Believe it or not The American Jesus has now been around for an entire year.
As cliche as it is to say, we genuinely want to thank all of you, our readers, for continuing to read our blog when you probably should have been working.
We also was to say a big thank you to Matthew Paul Turner the genius behind Jesus Needs New Pr, the anonymous, but brilliant Christian Nightmares, pastor to a Church of No People Matt Appling, Todd Rhodes with his Monday Morning Insight, the folks at Unreasonable Faith, and everyone else who has been so kind as to repost and/or mention our humble, little blog over the course of the past year and helped us reach over 120,000 page views (who knows what that means) in the past 12 months.
Without their support the only people following The American Jesus would be our wives and mothers. Wait, actually they don’t even read our blog. So without those guys (or the weirdos searching for “Justin Beiber’s armpit”. Seriously.) we wouldn’t even be here. So, for that we thank you.
But most of all we want to say……you’re welcome America.
You’re welcome for all the hilarious videos and news stories we discovered which have brought you endless hours of frivolity and laughter.
You’re welcome for The Third Eagle of the Apocalypse. Without his genius none of you would be prepared for the end of the world.
You’re welcome for the dancing church lady. (Yes we were the ones that discovered her. She only had 1 view when we first posted her. Now she has over 133,000. You’re welcome church lady.) She taught us why we should never, ever dance in church.
You’re welcome for terrible Christian music from the 80s that you’ll never get out of your head.
You’re welcome the greatest top 10 list of things to give up for lent in 2011. Seriously. Our list topped Google results during Lent. Winning!
You’re welcome for Fundie Friday. Without it you never would have learned how to prove that evolution is fake.
You’re welcome for Tract Tuesday. Without it you never would be able to witness to strangers on the street….or know how racist Jack Chick really is/was(?).
Speaking of Jack, you’re welcome for The American Jesus Madness Tournament and the knowledge that Jack Chick is the 2011 champion of American Christianity. And Yoav you’re welcome for the fabulous $15 iTunes gift card.
You’re welcome May 21st. True, it was Harold Camping that predicted that date as the end of the world, but without our uncanny ability to locate the email address of the people behind the campaign via the contact page on their website, then you never would have read this riveting interview. And Jason Boyett would never have been able to repost it as an article for Relevant Magazine’s website.
And you’re welcome for Pastor Steven Anderson. Only he has been brave enough to stare down the misogyny and bigotry of people like Mark Driscoll and say “I can do better.”
We could go on and on with all the ways in which we have made your life better over the past 365 days, but our arms are tired from patting ourselves on the back.
Seriously, though, we want to thank you all for your having the self-discipline to look at that to-do list sitting on your desk and say “No, you can wait work. I don’t care if I’m wasting company time on a company computer. I’ve got better things to do. I need to get my American Jesus fix!”
Hopefully, we can continue to provide you with entertainment and insight for many years to come……or at least until the world ends on December 21st, 2012.
Grace and peace,
Wes Anderson and Zack Hunt