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Even Ned's various sideline businesses, some part of Flancrest Industries, reflect his faith. He sells religious hooked rugs on the Internet and Bible trading cards at the swap meet. Flanders is honorable in his business, sometimes to his detriment. His major plunge into the entrepreneurial world occurs when he gives up his job in pharmaceuticals to open the Leftorium, a boutique in the mall for all things left-handed. His morality and good nature nearly do him in. He spends the day ignoring shoplifters and chasing down a customer he inadvertently short-changed, and becomes known for validating parking even for passersby.

Ned admits that most of the time he is "about as exciting as a baked potato." Yet for all his sweetness, he does have an unpredictable side. A part of him yearns to fit in with his worldly friends, even when his efforts are outlandish. Given his muscular physique, Flanders is selected to play the role of Stanley Kowalski in the community production of A Streetcar Named Desire, a musical version called Oh! Streetcar! The director instructs him to play it as if he were "pulsating with animal lust." In another episode, Flanders sins on a grand scale, going with Homer to Las Vegas for a wild weekend, during which he goes on an all-night bender and (apparently) marries a cocktail waitress.

Ned grapples with other temptations of popular culture in various incarnations and, on those rare occasions when he succumbs to temptation, is quick to see divine retribution. He angrily runs off a shady cable installer who offers an illegal hookup. Instead, he turns to satellite television, which enables him to view more than 200 channels, almost all of which he then locks out for offensive content. Straying from his usual screen fare, like reruns of The Jim Nabors Show, he once watched Married. … With Children (on the same network that produces The Simpsons). He insists he is afflicted with the flu for this lapse: "Oh, the network slogan is true! Watch Fox and be damned for all eternity!"

For all his admirable qualities, Flanders occasionally exhibits the zealous proselytizing that for many represents the unpleasant side of evangelical Christianity: an unwillingness to take no for an answer. After a typical misadventure, Homer and Marge lose custody of their children—Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The state moves the Simpson children next door into the temporary care of the Flanders family. A family parlor game, Bible Bombardment, first reveals that Bart and Lisa have no grasp of the scriptural arcana that is common knowledge to the Flanders boys. The Simpson offspring then let slip that they have never been baptized. Rather than consulting Homer and Marge, who are taking court-ordered parenting classes, Ned dresses the Simpson children—who have voiced neither interest nor acquiescence—in white robes for baptism. At the Springfield River, he prepares to immerse them and asks if they reject Satan. Homer interrupts the involuntary rite before any water lands on Bart's head, saving Bart from being saved.

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February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2