Blasphem -- yawn -- y!

This year hasn't mustered much of a controversy to go with the Easter season and Holy Week. Usually we get media frenzy over some completely misunderstood archaeological discovery or some rabble-rousing fringe professor publishes a theory that will shake the foundations of the faith or something.

So far, all 2011 has given us is a Time cover story on Rob Bell's book Love Wins, in which Bell questions some aspects of traditional Christian teaching about damnation. This could be a real splatter-fest, except that Bell's book was published several weeks ago, religious bloggers kicked it around before it was printed as well as right around the time it came out and the fallout is mostly over by now. The story was written by Jon Meacham, who has apparently decided that dooming one newsweekly was not enough.

Stefani Germanotta made a late run at vandalizing the season with the release of her song "Judas" last Friday. Ms. Germanotta, who inexplicably would rather be known as "Lady Gaga," said she wrote the song as the words of a woman to a man who has betrayed her. As she explained in a radio interview,  the song is about "honoring your darkness in order to bring yourself into the light, [...] You have to look into what’s haunting you and need to learn to forgive yourself in order to move on."

That certainly sheds light on the refrain: "Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Gaga."

Ms. Germanotta, who was raised Roman Catholic, said she intended no commentary on Christianity with the song. Which of course explains the cross on the single cover art, the repeated mentions of being a "holy fool" and the music video with an actor as Judas and Ms. Germanotta as Mary Magdalene.

I don't know. I think blasphemy needs to take a marketing course, because all this stuff does is bore this traditional Christian theist out of his mind.