Playstations and plastic Jesus dolls

We all know what this Thursday is: One painful day of waiting with family members for Friday - the biggest and best shopping day of the year!Everything is on sale!

Clothes, jewelry, gadgets and gizmos. It's all at our fingertips at rock-bottom, best-ever, once-in-a-lifetime prices.

Ah, yes. It's good to be alive.Unless you are standing in line for a Playstation 3 and happen to get shot. Or unless you buy one for $600 and then try to sell it for thousands more in a McDonald's parking lot at 1:30 a.m. and end up getting pepper-sprayed and robbed. Both of those things actually happened. Now, I'm as addicted to Tiger Woods golf as the next guy, but I've never contemplated shooting someone to play video games. But I can't tell which is more embarrassing, committing armed robbery for a video game, or paying more than $5,000 for one, which is what some of the new PS3 consoles are going for on Ebay.What's wrong with people?But let's not forget the cool toys for the little ones.Hey kids, now's the chance to add to your doll and action-figure collections! In spite of all your Princess Fionas, Barbies and X-Men, don't you need the new talking Jesus?Sure, he looks like a white American with the perfect beard, but other than that, this is the real deal. I mean, what better way to capture the power of the Son of God than in plastic and polyester? If a 1-foot doll that sounds like a Wendy's drive-through speaker doesn't really bring home the message of the incarnation, I just don't know what will.I think I'll get one for my car. Then, when someone cuts me off, I'll just push Jesus' button for the "Love your neighbor as yourself" reminder.I have a headache just thinking about this. Mental anguish is grounds for a lawsuit, right?Thankfully, nobody shot someone else to bring home a talking Jesus doll, but the toy recently made headlines when Toys for Tots rejected a large number of them from a donor. According to Toys for Tots, they didn't want a Muslim, Jew or atheist to end up with Jesus on Christmas morning.Forget the religious tolerance issues, Toys for Tots should have rejected the figure simply because it is unbelievably lame.And you know the best part, Christians are now going to hit the television circuit to bemoan the commercialization of Christmas. (But don't forget your talking Jesus doll for hours of family fun. Batteries not included.)The birth of Christ set the stage for a series of the greatest events in history, and for some reason, Christians feel compelled to cheapen the story into irrelevance. If people want others to hear the Gospel, a plastic Jesus is hardly an adequate means. Jesus forbade demons to speak of his divinity because he didn't want his message coming from such a despicable source. I wonder how he feels about Christians who, rather than speaking truth in accordance with a pure life, are simply passing out dolls.