On the "Real Time" blog Monday, host Bill Maher took one final shot across the bow of both the Duggar family and their version of their Lord and Savior, a Christ he characterized as less divine than "an easy and convenient way to exonerate yourself."
Referring to the Facebook post in which Josh Duggar wrote that he "sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life" and is "so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption," Maher wrote that "[t]he idea that Jesus forgives your sins is a real cop-out, and dangerous."
He confessed that didn't "know what kind of conversations Josh had with the people he molested," but noted that in his public statements, "for the most part it was all about Jesus," which to Maher is evidence of "Christianity's unique brand of chauvinistic paternalism."
"Let's set aside the part about how a man who molested five girls worries about how it might ruin his life, and refers to 'my life' three times in a short post about what he did to five other people," Maher wrote. "But what Josh is basically saying is that molesting the girls was bad, but Jesus forgave him and then came into his life so, you know, happy ending. Except that real forgiveness happens between the person who did wrong and the person they wronged."
"The idea that you can simply pray on it and ask Jesus for forgiveness -- which he never turns down, cause he’s Jesus -- is a total short cut, and not what forgiveness actually entails," he continued.
"If you’ve done something as awful as molest a bunch of girls, the only people you can ask for forgiveness from are the bunch of girls you molested. Jesus is just an easy and convenient way to exonerate yourself by receiving absolution from an imaginary man in your head."
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