There's a lot of loss and losing going on these days. The Anglican Communion is in disarray. Our own United Church is losing its members and its relevance as it chases old gods in new skirts. The mainline church is either accommodating of or retreating before a pungent, trenchant culture. I myself hear I need to find what I lost. I hear I need to recover the lost books of the Bible by repenting of the sins of Scripture; to get back to a lost Christianity by finding the Jesus I never knew; to discover that faith isn't faith but faith is love. I don't think I can find the lost 'cause I think I'm losing it! I need to get away. Just a little escape to Bikini Bottom where I can conquer my faith anxieties with laughter as I watch the slapstick antics of Spongborg Squarepants, "…absorbent, and yellow, and porous is he…."

Perhaps you are familiar with the little cartoon cutie Spongebob Squarepants, star of big and little screen. You may also have heard of John Spong and Marcus Borg, two writers who have resoundingly questioned, if not dismissed, much of the core teaching of and about the Christian faith.

And so who could resist the fun to be had by imagining a new cartoon hero-Spongborg Squarepants.

There's Spongborg Squarepants wanting to reach the moon (Sandy's Rocket episode), mutating into any compact shape Sandy wants so she'll take him along. In the ensuing mayhem Spongborg and best friend Patrick take off, land and return to Bikini Bottom without knowing it. Disembarking the spaceship they are amazed that the moon looks like Bikini Bottom. Spongborg Squarepants, imposing his imagination on reality, concludes that the aliens of the planet have projected his and Patrick's thoughts onto the environment making it look exactly like Bikini Bottom. Patrick is amazed at this enlightenment: "You mean they been thinkin' the thoughts we been thinkin' and made us think we think the thoughts we been thinkin' that they thought we thought they think? etc."

The real isn't real, or is it? They conclude they can trust no one, and begin bagging all their Bikini Bottom friends as alien specimens. Spongborg and Patrick end up trying to bag each other in a frenzy of distrust.

Owner of the Krusty Krab where Spongborg works, Mr. Krabs is about to throw away an old pair of boots (Squishy Boots episode). There's Spongborg Squarepants with no reference point but his own desire, whose first offer to Mr. Krabs is a year's salary, a complete paint job for the Krusty Krab and provision of a one-year supply of cooking oil. Had the writers thought Spongborg had a soul he might have paid that too!

There's Spongborg Squarepants at the beach, wanting the adulation that comes with being a lifeguard (Spongeguard on Duty episode). The fact Spongborg Squarepants doesn't know anything about lifeguarding doesn't bother the regular lifeguard, who appoints Spongborg to a shift of duty warning him he's "…the only thing that stands between those good people and a watery grave." To which Spongborg demurs saying, "If I'd known being a lifeguard meant guarding their lives, I would never have said, 'Yes!'"

There's Spongborg Squarepants made Hall Monitor of the class at 9 a.m. (Hall Monitor episode). He puts on the Hall Monitor Uniform but his acceptance speech lasts until 3 p.m. He loses his chance, but the compassionate teacher lets him wear the uniform home until next day.

With the power of the uniform, Spongborg Squarepants feels it's his responsibility to teach Bikini Bottom how to live. Help is needed to unstop a traffic jam but by the time he's done directing traffic, the streets are a wrecking yard. A fish couple dining with their window open needs to be warned of the dangers of home invasion so Spongborg becomes the Open Window Maniac. "The Maniac" makes headlines but Spongborg doesn't recognize himself as the Maniac even with picture proof.

Some folks set out to bring The Maniac to justice. In the stakeout, mayhem ensues when Patrick, who knows what The Maniac looks like but not that he is Spongborg, reports to Spongborg via walkie-talkie that he sees The Maniac everywhere Spongborg is. Spongborg becomes consumed with fear, being told by Patrick that The Maniac is in the very spot that he is but Spongborg can't see him. It's only after terrible destruction brought on by uncontrollable fear that Spongborg Squarepants picks up a wanted poster and recognizes he is The Maniac.

I must not be very holy, because I shake my head less in anger and more in a bemused wonder at the silliness of sinners; that which is akin to Jay Leno's affection for what he calls "stupid criminals." There are elements of the ridiculous and the laughable in the desperation of the earnestly misguided. Perhaps it's the pedantry and puffery of the sycophantic, the posturing and parading of mere mortals, the fulminating and fumbling of the self-wise.

Humour is God's good gift, and the Christian faith is one that can see the comic everywhere. Spongborg Squarepants' pursuit of whatever fancies him, his belief that his imagination is reality and his inability to learn from the clash of his imagination with the residents of Bikini Bottom keeps life there in constant turmoil. On the other hand, a Plankton bent on world domination, a crab whose life is money, a squid who only wants comfort and a clam that is all belly and no brains is hardly a place of learning. Maybe we would smile less if we knew more fully the correlation between Bikini Bottom's imaginary characters and ourselves.

Now here's a little something that rebalances faith scales that seem tilted in favour of the new faith being pressed upon the church by post-Christ, post Christianity Christians. I went looking in Coles Bookstore to see how popular two of the mainline's leading new faith gurus, John Spong and Marcus Borg, really were. I found, "The Gospel of Judas," "The Jesus Papers," "The Lost Gospel," "The Jesus Dynasty," and an ocean of Da Vinci Code - but not a single copy of a Spong or a Borg! You'd have to place an order.

The library maybe? Two old Borg's and one new Spong! Perhaps the mainline intelligensia considers such to be earth shapers and faith shakers but as far as the lowly disciple is concerned, and as far as the general culture in my area is concerned, these apostles of a new Christianity are more lost than the lost Christianity they claim to have found.

Neither Jesus, nor Bible nor Christianity are lost. We are neither defeated nor filled with fear. We can laugh. We can rejoice. All is in God's capable hands. God's truth releases our knotted fingers. Christ has forewarned us of these happenings in our day so we are not dismayed but take heart. Remember the unequalled power and majesty of the one true God. Remember how small humanity is. Remember how much our Lord loves us, and has promised to be with us. Apostasy and heresy live still, but that is our opportunity to cry the warning; to give an account of the Gospel truthfully, faithfully delivered to us by Jesus through the Apostles.

By the way, Time Magazine's list of the world's top 100 influential people for 2004 and for 2005 contained the names of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Stott and Rick Warren-but not a Spongborg Squarepants among them.