Posted on 07/28/2009 11:04:39 AM PDT by Cecily
There are many things Evangelical Christians are good at, such as bake sales and talking to me on planes. They're less adept at other things, such as comedy and fighting lions. Christians aren't funny because they tend to be literal-minded. Also because they're sad about having had sex with only one person. So when Kevin Roose, author of the excellent new book The Unlikely Disciple, told me that Rick Warren's giant Saddleback Church has its own improv group, for the first time in my life, I felt my calling. I may not be the Woody Allen or Jon Stewart of the secular world, but in the land of the unfunny Christian, the one-joked Jew is king.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
There is precious little explicitly Christian humor out there. I would suggest that the comedians are immature enough in their faith as to not know how to make humor out of it - and even if they could, the audience is probably even more spiritually immature, and wouldn't recognize a humorous biblical allusion if it hit them in the head! Today's Christian comedy probably compares to the intelligence and maturity of today's Christian music.
Case in point: take a thorough listen to the comedy DVD Thou Shalt Laugh. The "explicitly Christian" part of each act occurs only within certain jokes, and it's more often a name-dropping thing than anything else. It reminds me of the token gospel song that appears on many country & western recordings. There's just enough content to remind the listener that the comedian is really "one of us!" I'm not saying it's bad - I'm saying it's little more than fluff.
Whatever you do, skip Thou Shalt Laugh: The Deuce and Thou Shalt Laugh 3. The content gets more sexually risque with each one. By the third one, I don't recall hearing any pretense that the content is "Christian Comedy".
I guess the editor of that article, Otto Fuerbringer, died last year. So it would be more accurate to say “is Otto Fuerbringer Dead?. Yes, as a matter of fact he is”
I have lost the capability to smile, and I’m not a vangie.
Richard Nixon is good. Ben Stein was on Glenn Beck the other day, and he happens to have been a speechwriter for Nixon. Beck makes some smart-aleck remark about him and Stein, with that trademark deadpan, goes “Richard Nixon was a great man.” I haven’t seen Beck speechless too often, but he was at that moment.
Though I wouldn’t offend my birds by using Time as a liner, when did Evangelical Christians ever fight lions?
The author did make it abundantly clear that “Christians aren’t funny”. There was no reason to reinforce it with your comments. ;-]
You catch a liberal with enough facts and logic they’ll throw an ashtray at your head and lock themselves in a room. Plus, they might even call you a fascist!
Uh, dude? Yours is post #8 and I count TWO above yours that criticize Warren. I’d hardly call that “many”.
Fools make a mock of sin.
Since liberals love to brag about how great it is to have mostly dirty-mouthed comedians they tend to be too jaded to appreciate the simple humor of a Bob Hope while complaining that Ozzie and Harriet were never seen having live sex.
Instead, the modern dregs drinker has to have a constant fix from the droppings of the modern parade of crotch-humorists and flesh-peddlers.
Treason?
“...simple humor of a Bob Hope...”
Simple humor? I disagree. Mr. Hope was a sharp witted, quick on his feet comedian with impeccable comedic timing and delivery. The “comedians” of today can’t hold a candle to Bob Hope.
“...modern parade of crotch-humorists and flesh-peddlers.”
Yes, bombastic, vulgar, mockeries does not equal humor.
The author did make it abundantly clear that “Christians aren’t funny”. The author is Joel Stein, who has been writing for Time for a decade or more. His earlier pieces were sad, sophomoric writings that were more scatological than sensible.
He has married in the last few years, and his scatological references have become fewer, but you know that his penis is not too far from the forefront of his mind.
He is a prime example of why Time Magazine has seen its readership and intellectual leadership disappear.
If you want to read humor writen by someone named Stein, make it Ben, not Joel. Much more subtle, enjoyable and refreshingly human.
I completely agree and yet even a child could usually laugh and find joy in his humor.
The post nineteen sixties cellar dwellers are starkly guttural and callous, ever attacking all moral sensibilities while painting life as profane and pointless.
I never heard of Joel Stein until yesterday and haven’t read Time magazine in decades. He sounds like a moron.
I was just keeping the joke going. Some Christians are very funny, per this thread.
Evangelical Christian means “observant Christans” to antitheists.
If you just go to church twice a year for the “biggies” like Obama, you are a “good Christian” as long as you keep your observance to yourself (Obama turned his into a photo op which made it “public”, he CAN redeem himself in the eyes of the antitheists this Christmas though...).
“I completely agree and yet even a child could usually laugh and find joy in his humor.”
“This is true. A lot of kids miss the humor in clean jokes nowadays. If the “humor” doesn’t involve sarcasm, vulgarity, or mockery they don’t get it.
Do you recall the old cartoons(Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Bullwinkle, etc.)? Sharp humor. Compare those to most of todays cartoons. A dramatic difference.
“The post nineteen sixties cellar dwellers are starkly guttural and callous, ever attacking all moral sensibilities while painting life as profane and pointless.”
“...nineteen sixties...” is key.
Read this document and tell me what you think(Note the date of the document):
Communist Goals (1963)
Documention below
Congressional Record—Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:
[From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture—education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [”]united force[”] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
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