This parody, attributed to one Glen Seeds, showed up in a write-in column in Sing Out! during the mid-60's. (Primitive Mudcat?) Anyway, the more cynical of my buddies in a Vietnam Chinook battalion got plenty of laughs.

Christ, the Magic Hebrew
(Glen Seeds)

Christ, the magic Hebrew, lived by the sea,
A medieval Superman in the land of Galilee.
A fisherman named Peter loved that prophet Christ
And brought him pagans to convert and helped him stamp out vice.

Together they would travel, not a penny to their name,
But changing water into wine brought universal fame.
Noble princes hated them and tried for liquidation,
But that's OK; they can't decay; they have God's fluoridation.

But one grey day the charm broke down. It seems so strange to tell.
That God's almighty only son was a mortal after all.
He dropped his cross in the big parade. It was his final fall.
They nailed him to the top of it and shipped him off to hell.

The sky grew dark in anger and boulders fell like rain.
Lightning flashed, the mountains shook, and corpses walked again.
Without their lifelong friend, the 12 could not be brave.
They hid at home while Romans sealed him up inside a cave.

But SuperChrist rolled the stone away and went back to his friends.
He said farewell and took to wing. That's how the story ends.
He sits up there in splendor, while down on earth below,
All Christians fight over who is right and which to hell will go.

Love thy fellow neighbor, unless he's another kind.
Don't let people think too much. Protect their tender minds.
We know God's on our side, so let's kill the dirty Reds.
Forgive us our hypocrisies so we can get ahead.

Christians live forever, but heretics all die.
Lead a life that's free from sin or down in hell you'll fry.
Go to church each Sunday so everyone can see
That you're an upright citizen of the Great Society.

*
Yeah, it's rough, but consider the time and place!
And here we go again -- from Saigon to Baghdad!