Bible Lessons from Drew Carey

White House Dinner Gets Bible Lesson from Drew Carey

Editor's Note: Drew Carey, unconventional Hollywood comedic star, was seen May 4 at the White House Correspondents' Annual Association dinner. The event gathered President George Bush and guests from every corner of Hollywood, media and government. Whether knowingly or inadvertently (we do not know) Carey testified some truth to the full house at the Washington Hilton International Ballroom....This is a portion of that address.

WASHINGTON: "I can't watch the news lately. I know everybody, you know ­ I recognize a lot of people who watch the news. It gets so depressing. I mean, I just get depressed watching the news. You know what I do when I watch the news now? I turn the news off. I get out my Bible. I turn to the book of Revelation and I start just checking stuff off. Red Dragon, seven horns, ten crowns ­ got it. Ozzy Osborne: American's favorite T.V. dad ­ got it. Oh man. Twenty millions dollars, huh! You know that is barely gonna pay for your kids' therapy. I don't know why ­ that money's gonna be down the drain.

"Yeah, I read the Bible a lot, you know ­ this is crazy ­ we celebrate holidays in the United States. I found out just recently there are so many religious holidays we celebrate here in this country that have nothing to do with the Bible at all. Real famous holidays, like Christmas it's not in the Bible. The birth of Jesus is in the Bible, but not Christmas. The tree's not in the Bible, you know, gifts there's nowhere that says, 'Celebrate My birthday, says Jesus.' It'sa pagan holiday that the Romans invented that we just do! But everywhere you go, I'm telling you, I've seen this so many times, you see a big nativity scene and there's baby Jesus, the manger, sheep, shepherds, wise men, Mary, Joseph ­ Santa Claus right in the middle. Like, who's that?

"Santa Claus has nothing to do with anything. Neither does the Easter Bunny ­ Easter is another pagan holiday that's not in the Bible. Every Easter you don't hear anything about Jesus on the cross. All you hear is about the Easter bunny. The Easter bunny this, the Easter bunny that. Why is the Christian religion the only one in the world that needs a mascot to sell their stuff? You don't see Jewish people out celebrating with the Passover kangaroo! There's no Ramadan rooster!

"Halloween's another big holiday ­ Satanic holiday ­ nobody's bothered by that for some reason. You know, fun for the kiddies!! I mean, when I was going to church they always told me, you know, Satan's the most evil one ­ he's the one you must watch out for. Watch out for Satan. And then, once per year the whole country says, 'Hey, let's party with this guy!' It's ridiculous!!! There's a Catholic Church down my street that used to have Halloween parties every year. Of course they don't have them anymore because they don't want the priests to hand out candies to kids."

(Drew Carey, White House Correspondents' Association Annual Dinner: Washington D.C., Saturday May 4, 2002)