"Homer the Heretic" is the third episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons.

[3] In the episode, Homer decides to forgo going to church and has an excellent time staying home.

Homer, meanwhile, spends the morning goofing around the house, eating large amounts of fatty foods, and watching TV.

The next Sunday morning, while his family is at church, Homer falls asleep on the couch while smoking a lit cigar, which sets the house ablaze.

"[5] Reiss and Jean thought that as a lapsed Catholic, Meyer would "bring the proper degree of rage" to the episode.

Meyer had a lot of fun making the episode, thinking that most people could relate to the bliss of staying home from church.

[6] One of the main problems Meyer had writing this episode is that whenever Homer saw God, he had to have fallen asleep so that it appeared to be a dream.

Extensive debate arose as to the nature and meaning of the design, however, on the DVD commentary, director Jim Reardon confessed that it was simply a production oversight.

[1] During the exciting football game Homer watches, the commentator refers to the 'surprising return of Jim Brown', who had retired in 1966.

[12] Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, the authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, loved the episode.

"[2] In 2012, HitFix's Alan Sepinwall cited the episode as his favorite of the show, writing that it "captures everything that was and is great about the series: social satire, extraordinary quotability ('This Things I Believe'), a good family story, and an innate sweetness in spite of Homer's outsized antics.

[14] In 2004, ESPN.com released a list of the Top 100 Simpsons sport moments, ranking Benjamin Franklin and Jimi Hendrix's air hockey game, a scene from the episode, at #83.

[16] Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer, named it his favorite episode of the show together with "Simpson and Delilah" and "Lisa's Substitute".

[19] Nathan Rabin writes: "For all its good-natured heresy, 'Homer The Heretic' is respectful enough toward religion to put the moral of the episode in Reverend Lovejoy’s mouth when he tells Homer that God was 'working in the hearts of your neighbors when they came to your aid, be they Christian, Jew, or miscellaneous.'

The strength and value of religion, the episode argues, ultimately lies not in its power to force people to follow arbitrary rules or go to a building every Sunday but rather in its capacity for teaching people to listen to their better angels and love and serve their fellow man.