Spiritually Satirical

“I do wish Slumtrimpet could do something about undermining that young woman’s sense of the ridiculous.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Adam4d’s ‘The Stoning of Stephen the Vague’. A bit small to read here, so do check out the original: http://adam4d.com/stone-stephen/#.

My last ever exam as an undergraduate is set to take place this Friday. On account of this fact, I have been busily going over various bits of Latin literature of the Neronian period, and recently finished revising Persius’ first satire. Now, Persius is weird and fairly horrid to read – even most of the scholars who work on him agree that it’s pointless trying to extract too much actual sense from his poetry – but I wouldn’t, nevertheless, say that his work is totally without appeal: there’s something rather fun about watching him lampoon the poets of his day for their obsession with achieving a favourable reaction from their audiences. “Is your knowing so much all along nothing unless someone else knows you know?” he demands at one point. Then, a little later, “The men have approved: aren’t the poet’s ashes happy now? Doesn’t the tombstone now weigh lighter on his bones? The dinner-guests applaud: now from those ghosts, now from his grave and fortunate remains, won’t violets be born?” At that point, the imaginary interlocutor whom Persius has interrupt him several times throughout the satire objects, “You laugh.”¹

And that’s exactly it. Persius does laugh. That’s what satire is: serious criticism made through humorous means.² And I think, as a form of criticism, it can be extraordinarily effective. One begins to laugh, then suddenly realises that one is guilty of the exact absurdities that prompted one’s laughter. Good satire confronts us with our own ridiculousness as much as it gives us room to laugh at that of others. It cuts closer to the quick than merely being told we’re wrong, because it makes us into the objects of our own scorn. On this ground, I reckon it’s a very worthwhile tool to use in Christian circles. Certainly if my own inclinations are anything to go by, it’s very easy to minimise our own sins while magnifying those of others, and we need these kinds of reminders that we’re exactly as daft as everybody else to jolt us out of complacency and judgementalism. I therefore present below a summary of my favourite sources of Christian satire, encompassing a breadth of media types.

1)     Adam4d³

I’m pretty sure I’ve already read every single one of Adam4d’s webcomics, but my fingers nevertheless seem to have acquired an irresistible muscle memory for typing his web address whenever I have an urge to procrastinate.

Some of my favourites:

‘Dude what for’: http://adam4d.com/dude-what-for/

‘Poor Paul :(’: http://adam4d.com/poor-paul/

‘How to be a politically-correct Christian’: http://adam4d.com/pc-christian/

2)     The Babylon Bee

Works on the same principle as other satirical news sites, but with a Christian theme.

Some of my favourites:

‘ISIS Group Waters Down Message To Attract Seekers’: http://babylonbee.com/news/isis-group-waters-message-attract-seekers/

‘Archaeologists Discover Prophet Daniel’s Weight Loss Diary’: http://babylonbee.com/news/biblical-daniels-weight-loss-diary-discovered/

‘Context of Philippians 4:13 Officially Abandoned’: http://babylonbee.com/news/context-of-philippians-413-officially-abandoned/

3)     Blimey Cow

The YouTube project of brothers Jordan and Josh Taylor. The comments section always seems to feature some misguided soul declaring opposition to the views expressed in the video on grounds of their spiritual unsoundness, before being shouted down by a horde of frustrated repliers explaining the nature of sarcasm/irony/satire.

Some of my favourites:

‘Ten Things I Love More than God’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN4CFepNQBk

‘What Jesus Should Have Said, Instead’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eUy0oEtsSQ

‘How to Tell People about Jesus’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5errnW18f5k

4)     Relient K

I know, it seems a tad excessive to bring these guys up again (I seem to end up quoting them almost as often as I do Doctor Who), but I couldn’t very well write a post instantiating different manifestations of Christian satire and not mention them. Tolerance for pop-punk and puns required.

Some of my favourites:

‘Down In Flames’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwtSQ9MwZw

‘Maybe It’s Maybeline’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-le2V7zemB4

‘This Week The Trend’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnEqgHjDxfE

5)     The Screwtape Letters

Getting on a bit now, but still brimming with wit and conviction. If you can’t get hold of a paper copy (or one of those new-fangled ebook whatchamacallits), then you may enjoy the audiovisual renderings of a chapter or two offered by the CSLewisDoodle YouTube channel. Here’s their adaptation of the first chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3MWVMKKY3A

Needless to say, most of the above sources also produce plenty of things that are not classifiable as Christian satire and are no less worth your time for it. Still, as I say, I do view satire as being a particularly valuable tool for prompting conviction – as well as, of course, for just being really hilarious.

Footnotes

¹ Translations all mine. If you want to check the original Latin (which I’m sure you’re just itching to do), it’s available here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0497. Persius on Perseus – how pleasing.

² Not quite the official definition, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/satire?s=t, but I think it’s fairly accurate as a simplification.

³ It’s pronounced like ‘Adam Ford’, a fact which I did not realise until embarrassingly recently.