Pals with Jesus



"Data: Q's interest in you has always been very similar to that of a master and his beloved pet. Picard: [ Death Glare Data: It was merely an analogy."

- Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things"

"Bethany: Christ? You knew Christ? Rufus: Knew him? Nigga owes me twelve bucks."

- Dogma

Maybe you live in a Fantasy Kitchen Sink. Perhaps you're the proud resident of a world with a Crossover Cosmology. Whatever the case, you need to put the kettle on the boil and biscuits on the tray because your pal Jesus is coming over for tea in twenty minutes.

This trope is about the tendency of fantastic fiction and ancient myth to have completely mundane mortals (often of the heroic variety) be on a First-Name Basis with the movers and shakers of the universe. The reasons vary: maybe the god, Anthropomorphic Personification, or (surprisingly personable) Eldritch Abomination have taken a liking to the character for their own reasons. Maybe their portfolios coincide a great deal, so they share the same interests. Or maybe the god just wants to chill out with someone who's not depressed due to Time Dissonance and isn't another of their vainglorious "equals". Then again, if your hero is actively fighting Dracula and his minion The Grim Reaper across several games, it's only natural they get to get friendly after a while.

Whatever the case, the character has a direct line to the Powers That Be.

Though not limited exclusively to these types of characters, the following tend to attract deific attention most often: The Unfazed Everyman, Strange Girl, and Weirdness Magnet.

Compare God Was My Co-Pilot, where this is used as The Reveal, and Reasoning with God, where higher powers can be talked to but only on extraordinary occasions. See also Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?, Olympus Mons, and Enemies with Death. If they get involved in the characters life, may become a Sidekick Ex Machina or Monster Roommate. Contrast Egocentrically Religious for conceited characters who believe themselves to be pals with Jesus.

Anime and Manga

 * Dragon Ball. By the end of Z, not only have our heroes met three tiers of gods, the manager of hell, and sundry other beings, the main characters are also more powerful than they are.
 * They are also in charge of selecting the Guardian of Earth- basically our local God. So, not only are they pals with Jesus, but they're his bosses, mostly because Asskicking Equals Authority.
 * In Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke's boss is a Really 700 Years Old toddler who is charge running the afterlife Celestial Bureaucracy.
 * Excel Saga, the Great Will of the Macrocosm regularly chastises Excel for getting killed, forcing the Will to bring her back to life.
 * In Saint Young Men, Buddha and Jesus are roommates.
 * Suzumiya Haruhi. Kyon and . Hell, make that everyone and.
 * First Easter Mirage Corps and other associates of Amaterasu dis Grand Grees Eydas IV, Emperor of Amaterasu Kingdom Demesnes from Mamoru Nagano Five Star Stories, and Amaterasu mel Gibih Lachesis Fanatic B Guiress, his fatima and wife. While not really a local Almighty, Amaterasu is damn close, and there is strong indication that he's the grandfather of one.
 * Pokémon often has Legendary Pokemon palling around with human children. And in the games, you can capture them and order them around.
 * Brandon captured not one, but three Legendary Pokemon.
 * Saint Seiya has Saori/Athena as a rich heiress who also is the Team Mom to the Bronze Saints who protect her directly. Also, one of the Golden Saints at her service is Shaka, the reincarnation of Buddha.
 * In Ah! My Goddess Keiichi Morisato makes a wish for a goddess to stay with him forever, and gets that wish granted by way of Belldandy, Norse goddess of the present who's daughter of a deity who is pretty much God. Her sister Urd is the daughter of Hild, the current ruler of the other side.
 * In the OVA continuity Tenchi Muyo!, two of Tenchi's housemates are revealed to be part of the three Choushin goddesses who created the multiverse they live in. Sasami merged with the goddess Tsunami when she was injured as a young child, while Washu simply sealed her memory and powers away in the three power gems that she gave to her daughter Ryoko. As of the end of the 3rd OVA series, their sister Tokimi seems to be joining in on the fun as well.
 * Word of God has seemingly stated that.
 * In High School DxD, the Only Friend Ophis considers is

