Jesus, I Wish They'd Quit Killing Jesus.

The guy's been dead, what, 2,000 years? And they keep using him for a soccer ball, kicking his thorny-crowned head.

Jesus wants you to tithe. Jesus wants you to own an automatic weapon. Jesus wants you to form a commune out in cactus country and marry a 12-year-old girl.

Latest, and sure to bring the lunchtime tacos crawling back up your throat, is the statement by Bill O'Reilly that the Holy Spirit directed him to write a book called "Killing Jesus." O'Reilly, who hosts a cable television show, told this to a network reporter not too many days ago.

I suppose it was just a matter of godly time until O'Reilly got into the Jesus biz.

Who is not in the Jesus biz? It's like selling drugs, the Jesus biz, in that there's an endless appetite for the product and the money is outrageous.

Vile, drunken Jew-hater Mel Gibson made his Jesus movie. Ted Cruz, senator to the stupid, runs a Jesus biz as an adjunct to his inexplicable-outside-Texas political career. Fat drug addict Rush Limbaugh mumbles wetly about Christian tradition from time to time.

I don't know what you're supposed to do in America if you're tired of the endless Jesus pimping for every political and profitable notion on God's green earth. Or if you're Jewish. Or atheist. Or (and you shouldn't even mention these people) Muslim.

I don't even know what you're supposed to do if you are me and you're Catholic and you can go a day or two without cranking up Jesus-In-The-Box and waiting for Christ to pop out and tell people that they should vote exactly the way you vote.

O'Reilly says he got the nod from the Holy Spirit late at night, telling him to write the book. The Holy Spirit, I might add, doesn't get near as much play in public dialogue as Jesus. By the way, I never say Holy Spirit. I say Holy Ghost, like we did at St. Jacques grade school, back in 1963.

O'Reilly got a guy to do his research for the book. The Holy Ghost may tell you to write a book, but he won't write it for you, which means you have to hire a holy ghost writer.

And the money rolls down like water.

"Killing Jesus" is a snappy title, like "Killing Pablo" or "Killing Me Softly With His Song" or even "Kill Bill."

But it's holy, much more holy. It's a holy book and, even if it's not "The Holy Book," it's probably worth having in your home on the coffee table — in the middle of the coffee table, not on the edge. You put it on the edge, your teenager comes home drunk and he stumbles against the coffee table, and, oops, "Killing Jesus" is on the floor.

Leave Jesus alone. He's tired.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com

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