Satanic LEGO?

Lego is a tool of Satan, warns Polish priest This is one of those crazy stories that hits the intertubes and then runs around different media. The fact that it first came out on April 1 should be suggestive, but some news stories are reporting additional remarks to an AP reporter on April 4, so maybe this guy is serious. As the story goes, the priest is supposedly complaining about the Monster Fighters sets that include vampires, werewolves, etc., and also cites a story from last year about the increasing number of "angry" faces for LEGO figures. I'm 99% sure that this is all an April Fools joke that got picked up by a news organization, and then other news organizations picked it up from there, etc, but I've seen people complain about Harry Potter, etc, so who knows?



BTW, I'm personally most offended that the picture above, which I grabbed from the Telegraph article on this, actually has Megablox, not LEGO, as the backdrop for the vampire figure. There has to be some midrash expansion on Deuteronomy 22:11 saying that it is wrong to mix LEGO and Megablox.

Jabba Sophia no more, well, not much more, well, for two years more

Revisiting an earlier story, the Austrian Turkish Islamic community is claiming victory, because LEGO has said that the set Jabba's palace is going to be discontinued at the end of 2014. They had previously complained was racist (really!) because it looks too much like the Hagia Sophia, or was it the Jami al-Kabir Mosque, or was it any building with a domed roof. LEGO responded that, no, they weren't changing anything in response to these protests, that products don't sit on the shelf for more than two years anyway. Personally, I think that LEGO has caved in to complaints from the Hundred Acres Wood because they aren't producing the Winnie the Pooh sets anymore. Really, when you read LEGO's response you can literally hear them beating their heads against the wall.

Jabba Sophia

In a little daily dose of the absurd, the Turkish Islamic community in Austria seems to have raised a fuss when they decided that LEGO set 9516, Jabba's Palace looks too much like either the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or the Jami al-Kabir Mosque in Beirut. Since this is the abode of gangsters and terrorists (and pseudo-Buddhist monks?!?!?), they cried foul. An organization known as the Turkish Cultural Community has officially complained to LEGO about their racist and culturally insensitive depiction, and have threatened legal action. LEGO has responded, saying, essentially, "Um, did you ever hear of Star Wars? It came out only a few decades ago. Maybe you should look into it." Okay, that's my paraphrase, but if this organization is concerned about "racial prejudices and hidden suggestions against Orientals and Asians," they really need to meet a guy named Nute Gunray. BTW, meesa thinks some rastafarians are going to start complaining about set 7121 next.



Thank you to blog reader Michael for pointing this out to me. This has also been covered on such LEGO sites as Brickset, FBTB and HothBricks.

Bible too racy for Sam's Club

Apparently Sam's Club rejected the Brick Testament. The company responded to inquiries saying "Sam's Club received numerous concerns from our members and parents about the mature content in what is perceived as a children's book. Accordingly, Sam's Club made a business decision to discontinue sales." It appears that the company got a few e-mails (or maybe just one?) complaining that Brendan is an atheist, and that on his website (NOT in the book) there were offensive depictions of sexual activity. Wow! Gee whiz! They've uncovered some deep dark secret that was, um, never a secret, and explicitly stated way back in 2001 (shoot, I missed celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the BT a month ago). There is a long discussion on Facebook where you can interact with the person that may be behind the initial complaints to Sam's Club.

BTW, while Brendan may have lost out here financially, since there will be fewer sales of his book (and to help remedy that, see below), IMO he won rhetorically. He has oft stated that one of his goals is to make people look at the Bible and judge it, not just go on the redacted version they got through Sunday School when they were little. Also IMO, I think both Brendan and small minded people like (IMO) the complainers here have a complete misunderstanding of the Bible. They all think that the Bible is meant to be a guide book for right living, full of upstanding moral examples. To Brendan the Bible fails at this, and so he rejects it. The complainers simply seek to ignore the failings of Biblical figures, and so stick to their Sunday School version. I'm sitting in my son's room right now as I type this (because I'm waiting for the baby to wake up and she's in the crib, okay, that was unneeded information), and there on the shelf is a Children's Bible with about twenty or so nice stories. I think that's what these complainers want the Bible to be. But it's not. The Bible is about God's quest to save a stupid, stubborn sinner like me (and you and you and you). God doesn't work through moral paragons, but through a deceiver like Jacob and an adulterer like David as the ancestors of Jesus, a bullheaded Peter as one of his closest friends and leader of his church, heck, the whole nation of Israel that was constantly turning away from Him to chase after other false gods. He did this so that none could boast that we were saved through our own righteousness, or that of our forebears. Any righteousness we might have is just dirty rags, as Paul writes. Instead, he saves us by pure grace, despite all of that. So, IMO, both Brendan and Tabitha Grace fall into the same pitfall. The Bible is not meant to be a perfect little book full of nice sayings, stories, and rules to live by. It is the story of God's encounter with humanity, a humanity that lusts, hates, covets, lies, kills, and ultimately denies that God. And yet He died on Calvary to save us.

Okay, end of sermon. I've shared these ideas before in discussions with Brendan on the old, now largely defunct, Lugnet, and in some of my reviews here. I disagree with him philosophically, and yet I love what he has built out of LEGO. If you're looking to buy the Brick Testament, perhaps as a Christmas gift for that AFOL in your life, you can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble.