Every once in a while I come across something that makes me especially glad I’m not a Christian anymore.

For example, I recently read an article written for influential pastor John Piper’s website Desiring God that stated what John Piper would want Christians to think about before seeing the movie.

The article, entitled “Seven Questions To Ask Before Watching ‘Deadpool'”, is a jewel of ridiculous nonsense. But Christians actually take the advice seriously — the post on John Piper’s Desiring God Facebook page — which has the odd tagline “Be a dolphin in this culture, not a jellyfish” — is only a day old and has over 1300 shares and 2300 “likes.”

The first question? “When will I tear my eye out, if not now?” — basically making reference to that verse where Jesus tells the crowd not to lust after a woman — and that it is better to cut your eye out and throw it away than to do so.

The message is clear. You want to cut your eye out (or, worse, go to hell) when you see attractive nudes on the screen? Then don’t see the movie.

Ouch.

The second one is “Am I longing to see God?” — and the basic message here is that you are supposed to be ogling — I mean, focusing on — God, and attractive flesh would distract you from staring at God’s beautiful….presence. In the writer’s words: “I dare anyone to watch nudity and turn straight to God and give him thanks and enjoy him more because of what you just experienced.”

Really? When I was a Christian, seeing that was more powerful evidence to me that there was a God than looking out over the Grand Canyon…but I digress.

Anyways, the third question — I’m glad I’m writing this because it would hard to say it with a straight face — is “Do I care about the souls of the nudes?”

I can’t. Like…this is meant to be sweet and loving, and to say that we shouldn’t objectify people; I get that. But the text seems to imply that it is impossible to care about the inner being of a woman who chooses to be nude when it states: “When we pursue or receive or embrace nudity in our entertainment, we are implicitly endorsing the sin of the women who sell themselves to this way and are, therefore, uncaring about their souls.”

No, that’s not true. Coerced nudity is never OK, but when a women — or anyone for that matter — is nude, that doesn’t mean they’re selling themselves. They’re just being nude. The Christian obsession with nude flesh is…a bit obsessively disturbing, especially where this part talks about how they woman are “disobeying” Paul’s encouragement in the Bible to stay modest.

Then, “Would I be glad if my daughter played this role?”

WAT.

No. Just no. In the first place, when your daughter is an adult, she’s not an extension of Daddy’s decisions. That’s kinkingly weird.

And second — the thought of putting your daughter in the place of other women is a really weird, incest-like exercise that is a bit disturbing.

The next one is, “Am I assuming nudity can be faked?” — stating that, unlike violence, nudity is real.

This one didn’t even make sense. Like, if it were a cartoon or 3-d image, it would be OK? Is this one of those Christian loopholes?

Then the sixth question, “Am I assuming nudity is necessary for good art?” The question is weird. “Is a TV necessary to have a good time?” is a question that assumes that a TV will help people have a good time, although there might be other ways. Is this an implicit admission that nudity can be art? Weird question. My answer to it would be similar to similarly phrased questions, “No, but it can help.”

Then the last question: “Am I free from doubt?” If you’re doubting, you should not watch this movie, because it might make you leave Christ!

Myself, I’ve had a problem with doubt for quite awhile, being an atheist and all.

Stay strong, conservatives! And, indeed, Facebook is full of Christian’s posting the link of this article and declaring they won’t see the film. For example:

“Christ would not watch Deadpool – let us be on our guard, brothers!” “This was a tough read for me, seeing as how Deadpool was my favorite character growing up as a kid, but every word of this article is true, not just for this movie but for everything you watch. That is, if you claim to follow Jesus. I’m going to try harder to walk this walk.”

So sorry you’ll have to miss this flick. Genuinely. It looks to be an awesome film.

As for me…looks like this infidel is slipping this weekend.

Again.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via Rachel Swallows Falcon’s Ghost Photo Stream under CCL 2.0]