Comic Books

 * Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8 takes this one step beyond. After Season 7 but before Season 8, Xander went on a bit of a vacation. During that time, Dracula found him and re-brainwashed him. During that time, they were best friends, doing all kinds of things (Xander taught Dracula how to ride a motorcycle, for example). The Slayer Organization ends up rescuing Xander, but they need Dracula's help in Season 8. It turns out that Dracula hadn't shaved, fed or dyed his hair (causing it to go grey) since Xander left. When he learns they are coming, he shaves and dyes his hair once again to look good for Xander. He pretends that everything has been fine since Xander left, but it's clear he's lying. When he mistakenly thinks Xander is asking him out on a date, he haughtily refuses in a way that can only be described as Tsundere. Basically, in the Buffyverse, Dracula has a crush on Xander. Dracula is gay (or bi, but that word doesn't seem to exist in the Buffyverse). Oh, and Xander has a subconscious verbal tic because of the months of brainwashing. Whether he wants to or not, he refers to Dracula as "Master".
 * Uatu The Watcher in Marvel Comics. Sure he isn't quite a "god," per se, nor does he ever visit our heroes at home, but we sure do see an awful lot of him, don't we?
 * Deadpool once visits an alternate future where he is still around and best friends with Death.
 * The Marvel Universe and DC Comics both have more than enough gods running around as superheroes. DC even has several angels running around as superheroes.
 * Many characters in The Sandman, but mainly Hob Gadling, who is friends with the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. One (minor) goddess thinks of friendships like these as 'like falling in love with a kitten: one day you'll have to put an old cat to sleep'
 * Apparently this (literally) is the premise of a Finnish Swedish-language comic called Ernst och Jesus.
 * In Battle Pope, the title character has Jesus for a roommate and sidekick.
 * This is the point of the tracts written by Jack Chick. If you are a good Christian, you will be in a "relationship with God" and Jesus will be your friend. Which means that you will get instant results from your prayer, including giving people heart attacks. Or something.
 * Played with in The Chronicles of Wormwood. The Anti Christ (a really nice guy who rejects his heritage) pals around with Jesus, who has brain damage from a police beating.
 * Doctor Strange is on a first-name basis with a lot of powerful entities, from the Vishanti to Eternity and even the Living Tribunal. They seldom go to him, though he has paid a house call on Agamotto once or twice.

Film
"Bethany: Christ? You knew Christ? Rufus: Knew him? Nigga owes me twelve bucks."
 * Dogma:


 * Rufus also claimed to be the 13th Apostle, who was left out of the records. 'Coz he was BLACK.
 * Not to mention Jay and Silent Bob, who get involved with powerful cosmic entities without being related to Jesus. Or, for that matter, having half a clue what's going on! (Silent Bob probably knows what's going on, but...)
 * In Clerks II, Jay is, so at least he remembers his previous movies.
 * In The Return of Hanuman, Maruti the incarnation of Hanuman befriends Minku, Munni, and Daddu, until he's not allowed to play with them because he is considered to be dangerous.

Live Action TV

 * Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q
 * From the point of view of his Companions, the Doctor could be seen like this.
 * It's also slightly implied that the Doctor himself may have been this, if only by an offhand comment of him attending the 'first Easter'. "Just between you and me, what really happened was..."
 * In The Fires of Pompeii,
 * The title character of the short-lived series The Book Of Daniel.
 * Joan is either this or Cosmic Plaything depending on how you interpret her relationship with God.
 * Iolus on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, best buds with Zeus's son. He also got along pretty well with Aphrodite, too.
 * While "pals" isn't the best word for most of the relationships, being on speaking terms with the gods was pretty much standard on Hercules and Xena.
 * Andromeda: Trance Gemini is eventually revealed to be the avatar of the sun of Tarn-Vedra and exists across multiple realities.
 * An in-universe example: A Saturday Night Live sketch focuses on Jesus and his best pals Paul and, um, Barry.
 * The Filipino TV series (teleserye) May Bukas Pa has a boy named Santino being best friends with Jesus, whom he 'nicknames' "Bro".

