You know the Brick Testament, Brendan Smith‘s wonderful and hilarious series of Bible stories told through carefully placed Lego pieces? The series that’s spawned several books?

Well, Catholic Kathy Schiffer just made a remarkable discovery: The Brick Testament doesn’t make you want to become a Christian!

Her article reads like someone who just found out The Onion isn’t an actual news source…

At first glance, a Lego Bible seemed an enviably good idea. The Creation Story, the Sermon on the Mount, the Last Supper — artfully recreated in Lego blocks, then photographed for a picture Bible — seemed an ideal gift for children. … But the project turned out to be not the great “faith enhancer” some had imagined. Somehow, it would appear that early fans of the world’s largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible, The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament by Brendan Powell Smith, missed an important detail about the author and his perspective on the scriptures. … … other scenes are so violent or so sexual in nature that it’s hard to think how anyone could have thought this was an appropriate idea for children. It’s hard to think, too, that atheist Brendan Powell Smith didn’t know, when he selected the verses to be illustrated, that many of the images would be incendiary. … In all, the book — with its skewed perspective on matters of faith and its wry commentary on Old Testament stories — makes a pretty good case against faith. Since that’s not the objective of most parents, I’d suggest looking elsewhere for a good Bible storybook for your children.

What?! It’s against faith?! Can’t have anyone sharing *all* the stories in the Bible… That would make people not want anything to do with it!

Look, Smith doesn’t go out of his way to parody the Bible. He depicts it exactly as it’s written, without whitewashing or ignoring the sexual, violent, and disturbing scenes in it. If that makes you uncomfortable, too damn bad. It’s your book. You deal with it. You should be more upset about all the other books which ignore that material.

In the meantime, if Powell fools people into thinking this is a positive (rather than a fully accurate) depiction of the Bible, more power to him.

If you want to turn someone into an atheist, there’s no better way to do it than to hand them a Bible and have them read it from start to finish. The Brick Testament is just a more entertaining way to arrive at the same conclusion.



