One way to judge the fame of a person is to measure how many results come back from a Google search.

Searching today, I got 182 million for Barack Obama and 116 million for Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump topped both with 217 million, not surprising for a man who appears to believe that any publicity is good publicity.

Pope Francis garners 132 million, fewer than a president but more than a president wannabe.

Mother Teresa trails the crowd with a mere 96 million. Of course, she is the only deceased person in this group.  And she is closer to sainthood that any of the others.  (Not to deny the miracles God can work, but I’m thinking only one of the others has the slightest chance of ending up a saint.)

The church doesn’t take Google numbers into account when deciding if someone is a saint.  The process is a bit more discerning, thorough and holy.  But the people who form the Body of Christ seem to have a pretty good eye for what makes a saint; nobody is surprised by Mother Teresa.  I think over the next few months she might top Trump in the Google eternity category.

I don’t get zombies.  More to the point, I don’t get the fascination many people have with them.

I’m not even sure exactly what they are:  dead people come back to life?  Live people going dead?  People who drink too much and trip over a bucket of blood?  Brain munchers?

I hope the people who dress up like zombies realize that zombies are not real.  Really…you can’t believe everything you see on television.

The zombie craze seems to have started in 1968, with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.  It was a low-budget film (which is easy to tell if you watch it) that became a cult classic.  That doesn’t ensure that it has any redeeming social value and to me it doesn’t.  But of course, I feel that way about many things that are wildly popular.

But zombies?

A couple days ago I saw an article about a small company that is producing a zombie nativity set.  (No, I’m not going to give you a link to the story or the company’s website; I don’t want to encourage anyone to actually buy the thing.)

My curious research into the fledgling field of zombie nativity revealed an entire American sub-culture I had missed.  You see, before there was the cute little zombie nativity set, some folks were  putting up zombie nativity scenes in their yards for (or perhaps against) Christmas.

If my mind was warped enough to think of a zombie nativity scene I certainly would actually put one up and prove to my neighbors that I’m a nut case.  And I have not seen any zombie nativities in my neighborhood.  (However, there are a couple folks who get really into Halloween decorations who might be thinking about it.)

I think Christmas should be a zombie-free zone.  I’m sure some people find a zombie nativity to be creative, funny and cutting edge.  To me, it falls somewhere between grossly offensive and just plain stupid.

It is evidence of Christianity continuing to be the only politically correct religion to ridicule.  Google images has a vast library of zombie Jesus pictures – there is one rather tepid zombie Mohammed illustration.  Taking on the Muslim religion would be more cutting edge, but not the cutting edge I’m looking for.

We’ll be putting up our nativity scene in a few days.  No zombies.  Just a holy family representing the hope of the world.