Literature
"Tasslehoff: "...Paladine--I'm great personal friends with Paladine, mind you--...""
 * Neil Gaiman's American Gods has the creatures/gods/goddesses of mythology basically chilling around with normal people. (Hell, this applies to just about anything written by Neil Gaiman.)
 * Jesus doesn't personally appear, but he gets a mention once; Mr. Nancy saw him having rather a rough time of things hitchhiking in Afghanistan. Not many people are pals with him there...
 * In one edition, an individual strongly implied to be Jesus (and an odd resemblence to Steven Spielberg) has a brief conversation with Shadow.
 * Narnia: Aslan is Jesus in a world where paws and a mane happened to be more appropriate than hands. It's no secret.
 * It helps that Lion!Jesus is more of a hands-on divinity than Human!Jesus. Like, coming in person to help slay the evil overlord, stopping by to break curses, makes public appearances like coronations, does birthday parties and bar mitzvahs, etc.
 * Actually, people rarely hire any of Jesus' incarnations for bar mitzvahs, for some reason.
 * To be fair to the original, Narnia's version(s) of Satan are more about overt conquest than subtle temptation and require more direct intervention.
 * Lord of the Rings: Gandalf is actually one of team of five minor angels sent to Middle-earth on a mission from the Valar, who can be likened to archangels or gods under a creator god.
 * Also in The Silmarillion: Elves and Valar both live in Valinor. One Elf marries a Maia (minor angel).
 * Garion in The Belgariad grows up as a Farm Boy type character raised by his "Aunt" and "Grandfather" who are actually long-lived movers and shakers of the universe.
 * The Voice in his head would be a better example.
 * Even more so in The Dreamers, where the four gods of the country tend to pal around and be on first name terms with some of their subjects.
 * And to round out the Eddings citations: in the Elenium/Tamuli series, Sephrenia's younger sister is . And Sparhawk's daughter is
 * Dragaera is a major example of this - Vlad is on a first name basis with Verra the Demon Goddess, as well as Sethra Lavode, who is practically a Physical God. He's also good friends with Aliera and Morrolan, who are some of the most powerful Dragaerans in the Empire.
 * Death of the Discworld series doesn't really have many human buddies aside from his manservant Albert and (adoptive) grand-daughter Susan, but has friendly relationships with everyone he meets outside of The Duty, such as the witches and wizards. His interactions with Granny Weatherwax are quite cordial (for her).
 * Also, in The Last Hero, the gods allow the Silver Horde to infiltrate Dunmanifestin and greet them as equals (the "new gods we've been hearing about"). Initially it was only a joke, but Cohen's trick with the dice seems to have earned the respect of at least a few deities.
 * Nanny Ogg was Time's midwife. Literally.
 * Death and the Lady have both developed an interest in Rincewind, although he doesn't actually meet them much.
 * And Brutha spends most of Small Gods chatting with the Great God Om. Who's a tortoise.
 * Death is also fairly friendly towards the people he meets in his official capacity (unless they don't like cats), because his job is to make sure they get going on to the afterlife all right, but it's not a job that allows for much socialization.
 * Twoflower teaches the Four Horsemen bridge.
 * Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff toys with the trope a bit, since Biff was Jesus' best friend before he hit it big.
 * In the Incarnations of Immortality series, Luna is a relatively ordinary human with a talent for painting. She winds up directly related to Death, Fate, Nature, and God(dess) and indirectly connected to Time, War, and Satan (via female relatives' affairs with the latter three), and it's strongly hinted that Night is an indirect ancestor of hers. See One Degree of Separation for a (hopefully) clearer narrative of all the connections in this series.
 * Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is full of Physical Gods, many of which hang out with mortals. Examples:
 * Anomander Rake, one of the most Badass Ascendants in the world, calls the human Whiskeyjack his "friend," something he has almost never done before with any mortal or god.
 * Tehol Beddict lives with his manservant, Bugg.
 * There are several more instances of some mortal character being revealed as a god in disguise, including Cotillion, Nightchill and the Errant.
 * In Alfred Bester's lesser-known novel The Computer Connection, the main characters are literally pals with Jesus—he's one of their group, and they call him JC "so it won't sound like we're swearing."
 * In the original Dragonlance trilogy, Paladine the supreme god of Good tags along with the adventurers as and pals around with Tasslehoff Burrfoot.
 * And then Tas proceeds to mention that fact every chance he gets.


