
-Kyle: Yeah, sorry about that. Hey, and sorry I said you were like Jesus, even though you do have a beard and you wear sandals a lot.
-Ryan: It's cool. I have been called worse.
-Kyle: And, look, I would never try and push my religion on your kid. I respect you way too much for that.
-Ryan: Thank you, Kyle. I appreciate it.
I don’t know what’s going on in liberal, Christian-hating Hollywood. Maybe because it’s the Lenten season they’re having mercy and going easy on the Christian bashing. Either way, it’s a minor miracle.
