My family and I have been big fans of NCIS since it began. So this Christmas break, one afternoon we sat down with my daughter home from college to catch up on the Christmas episodes of both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles that aired December 15th.
Both shows started with wonderful Christmas flair: NCIS had a couple cutting down their own Christmas tree in a snow covered forest and NCIS: LA had a beautifully decorated downtown street complete with a Salvation Army Santa. Unfortunately the Christmas Spirit in both shows didn’t last through their first commercials.
In the NCIS episode, the couple in the woods found a young white Marine, a Muslim, killed while praying toward Mecca. His father, once a Marine Colonel, retired to become a minister because in his words, “When my wife died, I wanted to be closer to God, now he’s taken my son as well.”
As Gibbs and his team take the forty-eight minutes to figure out who-done-it, the audience is treated with some not so light-handed preaching favoring Islam. At one point, when the father of the killed Marine utters, “God forgive me, and Tom’s God too.” Gibbs responds with, “They are one in the same colonel.” And although I would beg to differ, anybody who watches NCIS knows that whatever Gibbs says is gospel.
Spoiler Alert–don’t read on if you plan to watch the episode and want to be surprised.
It turns out the Marine was murdered by his own brother in what I can only describe as an “Honor Killing.” The ‘Christian’ family was so embarrassed by the son’s conversion to Islam that the brother thought the only recourse he had was to kill him.
Out of all the cultures in the globe where honor killing is a very serious problem, how many have happened in America within a Christian family? Oh yeah–NONE. Is there a verse in the Bible one can point to where the Christian is instructed to kill the offending family member should he or she decide to convert to another religion? I think not.
NCIS, what were you thinking?
And evidently having received the same memo just in time for Christmas, the writers of NCIS: Los Angeles found a way to write into that night’s episode something just as shocking.
Not too long into the Christmas holiday shopping scene, a young Marine’s head is blown off by his cell phone. The likely suspects are all part of an explosive ordinance disposal unit that was attacked by an IUD in Iraq: a mechanic who lost one leg, a man who turned to God after returning home, and a Muslim who’s face was burned badly in the incident.
Spoiler Alert–one of these three suspects ends up strapping a bomb to his chest and attempts to become a suicide bomber. Can you guess which one?
A key clue in the middle of the episode is dust writing in Arabic on a blown-up car’s rear window. “Those who reject our faith and deny our signs shall be companions of hell fire.” At first, LL Cool J’s character attributes the writing to the Koran, Al-Maeda (chapter 5), verse 10.
So, pulling the classic bait-and-switch on the unsuspecting audience where all things point to the Muslim Marine as the culprit, there is suddenly a break in the case. The staff psychologist is given a Bible by the Christian Marine and wow, he finds this passage in Thessalonians, “In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God.” And the case is solved–it’s not the Muslim–it’s the Christian blowing up his fellow Marines.
The scripture is actually 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2 verse 7 in the King James Version, referring to when Jesus returns to Earth with his angels and brings about the final judgment. It should be noted that in that entire passage there is nothing about the followers of Christ helping out with that vengeance. The Apostle Paul was actually comforting those of the faith that were being persecuted, definitely not telling them to take any vengeance into their own hands. Ah, but I digress.
That small point didn’t seem to matter to the NCIS writers. They just thought it was best to deliver another Christmas present to my family that afternoon–a Christian suicide bomber. And you might ask when was the last time a Christian strapped on a bomb and became a suicide bomber in this country? I think you get the point. All I can say is thank God it was only in the warped writer’s imagination.
These two episodes would have been troubling enough anytime during the year. But to air them back-to-back as their Christmas episodes makes me wonder what agenda the producers had in mind. I have been a fan of both shows and they usually have great scripts. But this day, I was truly disappointed.
How about a New Year’s resolution NCIS? Go back to good story telling and leave the Christian bashing behind for 2010.