 * Suzie Shooter from the Nightside novels started out as a perfectly ordinary human (albeit one with twenty levels in Badass Action Girl), but, mainly through her association with John Taylor, has gotten to meet plenty of the universe's movers and shakers. And usually, being Suzie, to stick a shotgun in their faces if they won't treat her with respect.
 * In the novel Runemarks, the main character encounters, and in some cases befriends, the entire Norse pantheon.
 * And she's trained in magic by
 * In the Codex Alera series, each of the heads of the House of Gaius in turn has a relationship (of varying nature) with Alera, the fury that represents their entire country. It's like if every United States President got advice from a manifestation of Uncle Sam.
 * In Robert A. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice the protagonist finds out that the person who was the nicest to him on his journeys was actually . He's the closest thing he has to a friend and ally.
 * Harry Dresden has a personal relationship (not necessarily cordial) with a surprising number of powerful supernatural and mythological beings. In later books, it's even implied that  has taken a personal interest in Harry. Both friends and enemies have found such contacts to be cause for concern.

Myth and Religion

 * Older Than Feudalism: In Greek Mythology, Zeus was known for his fondness of having affairs with human women.
 * There were also a number of times in Greek mythology when gods and goddesses would take likings to mortals, particularly heroes on quests. As was the case with Zeus, a good number of those interests were romantic, but there were still a few cases in which the deity really respected the mortal. Notable examples include the hero Odysseus with Athena, and the hero Jason with Hera.
 * Likewise Jesus in The Bible technically is God, and hangs out with fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, etc.
 * In the Gospel of John, he actually calls his Apostles "friends." And John himself was Jesus' BFF.
 * In Jewish theology, Moses is remarkable for being the only human who God spoke to as an equal.
 * Oh yeah? Abraham haggled. And his grandson fought with Him and almost won until God dislocated his hip.
 * David was given the title "The Man after God's own Heart!"
 * In some Native American mythology, Coyote is God's best friend.
 * In one particular story, God allowed all of the animals to change their names. Except for Coyote, because Coyote was His friend and He didn't want Coyote's name to change.
 * In another story, Coyote is hanging out with God and is responsible for the diversity of humans (including the male and female genders) because he kept messing with God's basic human design. And God just let him do it, because Coyote was his friend and it would be rude to get mad at him.
 * In some stories, Coyote is even singled out by God to be a more important teacher of life lessons than the other Animal People. Usually, this is because he and God are friends.
 * Of course, given that half the lessons we learn are because Coyote gets his ass handed to him because of his own dumbfuckery, it could be a case of Vitriolic Best Buds.

Radio

 * Radio Free Vestibule's Kevin and God is an audio skit about God appointing a mortal named Kevin to be his new prophet, but things get derailed due to Kevin's airheaded nature. This eventually rubs off, and God spends his time watching TV and going bowling with Kevin.

Tabletop Games

 * The Scion series of tabletop RPGs from White Wolf has the player-characters set as mundane children of the gods. Mundane until they are revealed to be children of the gods, and then slowly ascend their way from "basic mortal" to "A God Am I." While still simply Scions (as opposed to Demigods or Gods), their powers basically come from being on first-name basis with their god-parents (as opposed to later, when their powers come from their own deification).
 * Immortals in the Mystara Dungeons & Dragons setting adopt mortal identities whenever they have something to do on the mortal plane that they don't want other Immortals to notice. In the Wrath of the Immortals adventure, does this by becoming the player characters' patron.

