In search of folly

By David Heim

Why is it so rare to see religious humor in print? That’s a question we ponder from time to time at the Christian Century. We’d like to publish more of it. Is this a Protestant deficiency?

We know Christians have a sense of humor. In my experience, Protestant pastors are generally quick to see the humor that lurks in their serious work.

Pastors see a lot of calamity and human frailty and they know intimately the follies and contradictions of religious institutions. Jokes and humor provide not only a way of coping with these realities but a way of taking delight in God’s world—in spite of or even because of the ways it is deformed and fallen. In that respect, humor and laughter are closely related to the mystery of religious faith.

If that’s true, then again it’s curious that it is so hard to put religious humor in the pages of the Century. Is it because we all are too politically correct? Religious humor has to have some bite to it, after all, exposing a contradiction or a problem in some aspect of religion, and perhaps we don’t want to offend anyone. That concern explains why religious humor often takes the form of spoofing the people whom we think it’s safe to offend. So, for example, liberal Christians routinely have fun with fundamentalists. But that inevitably means the humor is obvious and predictable and not very amusing.

On the other hand, after the Century recently published what we thought was a humorous spoof of the “emergent church” (“The submergent church,” Feb. 6) a striking number of readers wrote to complain that the article was too close to reality to be funny, if indeed it was meant to be funny. So written humor can fail by being too obvious, but it can also fail by being too subtle. It’s hard to find that narrow middle ground.

Perhaps religious humor exists mostly in the form of jokes, and can rarely be sustained in written form. Or perhaps religious humor is by nature so radical and explosive, such a violation of decorum, that it thrives best in face-to-face situations.

Comments

[Charlie K]

Isn't the issue more about how "seriously" people take their religion? If we are willing to laugh at our own religion, does that give others the right to laugh at us too? Didn't a Danish cartoonist get in a huge brouhaha over a "humorous" cartoon directed at a religious person? I think that fundamentalism tends not to permit much of a sense of humor about religious topics, and so it's safest to simply avoid such jokes. What's funny about this (no pun intended) is that the Bible can be awfully funny if you're willing to dig into the idioms of the day. I recall Elijah's battle with the priests of Baal. As the priests cry out to a non-responsive god, Elijah mocks them. Here's the translation from the "God's Word" bible (which looks like it comes from a rather conservative outlet but the translation captures what I think is the sense of Elijah's comments):
" At noon Elijah started to make fun of them. "Shout louder, since he is a god. Maybe he's thinking, relieving himself, or traveling! Maybe he's sleeping, and you have to wake him!" "
This false god is off relieving himself and so can't respond to the cries of the people! Hilarious (at least to me). But just imagine someone making such a joke about anybody's "false" god today. Even most translations of the Elijah episode sort of sanitize this part ("gone aside," "pursuing," "gone away"). Talk about taking all the fun away. So we've been whitewashing religious humor for a long time.

[Oregon Bill]

I like to think that Jesus laughed...alot. Humor doesn't have to come at the expense of others. It can be an expression of joy. So much of what passes for comedy today (and so much of what passes as satire) is dehumanizing, demoralizing, derogatory, and degrading.

I have worked as a standup comedian. I also have a very visible disability which was often the butt of many jokes by my peers. I understand both the mechanics of a joke, and a desire to make it succeed, often at the expense of others. For that reason, I no longer participate in that vocation.

But I think there is room for joyous laughter, as well as irony. Humor can be a great tool for illuminating the human condition. So I encourage CC to keep trying.

[James Howell]

A G.K. Chesterton witticism: "Angels can fly - because they take themselves so lightly."

[Paul]

Humor, especially satire will offend someone. If it does not it is not satire. I will admit, it is hard imagining humor in CC. But as you imply, fundamentalists, and by extension those would be flee-ers of fundamentalists, the emergent group, are easy to target. Humor in CC would needs to be of the kind that pokes fun of liberal christianity. The question is, can liberal christians see the irony in their own situations?

[Bromleigh]

The thing that seems so difficult to pull off is "humor writing" as a genre somehow separate from the rest of writing and life. A number of other Christian publications try to do this -- the last page of Sojourners, the Wittenburg Door -- but they seem to miss the point. The best humor, the things that make us laugh out loud, are often unexpected details or turns of phrase located in the midst of the stories we regularly tell, even terrible, tragic stories. For really funny writers, humor is simply a part of the narrative lens, a way of seeing the world. I would imagine the easiest way to make room for humor in The Century would be in the pre-existing departments with the strongest (best-defined) narrative voices -- in Faith Matters, even in Living By the Word. M.E.M.O. is often a great example of how this works.

Ministry and faith are often funny -- and some of the pastors I know have the best gallows humor in the world. We need it! Finding a format and a voice to share it beyond an immediate circle of friends seems to be the challenge.... but then again, isn't that always the challenge of the story-telling we do in the church... and any good writing?

[Pastor Amy Nyman]

Check out the "Joyful Noise Newsletter" for religious humor! It's great!

[Douglasah]

Part of the difficulty people have with humor is their own uncertanty of how or why something is sacred. Is it sacred because it is so pure that it cannot be defiled - or it is so valueable that we cannot afford to allow it to be defiled? For example: imagine a picture of Christ and the Apostles eating as depicted in Matthew - having just broken and blessed the fishes and the loaves. One person turns to Peter and says "They're saying it would be nice if you could get him to bless some tartar sauce".
There would be those who would fear eternal damnation for telling such a joke - yet the rest of us might understand that the whole part of the story isn't realy just about a spectacular catering job. Not "Knowing your audience" is the problem - there is so much difference between people's perception of the divine and sacred - and consequences of not taking it serious enough - to make simple humor that is NOT so bland just too difficult to swing sometimes.

[The Rev'd Hugh Tudor-Foley]

When someone asks, "Did Jesus really do that?!"
A clergy friend always says, "Of Course, we have the polaroids!"

[Jim Gorman]

The New Yorker cartoons have an entire genre of religious humor. I like the 'Pearly Gates' sub-genre very much. But my favorite over the years has been Gahan Wilson's cartoon showing people worshiping a giant N and the word "Nothing." Caption: "Is nothing sacred?" (Playboy) this is also the title of a collection of his cartoons published in 1982.

[Lynne]

I'm not surprised to hear that even the best effort at humor doesn't get a unanimous response in the CC. Humor is a very sophisticated form of communication that moves us from one level of meaning to another, one perspective to a different POV. The simple knock-knock joke is a perfect example: the expected has to move over for the unexpected.

Not everyone can let go of their first layer of meaning making to embrace the next. You have to be free enough, confident enough, of the first meaning to let it go and embrace the other.

I don't see that confidence in fundamental points of view. After all, that's their point: there is but one perspective, and it is true.

[Kathleen A.]

Response to comment by Rev. Tudor-Foley -- which made me LOL by the way. When I, a white middle class woman, taught inner city adjudicated juvenile delinquents, I was periodically asked if I believed in God. I always "replied, "Yes. And she's black." Although I meant to joke, I generally nonplussed instead. No matter; I still think it's a funny reply.