Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; Phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

Reading: Pinsky, M.I. (2001). The gospel according to The Simpsons: The spiritual life of the world's most animated family. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

Note: These comments are not designed to "summarize" the reading. Rather, they are available to highlight key ideas that will emerge in our classroom discussion. As always, it's best to read the original text to gain full value from the course.

Lisa Simpson represents the moral center of The Simpsons universe. While Marge often reflects the gravity of social convention and religious piety, it is Lisa who most consistently stays true to her inner goodness. In his chapter, "Does Lisa Speak for Jesus," Pinsky emphasizes that Lisa's faith stems from deeply thought assumptions about the nature of truth and value. In contrast, the evangelical Flanders draws his fervor from zealous obsession with church minutia. Pinsky argues that Lisa's faith may be described as humanistic, one that attends to the suffering of others and the ideals of social justice.

Before his transition to the similarities between Lisa's faith and the ideals of Christ, Pinsky admits the possibility that Lisa may be more astutely identified with the moral certainty of Immanuel Kant whose Categorical Imperative compels us to act as if our choices would be judged by universal standards applied without concern for the vagaries of context.

Ultimately, however, Pinsky orients his understanding of Lisa around a set of four themes.

• She is critical of class distinctions

• She speaks truth to power

• She is environmentally conscious

• She is compassionate for the downtrodden

Pinsky concludes the chapter with a brief discussion of an episode, "Lisa the Skeptic," in which the show explores the contest of faith and science. What remains to be explored is whether these two components of human experience must oppose one another at all.

Activity: Research the Scopes Monkey Trial and identify one similarity between this historical episode and the fictional episode of "Lisa the Skeptic."

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