You sing Jesus Christ Superstar as an American Idol contestant.

The Broadway show and subsequent productions were condemned by some religious groups. Tim Rice was quoted as saying "The idea of the whole opera is to have Christ seen through the eyes of Judas, and Christ as a man, not as a God." Some Christians considered this, as well as the omission of the resurrection, to be sacrilegious. They also found the character of Judas too sympathetic and some of his criticisms of Jesus offensive.

When they said Carly Smithson was going to do that song during the Andrew Lloyd Webber show this week, I immediately asked myself what in the hell she was thinking, and could possibly nobody alert her to the fact that a very large part of the country will never vote for her if she sings that?

See, I very keenly remember the apocalyptic, sings-of-the-end-times outrage at the time the album, opera, and film were released in the early 70s, and my family wasn’t even yet part of the Christian fundamentalist movement, but simply evangelical — i.e., fundamentalism lite.

When the vote was revealed last night I wasn’t the least bit surprised, even though she is at least in the top three of talent this season. I kept waiting for someone to say the obvious. I’m still waiting, so I guess it fell to me.