There are always variations on it, but it usually involves the American airwaves. This one came to me Sunday. Here are the first few words:  “One more right they are trying to take away!! Pastor Removal from Television.

Removal of Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah and other pastors from the airwaves.
An organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, D.C. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America . They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand! If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped….”

The  warning continues: “This group is also campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools! You, as a Christian, can help! We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country…. As Christians, we must unite on this. Please don’t take this lightly. We ignored one lady once and lost prayer in our schools and in offices across the nation. Please stand up for your religious freedom and let your voice be heard. Together we can make a difference in our country while creating an opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.”

When many people hear something so preposterous, it is time to turn to snopes.com, which takes such concerns and does the research to determine whether there is credibility to the assertions.   Snopes.com debunks this particular warning.   It tells of the relentlessness of this notion and how the FCC has been bombarded for three to four decades on the silly fear. The FCC simply does not have such authority any more than it could cancel the sun coming up in the morning. To see some of the cockeyed urban legends out there in the name of religion, check out to www.snopes.com/religion/religion.asp

Whether it is the notion that Orthodox Jews consummate sex through a hole in a sheet to one that scientists drilling in Siberia punched through to hell to one that a girl killed in a car crash in Cincinnati, Ohio, died from the dashboard plastic Jesus being driven through her heart by an airbag.   Snopes said it is true that former Texas Gov. George W. Bush declared June 10 as “Jesus Day” in Texas  and that a physician once put the bodies of the dead on a scale to check their weights before and after death to see whether they had souls.