Video Games
""Since when are you on a First-Name Basis with the Wise One?""
 * Before the final boss fight in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Kraden is amazed by Isaac and co's knowledge of The Wise One.


 * In the Playable Epilogue of Super Paper Mario, Mario can chat with the game's equivalent of Hades and Zeus and they think he's such a fantastic guy that they tell him that when he eventually does die, he can just find them and say the word and he gets the fast-express to the top-rank tier of the afterlife (granted, it's Mario, and he probably was karmically inclined for that already, but it's nice to have it outright stated).
 * For that matter, Rosalina has mentioned that she particularly likes him too and will watch after him, and she's stated to be guardian of the cosmos.
 * The more "normal" Touhou characters (though calling anyone in Gensokyo normal is just asking for trouble) in particular Reimu and Marisa are shown to be on a friendly basis, or at least grudgingly accepting, of anything from Odd Job Gods to Physical Gods to literal gods to people powerful enough they might as well be gods. And of course, this being Gensokyo, they have pounded them with danmaku at least once.
 * That, and they seem to hang out with Hijiri Byakuren, after UFO.
 * And Sanae lives with the gods she worships. Of course, she's also part god herself, since one of her gods is also her many-times-great-grandmother.
 * Okami: Prophet-in-training Issun is a good pal of Ammy the Furball, aka Amaterasu, Sun Goddess and most important Shinto Deity.
 * Let's not forget Ammy's other good friend !
 * Her son, Chibiterasu, has a total of five close pals over the course of his game- the Kid Samurai Kuni, the mermaid Nanami, the miko Kagu, the  Kurow, and Butt Monkey Manpuku.
 * Mortal Kombat has Raiden, God of Thunder, as a playable character. Slightly subverted as in the MK-verse the "Gods" are more Elementals and the position is treated like a job. Played straight in The Movie, however.
 * In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic's latest companion is Chip,
 * Shin Megami Tensei is built on this trope. By the end of each game, your team will consist of major deities from virtually every pantheon on record, many of whom joined simply by being bribed into doing so.
 * The Raidou Kuzunoha games even have a loyalty system. Maxing out their friendship toward you will allow them to learn new skills, and will compel them to leave parting letters and gifts when you decide to fuse them.
 * In Pokémon you can catch Arceus in a ball, thus making Him your friend. Period.
 * ... Of course, it's entirely possible to make Arceus hate you, so that He becomes a slave that has no choice but to follow your orders. Period.
 * In the Harvest Moon universe, the main character is frequently on speaking terms with the Harvest Goddess, and, in some games, the Harvest King (AKA, Harvest God). In fact, you can usually marry them.
 * Sora has a tendency to act this way towards people in power in the Kingdom Hearts games, even though he hasn't earned it. His attitude towards characters such as Mickey Mouse and Yen Sid is a casual "Hey there!" About the only one he actually seems to show some respect towards is Captain Shang from Mulan. Riku, on the other hand, actually is pals with Mickey, though he doesn't dare try this sort of Sora-ish behavior until Mickey actually tells him that they're pals and he doesn't need to call him by his title.
 * Record of Agarest War's Borgnine, one of your first party members, is not only a playable character but also a larva, a lesser god.
 * In Cthulhu Saves the World, you play as a Depowered Cthulhu. Thus all the members of his party are this trope.
 * Taken Up to Eleven in the first two Lunar games and their remakes, where both protagonists are not only friends with the Cthulhu's, they're the love interests too!
 * In World of Warcraft, Magni Brozebeard seems able to hear and speak to the living spirit of Azeroth itself, referring to her as one would a grandmother. In Battle for Azeroth, while both factions greedily fight over veins of azerite, he's the only one who seems to realize (or care about) the pain she is in from these veins, which are actually a result of  the wound inflicted by Sargeras.

