Time for Law & Order to rip a story from the headlines pipe another one in from their skulls:

On Wednesday, Law & Order served up another of those famed episodes ripped from the headlines – except the violence-preaching madrassa is Christian, not Muslim, the evil cleric brainwashing children quotes the Bible, not the Koran, and American Christians haven’t executed anybody by stoning since the Salem witch trials.

The plot for this episode is so ludicrous it hardly merits retelling, but for clarity’s sake, here’s a quick summary. The police find the body of a woman art gallery owner killed by stoning, and immediately suspect the killer had “strong religious views.” Suspicion falls first on a Muslim artist.

Time for a cheap shot at the Bush administration: the National Security Agency is wiretapping the gallery owner by mistake, revealing that she was having an affair with the artist. Suspicion shifts to her irreligious husband, who apparently didn’t mind being cuckolded. For reasons not explained, the police decide to arrest their son, Jason, a college student.

Jason turns out to be a Christian mystic who hears from God several times a day. The son is under the influence of a Bible-spouting pastor who runs the Angelgrove Camp, where he is preparing Christian children to fight a religious war.

For a look back at the show's awesome first three seasons before the rot sat in, click here.