The Comfort of Jesus Dolls

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from Garrison Birmingham News, January 27, 2006, with a headline:Jesus wouldn’t want you to be afraid dolls.The following are excerpts.About ten years ago Mary England moved her five-year old son into a basement room, and he was terrified.To comfort him, England put a statue of Jesus in the bed with him.I put it under the blanket and told him, Jesus wouldn’t want you to be afraid, she said.He was fine with it.I said, I’m sorry it’s not soft.When I left the room I thought, I wonder if there is a Jesus doll.There is now, and plenty of them.England created what has become known as, “My loving Jesus doll” which sells for $19.95.It’s about a foot tall, a squeezeable soft doll with outstretched arms dressed in a robe.It comes with a linen scroll addressed to a child explaining who Jesus is.Dolls are important companions for children, she said, and can be used as a tool to introduce children to Jesus.If you can plant that seed early it doesn’t go away, England said.When I was a girl I talked to my dolls, I loved my dolls.Another more expensive Jesus doll has also made an appearance, made with molded rubber face and hands the soft saint’s dolls sell for $98.00 apiece.We can barely stay ahead of the demand, said Terry O’Toole, founder of “soft saints” based in Anaheim, California.She said she began making and selling her realistic looking dolls in 2000.She offers several Jesus dolls including an infant Jesus, and she sells a virgin Mary holding a baby Jesus.There are 28 historical characters including Joan of Arc, Pope John Paul 2, St Francis and mother Theresa with four new ones coming out this spring.Another entry in the Christian doll market is, Faith filled friends, small plush religious toys made by Jazu in Vista, California, including Jesus and other saints in a simple style like stuffed carnival toys selling for $16.95.These really are wholesome dolls available now, O’Toole said.

Tom:

There really are wholesome dolls available now, Dave, O’Toole said.Where do we go with something like this?You know I just wonder if some people who profess to be Christians are ever thoughtful, ever think anything through.I have five children, Dave, two girls, three boys, the girls had dolls.I can remember clearly, what did they do with their dolls?O, sure, they loved their dolls, they wanted to be with their dolls, but they told their dolls what to do.You know, they scolded, they corrected their dolls, and so on.You going to do this with a Jesus doll?

Dave:

Well, Tom, it’s worse than that.

Tom:

I know it is, but that thought should pop up in somebody’s mind.

Dave:

Right.A Jesus doll, come on!But people have pictures of Jesus.Tom, I’m not going to get into that, that’s an abomination, it doesn’t look like Jesus.What’s the difference between a Jesus doll and a Barbie doll, except one is male and one is female, but they’ve got---

Tom:

Four months to raise a doll now.

Dave:

They’ve got---it’s degrading and demeaning to Jesus Christ who is God manifest in the flesh to make some pitiful looking doll that certainly doesn’t look like him.Furthermore, he is not a baby anymore, he is not someone to be treated like a doll, that’s blasphemy, that’s an abomination!It’s an idol, the Bible says, you’re not to make a likeness of God, but Jesus is God, God manifest in the flesh.Tom, you’re just trying to get me angry.

Tom:

Dave, what’s an idol?Isn’t an idol something that teaches something erroneously about either a religious idea or a being, and so on and so forth?

Dave:

Well, Paul says that behind every idol---well he says the things that the Gentiles offered to idols they offer to devils, to demons, because behind every idol is a demon.So, they think this is representing Jesus.This did not represent Jesus and this is a delusion that Satan himself will take advantage of, for little children?

Tom:

Well again, Dave, if these things are teaching, and this is what the woman says, you know, she wants to be able to teach them something about Jesus.What is she teaching them?She’s certainly not teaching them anything biblical about Jesus.Now Dave, I see your veins are popping just a little bit, let me raise the temperature.You know, we have dolls here that are supposed to comfort children, and so on, and take their fears away, I mean, that’s their intention.But Dave, I’ve got---you know, you don’t go into my office too much, but I’ve got other things in there, ads for Jesus action figures.Now, how about that!You’ve got an action figure that you’re going to put down with your G I Joe, and switch clothes if you want---you can have it take on Godzilla, or something like that.I mean, look what we are doing, look what we are teaching our kids, this is insane!In Showtime for the Sheep? I talk about the trivialization of, not just the scriptures, but of the patriarchs, the people in scripture.We are trivializing them, turning them into cartoons.

Dave:

Yeah, or Veggie Tales.

Tom:

Well, you know, folks, okay, you’re a little, O, an eyebrow went up here or there or maybe, you know, the radio went off.But Dave, I’d like somebody to tell me how we are not trivializing the Word of God by introducing these entertainment kind of things supposedly to teach our children.What are we teaching them?

Dave:

You’re not teaching them from the Bible.You know, Tom, of course I’m over the hill long ago, my next birthday I’ll be eighty, but when we were in Sunday school, and I can remember it very well, we didn’t even have Sunday school materials published by some publisher whose---I’m sorry---motivation was making money.We had the Bible, we loved it.You can’t teach kids out of the Bible---Wow!We loved it!We learned the Bible, we memorized it.And I can tell you we knew the Bible, as little children, three, four, five, six years old, we knew the Bible itself.We didn’t need any props, or you know, Jesus dolls, or Moses dolls, or anything like that.But of course now we have videos and so forth, which is really, again, I am sorry, an abomination.The Bible is written in words, we’re going to learn the Word of God.We learned the Word of God, now we are getting picture books.

Tom:

Yeah, and Dave, the difference between the two is one that is incredibly subjective.We are not teaching our children anything that’s objective about the Word of God and about truth.We’re giving them ideas and letting them kind of wade through this objective mire that’s not teaching them.It’s a point of fact.

Dave:

Pictures that will lead astray.You can’t represent God.You can’t represent Jesus with a picture.And yet, you know---

Tom:

Dave, all of the idolatrous nations work their way through imagery.Only the Israelites were taught---they taught their children how to read and write because they needed to learn the scriptures.Why can’t we get back to that?