Web Comics

 * Sinfest practically runs on this concept. In the first week, God is introduced as a frequently recurring character.
 * The various Deaths in Irregular Webcomic have struck up friendly relations with characters.
 * Wapsi Square: Monica and Shelly are on speaking terms with some very strange and powerful beings who have influenced the destiny of the entire world. In Minneapolis.
 * Cleric is friend with Jessie, lord of undeath.
 * Gabe and Tycho have occasionally been shown to be literally friends with Jesus.
 * And he is F'in Metal.
 * He also brings the blue sparks.
 * Despite this, Tycho maintains his atheism.
 * Gunnerkrigg Court is frequently visited by mythological creatures and sometimes deities. At least, the Minotaur lives there, Coyote (that sneaky Trickster and apprentice god from Native American Mythology) and Chang'e dropped in, and some teacher-parent meetings apparently involved Odin.
 * ...because reincarnated Brynhildr was one of the Court students -- and a good friend of Surma and Anja—and "the Old Man" personally checked her diligence.
 * Antimony has spent enough time speaking with various Psychopomps that she's become conversant in several of their languages. Apparently they like Annie's company because her (very rare) ability to see them unassisted means she's one of the few people they ever get to speak with who isn't dead, scared, and confused. Also good friends with Renard and Ysengrin and Coyote. She once mentioned the latter before the whole classroom of people who know all too well who Coyote is, but didn't happen to interact with him this closely. By the way, immediately after realizing this from their reactions happened the first time we saw her blushing.
 * One fine lady with personal interest in Moon affairs accidentally ran into Annie's classmate, Matt. Then lad helped her to catch the white rabbit, they had a nice chat and he ended up a little... moonstruck. She also "borrowed" his mp3 player with the full Dire Straits discography on it.
 * In Headbanged, the main character becomes friends with Jesus after he (Jesus) borrows one of his black metal CDs.
 * The Adventures of Billy and God. Should have become a series.
 * Jeffrey Rowland, creator and main character of Overcompensating, infrequently hangs out with YHWH and his son.
 * The main heroes of Planescape Survival Guide not only end up having one-on-one training time with Thor and his ilk, but are also
 * Ironically, Zexion and Axel are the people who are closest to Jesus in Ansem Retort. They go out drinking, use Jesus' blood as a cure for hangovers, and play pictionary. Then again, this Jesus doesn't necessary have his head screwed on right either...
 * T-Rex of Dinosaur Comics frequently talks with God and the Devil, and is the only character in the strip who seems to be able to hear them.
 * Elan and Banjo. Banjo even gets a "Brother," Giggles, who leaves to be the god of an orc tribe. *sniff*
 * Russel's Teapot has a primary character who hangs around with Jesus and discusses theology.
 * Death seems to be good friends with the main character of Ctrl+Alt+Del's side comic sillies.
 * In Digger the statue of Ganesh, an avatar or sorts containing part of the god Ganesh, is perfectly personal and quite a nice guy. As you'd expect for the remover of obstacles.
 * In Jack heaven appears to operate a "my door is always open" policy as it is perfectly possible for mortals to have a friendly, down to earth relationship with Angels both before and after they are dead, regardless on where they end up after death, and it is shown that senior Angels who were once mortal enjoy an equally pleasant and informal relationship with god. Unfortunately as the gates of hell appear to have been replaced with revolving doors, it is just as possible to have a relationships with Anthropomorphic Personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins, whether you want to or not.
 * In early strips of The Devil's Panties, Author Avatar Jennie would hang out with JC and the Devil. They still make occasional appearances but not as often.
 * Happle Tea has this on a regular basis with a few different beings.
 * In Casey and Andy, Casey is dating Satan, so Andy and his girlfriend Mary have her (yes, her) around the house a lot. Plus, this means Casey has a rather uncomfortable I'm-dating-your-daughter relationship with God.
 * This is pretty much the entire basis for Hero in Training.
 * The green-haired girl is pretty much the only one of minus's friends who is a normal human, in Minus.

