Does Elon Musk Take Jesus MORE Seriously than The Babylon Bee?
The Interview was a Missed Opportunity for a Great Conversation about what's Most Important
Today's video is my response to the conclusion of the @elonmusk @TheBabylonBee interview.
When I saw the teaser of the @TheBabylonBee interview with @elonmusk I was immediately excited. I love the satire of the Bee and I knew that Musk was a big "get" for them. I wasn't sure, however, exactly what they would do with him.
I had watched their interview with @PageauJonathan a while back and thought it was "meh". Doing good interviews and doing satire are different things, although I'm generally impressed with the relevance realization sensitivities of those who do well at comedy.
When the full interview came out I tried probably a half dozen times or more to get through the whole thing. I consistently found Musk way more interesting than the questions they were asking meaning that the questions increasingly got in the way.
After I had abandoned my efforts to listen to the whole thing Sam in the big livestream told me that they ended with the question of whether Musk would take Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
The strength of the @TheBabylonBee is that they CAN poke fun at the flaws, foibles, sins and hypocrisies of Evangelical America. They're ruthless often which makes them so good and sometimes so hated. That's how satire should be.
But the last question, in some ways the climax of the interview was cringy. Why? Because the difference between satire and cynicism is that the satirist still holds something sacred even if they hold it lightly and see their own shortcomings.
When they asked this Musk showed up to his credit to deal with the question with more seriousness than they approached it with. At that point they should have switched modes as one of the three @TheBabylonBee interviewers did.
What was revealed at that moment was that they wasted their interview with him. Musk came genuinely available to explore what these satirists should hold sacred which would have made this THE most interesting interview with Musk, even beyond Joe Rogan.
To me it also demonstrated THE key evangelistic insight of our moment which is that the Christ haunted will often tolerate Christians having strange, archaic beliefs, but they have ZERO respect if Christians themselves don't seem to take their own beliefs seriously.
This is my take-away from @holland_tom's repeated comments about his observations of the church's response to COVID.
It was also the reason that @roddreher left the RC church and joined Orthodoxy. If Christians signal to skeptics that they themselves don't take their strange religious seriously, why should the skeptics.
The @TheBabylonBee missed both the opportunity for an amazing interview and the chance to have a great, even comedic conversation about what's most serious in life.
At least they asked it. He didn't have am easy answer so credit due, especially with the significance of the guest.
I agree. The question made me cringe. The problem with satirists is that the line between satire and seriousness gets blurred. They have put on a performative mask which has become part of their faces, and which they can't take off. They sound satirical when they are being serious just as they sound serious when they are being satirical. These are very good Christian satirists, but when they asked this question it sounded as if they were sending up what is most sacred to Christians: their relationship with Jesus Christ.