# Jesus Take The Wheel Jesus Take The Wheel is a catchphrase and rage comic format built on the gag of calling on Jesus to literally steer a moving car, riffing on Carrie Underwood's 2005 country single of the same name. The joke jumped from a viral 2009 karaoke video to Tumblr image macros, Reddit rage comics, and a 2013 Vine that put Jesus in the driver's seat as one of the definitive religious-humor memes of the early 2010s. ## Origin The catchphrase traces back to Carrie Underwood's debut single 'Jesus, Take the Wheel', released October 3, 2005, which describes a mother hitting black ice on Christmas Eve and asking Jesus to save her spinning car[2]. The song was a country No. 1 and a mainstream crossover hit, which planted the line in wide cultural memory well before anyone made a meme out of it[2]. The meme reading took shape after a July 19, 2009 YouTube upload by Jake Althouse showing a man badly singing the Underwood chorus at karaoke, a clip that pulled over 940,000 views and thousands of comments in its first four years[1]. - **Platform:** Tumblr / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2010 ## Overview The joke hinges on reading Underwood's lyric, meant as spiritual surrender, as a literal request for driving help. Meme versions typically show a panicked driver yelling the line while a bearded Jesus appears in the passenger seat, sometimes refusing the task with punchlines like 'I can't drive, LOL!'[3]. Rage comic variants use Reddit's four-panel format, while later GIF and video edits sync the Underwood chorus to chaotic driving or boat footage[3]. The format works across religious humor, atheist mockery, and generic reaction usage. In everyday online speech, people also drop the phrase when overwhelmed or when they need both hands off the wheel for a task like opening a beer or sending a text, treating it as a resignation joke rather than an actual prayer[5]. That looseness helped it stick long after rage comics faded. ## How It Spread On July 27, 2010, the 'Jesus is Love' Tumblr blog posted an image macro of Underwood asking Jesus to take the wheel, with Jesus replying 'I can't drive, LOL!'[3]. On April 30, 2011, Reddit user dreamlifer posted a rage comic version to r/f7u12 that pulled more than 5,300 upvotes before being archived[3]. The format kept jumping subreddits through 2012. Redditor Ozymandias12 dropped a similar rage comic on r/atheism on July 23, and Redditor CopyX posted an animated GIF to r/WTF on August 31 showing people thrown across a boat, tagged with the line[3]. A satirical Facebook page called 'Jesus Take the Wheel Day' launched March 4, 2012, urging Christians to lift their hands off the steering wheel for five minutes on March 31, 2013 to test their 'divine protection'[3]. The defining visual arrived September 2, 2013, when Vine user Nick Pasquale uploaded a clip of Jesus grabbing a car's wheel while Underwood's song played in the background[4]. A GIF version submitted the next day by Redditor usaf2222 to r/gifs pulled over 14,900 upvotes and 270 comments in its first week, cementing the physical-Jesus-in-the-car gag as the meme's canonical image[4]. ## How to Use The template typically pairs a panicked driver shouting the line with a Jesus figure inserted into the car. Common variants have Jesus decline the request ('I can't drive'), grab the wheel and cause more chaos, or vanish at the moment of impact[3]. Users also drop the phrase in plain text without any image, using it as a resignation joke when a situation feels beyond saving or when they need both hands free for something else[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Jesus Take The Wheel? It's a catchphrase and rage comic format that plays on Carrie Underwood's 2005 country single by having Jesus literally take the steering wheel of a moving car[3]. ### Where did Jesus Take The Wheel come from? The line is from Underwood's October 3, 2005 single of the same name, and the meme version started spreading through a 2009 karaoke video and a July 2010 Tumblr image macro[1][2]. ### What does Jesus Take The Wheel mean? In the original song it means spiritual surrender, but online it's read literally as asking Jesus to drive, and by extension used as a joke about being overwhelmed or needing a hand[5]. ### How do you use Jesus Take The Wheel? People pair the shouted line with a Jesus figure inserted into a car scene, or drop the phrase in text as a resignation joke when things feel beyond control[3]. ### Is Jesus Take The Wheel still popular? It's a classic religious-humor catchphrase that peaked in the rage comic and early Vine era around 2011 to 2013, and the line still circulates in casual online speech[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lydBPm2KRaU]() 2. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus,_Take_the_Wheel]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jesus-take-the-wheel]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWT9tLa15vU]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jesus%20Take%20The%20Wheel]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/jesus-take-the-wheel Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library