Madonna: Jesus would endorse me

Look, people.

She told you in May.

She told you in August.

And now, she's telling you again - Jesus wouldn't be upset at her riding onto stage on a giant Swarovski cross. He would chuckle, people.

"It is no different than a person wearing a cross. My performance is neither anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous," she said in a statement.

It's no different, you see, wearing a small crucifix as a symbol of your faith to being strapped onto one and being lowered slowly onto a stage as part of a pop concert.

In a similar statement, Regan MacNeil has insisted that masturbating with a crucifix is a sign of Christian fidelity, and there's no difference between that and "simply wearing one on the outside, when you think about it."

"It is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another," the 48-year-old added.

The best way to do that, of course, is by being gaffer-taped to an enormous "T" shape. Certainly, just seeing Madonna do that has made us feel better about helping our neighbours. Even the drunkard who sits bellowing Nizlopi songs all night.

"I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing," she continued.

Well, maybe if he found himself on some awful cable TV chat-show: you can picture Eammon Holmes or somebody telling Jesus "we've got a bit of a surprise for you..." before unveiling a giant cross. "Now, Jesus, it'll have been a while since you saw one of these... would you get on it for us, and perhaps have a little pray for world tolerance?"

There's room to ponder if Jesus was alive whether he'd want much to do with crucifixes at all, and especially if he'd be making his plea for man to do right to his brothers at 150 bucks-a-head events, and doing it from a cross peppered with thousands of pounds worth of crystal.

What's tiresome about this is that Madonna knew that the cross was going to be a red rag; and she went ahead and did it anyway. Which is fine - as David Stafford said, a belief which can't cope with having the piss taken out of it is a tendency, not a faith. But when the hoped-for publicity arrives, to then start pleading that you meant no offence - and, worse, to try and claim there was some sort of humanitarian subtext to the showing-off - suggests that whatever convictions Madonna may have left inside her heart, she does not have any courage to go with them.

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