Sun-Doh! School — Teachers use pop culture to appeal to masses

They are, at first blush, unlikely spiritual guides — the bratty boy, the clueless dad, the mom with the tilting spire of blue hair. But look closely at the Simpsons, says Debbie Buese, and you'll see a family that can illuminate life's profound questions. Buese, who attends St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, is one of several Utah Sunday school teachers who have used the Simpsons as the jumping-off point for discussions about theological and moral questions. Questions about angels, hell, the power of prayer in the face of a crummy report card.

For teenagers, it's a "wonderful doorway" to explore issues of faith, says Dori Marshall, director of Christian education at Cottonwood Presbyterian Church. To those who might question using such a secular — some might say sacrilegious — TV sitcom as a teaching tool, Marshall points to the parables of the New Testament. "When we think about 2,000 years ago and of Jesus taking people out on a hillside to talk to them, he was meeting them where they live. Sometimes that's the only way we can learn: with language and situations we can understand."

The classes are based on "The Gospel According to The Simpsons," by Mark I. Pinsky, and its companion piece, a group study guide published last year. Pinsky covers religion for the Orlando Sentinel.

"Entry-level religion" is what professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University calls this use of pop culture to reach people who might otherwise shy away from theological discussions. In the intro to his study guide, Pinsky admits this sometimes has its downside. "On the one hand," he writes, "resorting to such lowest-common-denominator vehicles has the aroma of desperation on the part of organized religion. It is further evidence — if any more is needed — of the evaporating attention span of most Americans, and of the general dumbing down of serious discourse."

On the other hand, it works. The list of churches and schools using the Simpsons and Pinsky's book includes a Baptist Church in Canada, a protestant chaplain on a U.S. Air Force base in Turkey, a Methodist church in Ohio, a Christian fellowship at Boston University and lots of Presbyterian churches (the book is published by Westminster Knox Press, a Presbyterian publishing house in Louisville, Ky).

The Simpsons, Pinsky argues, are a lot more spiritual than they might seem. "In many ways," writes Pinsky in "The Gospel According to the Simpsons," Bart and his family are "both defined and circumscribed by religion." They attend church every Sunday, say grace before meals, and, when faced with crises, turn to God and pray aloud.