"Secret Lives of Jesus?" National Geographic Confuses Truth With Fiction

As a young boy I was thrilled to receive my own subscription to National Geographic Magazine. Every issue taught me something wonderful and new about the world in which I lived.

Today, I wouldn't subscribe to National Geographic Magazine if it were offered to me as a free gift. I can no longer trust the integrity of the Society.

Two things in particular have thrown me off the NGS bandwagon.

1. The Society's televised and published sensationalism regarding the so-called fragmentary text of what may (or may not) have been the long-lost "Gospel of Judas." These Geographic "researchers" presented guesses as facts and fictions as histories. They misled and confused the viewers with so-called "experts" who represent the fringes of biblical scholarship and who, almost without exception, had personal and professional biases that favored the controversial theories they advocated.

Any sense of "fair play" or objectivity was absent from this crass/commercial production reminiscent of the worst of Geraldo Rivera in the "old days."

2. NGS is now broadcasting a television special they are calling, "The Secret Lives of Jesus." Their own video clip/trailer for this program (which you can view by clicking on the picture) draws from the Qur'an and the notoriously heretical gnostic document called "The Gospel of Thomas." Among their assertions: That the then 5-year old Jesus violates the Sabbath by making mud sculptures of birds and, when confronted with the evidence, turning them into real birds so that they fly away. Later, according to the NGS, Jesus brings a curse upon the young son of the man who had challenged him earlier, turning the child into a cripple.

The "Gospel of Judas" was aired just before Easter.

The "Secret Lives of Jesus" is being aired just before Christmas.

This is not science. This is not archaeology. This is not theology. This is not even journalism. This is simply the denegration and exploitation of the Christian faith for commercial profit.

This is slime. As a Christian pastor I am offended. The National Geographic Society has confounded truth and falsehood and brought them upon a level.

They should be ashamed.

But they're not.

They are too busy counting the money . . . Just like Judas.

Note: Mike Straka at FoxNews adds his own thoughts on this Geographic "Special."