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Winnipeg Free Press

Cartoon characters teach children about faith

CHRISCROSS, Sumuslim, Ninjew and Taekwonhindu are not your average superheroes. True, they are all part of a team that fights injustice, rescues people in trouble, demonstrates powers and prowess beyond their years, and are stars of their own action-adventure animated television series. Unlike most superheroes, however, they also are all characters with a deep connection to their individual faiths. That's why they, and their cartoon series, are known as God's Gang. Chriscross is a Southern Baptist preacher and karate master who can deflect any object that is thrown at him. Sumuslim is a hulking sumo wrestler who uses his hypno-storytelling power to combat evil doings. Taekwonhindu, as her name implies, is a taekwondo expert who deploys her telepathic powers to thwart villains, and the fourth member of the gang, Ninjew, has laser vision and access to a Kabbalah sourced invisibility powder. In each episode, the gang receives an assignment from the angelic Ms Dogma, a dog working from heaven, and is assisted by a French accented aerial reconnaissance gatherer, Le Dove, who is a dove. They travel to their missions in a van that can transform into other kinds of vehicles and are sometimes helped out by their Buddhist friend Kungfuda. YouTube Taekwonhindu (from left), Ninjew, Chriscross and Sumuslim are all characters in the animated series God's Gang. By combining their powers and the shared values inherent in their separate faiths, the gang demonstrates the good that can be accomplished when people from different backgrounds and with different beliefs respect one another and cooperate. With God's Gang, faith is a concept that unites rather than divides. God's Gang was created by Israeli hi-tech entrepreneur Nimrod-Abraham May and written by the Emmy and Grammy award-winner Rob Kutner. It premiered on YouTube in September 2024, with Love Is in the Air Hole, an episode revolving around the gang's mission to rescue endangered blue whales. Another episode, We Didn't Start The Fire: Wildfire & The Mysterious Hero was released this past winter, and many more episodes are currently in the works. In an interview on TikTok Live, May explains that he came up with the idea for the gang about 20 years ago, but waited to pursue it until he felt he had the necessary knowledge and spiritual grounding to do so. 'I was lacking the understanding of spiritualism and the understanding basically of what the world is made of, why we are here and where we come from,' he says in the interview. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'So,' he continues, 'I went on a 15-year search for God. Obviously the first place you look is religion. And I started looking to Judaism because I'm Jewish and then I decided it's not enough. I want to see what Christianity has to say and Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and that only created more curiosity to learn more.' That curiosity in turn led him to delve into Kabbalah's Book of Creation, the Sumerian scripts and many other sources of spiritual knowledge. Then, when he finally felt ready to pursue his vision, May invited Buddhist and Hindu experts, imans, a Baptist pastor, and a rabbi to sit on an interfaith council. That council advises May, his animators and writers and ensures that the faith depictions in his cartoon are accurate and inoffensive. While May adds that he plans to introduce characters from the Sikh, Druze and other smaller religions in future episodes, he also emphasizes that God's Gang, in spite of its content and title, is not intended to promote religious adherence. 'We are not a show about religion,' he says. 'We are not trying to preach and we are not coming up with a one world religion. We are basically an entertainment company that wants people to come together to unite through shared values, the values that we believe are based on the bright side of life, which are kindness compassion, integrity and truth and love.' swchisvin@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER