Colbert Takes Guest to Sunday School

I have always been a huge Stephen Colbert fan. So much so that, if the presidential nominations went just the wrong way, I really would've voted for the late-night, satirical talk show host rather than either of the major candidates. But the other night, he totally cemented his place in my admiration.

Colbert was interviewing Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford professor whose book, The Lucifer Effect, discusses the psychological reasons that "good" people can do absolutely horrific things when placed in positions of great power and no accountability. Toward the end of the interview, Zimbardo branched into theological matters, basically suggesting that God is not really interested in reconciliation with the sinful and that the world's evil is God's fault for "creating" hell instead of admitting that He should not have required the angels (of whom Lucifer was one) to treat humanity as having an exalted place in the creation. At that point, Colbert's Catholicism kicked into high gear and he eviscerated Zimbardo with a brief discourse on the nature of hell and its origin as the result of the free will that God gave both angels and humanity -- not God's design or desire.

When a beaten and visibly flustered Zimbardo mustered a weak, yet condescending, "Obviously, you learned well in Sunday School," Colbert busted out with my new favorite t-shirt-ready line ever:

"I teach Sunday School, mother#&*%er."