Web Original

 * Done in the short fiction Me and Sue and Ricky and God. It doesn't end well.
 * Rather literal example in The Salvation War, with Michael-Lan and Jesus. Except here, it's Getting Baked With Jesus.
 * Metal Gear Awesome and its sequel has Jesus appear to Snake's aid a couple of times.
 * A relatively common occurrence in multifandom roleplaying games which allow gods or godlike characters. In Drama Drama Duck, for example, people like Phoenix Wright and Mikaela Banes are on friendly terms with the likes of Jordan C. Wilde and Apollo.
 * Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts seem to have a direct line to Jesus in Sailor Moon Abridged, as he always responds immediately whenever they so much as say his name. This doesn't seem to help them in the slightest, though.

Western Animation
"Hawkgirl: That's right, I'm an angel. You can mess with me if you want to but I don't think you want to mess with The Boss. The Demons fly away scared Hawkgirl: If we're lucky, they'll all be that dumb."
 * God, the Devil and Bob: Bob actually ends up playing therapist to the two most powerful beings in the universe after God forgets the Devil's birthday. Once that's resolved, he browbeats them both into cleaning up the mess they made of his garden before his family gets home.
 * Jesus is a talk-show host in the early seasons of South Park. In later episodes the boys visit him at his house in South Park.
 * There's also Saddam Hussein's, er, relationship with Satan.
 * And Eric Cartman's special relationship with Cthulhu.
 * Flanders to God! Flanders to God!
 * Zoidberg in Futurama comes to Bender's execution dressed up and introduces himeslf as Santa's pal Jesus.
 * Not forgetting Bender meeting possible God and hanging around with him.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang essentially IS Jesus of that world, and communicates with the spirits, many of which are regarded as deities. And Sokka's first girlfriend turned into the moon.
 * In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle is a close and dear student to Princess Celestia, who makes the Sun rise every day. When Celestia enters a room, everyone else bows, Twilight goes in for a hug. In later episodes, however, she bows like everyone else. So it's more like "Sharing a student-teacher relationship that happens to be friendly with Amun Ra" than anything else.
 * Twilight is also on good terms with Princess Luna, who is in charge of making the Moon rise every night.
 * A better example might be Spike who also has a direct line to Celestia (mostly because he is the direct line to Celestia), has a similar line of thinking as her (often telling Twilight to lighten up), and is far more relaxed around her than any of her other subjects. Possibly because he's a dragon, and as such doesn't have the same "Hail Celestia on high" reverance that ponies do towards Celestia.
 * According to Lauren Faust before assigning him to assist Twilight Sparkle Celestia raised Spike and taught him how to send things with his fire, so instead of a God Empress she's more like his mom or aunt.
 * Justified because Twilight wields the central piece of a holy power the princesses no longer control. She is also a magical prodigy on her own, possibly making her the Jesus in this trope.
 * Wonder Woman freaks out when she gets an unexpected visit from Hermes in Justice League, but he tells her to calm down because "You're like family."
 * Parodied in the same episode when Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman are flying through what amounts to Hell, and the demons there start attacking them until they notice that Hawkgirl has wings:


 * The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: Not only are Billy and Mandy friends with the Grim Reaper, but the Goddess Eris pays rather a lot of visits to them, and Billy's aunt marries Nergal (who in mythology is a Babylonian god of war, pestilence, the underworld, etc, though he's presented as a pathetic demon in the cartoon).
 * The episode of Family Guy in which Peter literally becomes friends with Jesus.
 * The Real Ghostbusters have, within their containment unit, the avatar of a Sumerian god who takes the form of a giant marshmallow man. They sometimes let him out to fight other ghosts too big for them to handle on their own and he's buddies with Team Pet Slimer.
 * They have also teamed up with the god.
 * This is the entire premise behind Class of the Titans. Granted the protagonists are the very distant descendants of Greek heroes (some of whom were, themselves, descendants of the gods and goddesses), but for the most part, they're regular teenagers.

Real Life

 * The importance of having a "relationship with God" is a common theme in various religions.
 * Chantel Lysette and mediums like her fit this trope in real life.
 * Parodied and played straight with T-shirts that say "Jesus is my homeboy."
 * "Jesus" (pronounced Hay-sus) is a common name in Hispanic countries so you can be best friends with Jesus In Name Only.