A recent diary that shared jokes folks tell about their own religions brightened some spirits, so here is another take on humor about religion. These are just books I've read; do please share others in the comments!
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work "reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams" (Philadelphia Inquirer).
Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more -- except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala -- and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.
(Recommended to me by my children, who got it from their youth fellowship leader. A total hoot.)
Cold Comfort Farm
From Library Journal
In Gibbons's classic tale, first published in 1932, a resourceful young heroine finds herself in the gloomy, overwrought world of a Hardy or Bronte novel and proceeds to organize everyone out of their romantic tragedies into the pleasures of normal life. Flora Poste, orphaned at 19, chooses to live with relatives at Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex, where cows are named Feckless, Aimless, Pointless, and Graceless, and the proprietors, the dour Starkadder family, are tyrannized by Flora's mysterious aunt, who controls the household from a locked room. Flora's confident and clever management of an alarming cast of eccentrics is only half the pleasure of this novel. The other half is Gibbons's wicked sendup of romantic cliches, from the mad woman in the attic to the druidical peasants with their West Country accents and mystical herbs. Anne Massey's skillful rendering of a variety of accents will make this story more accessible to American audiences. Recommended for both literary and popular collections.
- Sharon Cumberland, Graduate Ctr., CUNY
(Cold Comfort Farm ranges widely - it is included here for the incomparable descriptions of Amos Starkadder and his congregation)
How To Become A Bishop Without Being Religious
A reader's review: How does one satirize religion without being irreverent? By taking faith seriously while taking the organization structures into which faith is typically squeezed quite lightly. Too often the satirist rejects faith entirely (George Carlin perhaps the classic example), and the result is often mean-spirited. Smith, in this amazing book, manages to say that certain things should be ridiculed on their way to being abandoned precisely because they do not serve the cause of faith and devotion. His arguments are all the more persuasive because they are offered so gracefully.
This is a remarkable book and over 40 years later it remains unmatched for its devotion to the legitimacy of belief and the illegitimacy of many church practices. One hopes some well-meaning organization will grab the copyright and republish it. Despite its age, it speaks strikingly to the numerous embarrassing aspects of American deism.
(I read this as a teenager, and have ever since appreciated the binocular vision it gave me.)
Elmer Gantry
Review: Novel by Sinclair Lewis, a satiric indictment of fundamentalist religion that caused an uproar upon its publication in 1927. The title character of Elmer Gantry starts out as a greedy, shallow, philandering Baptist minister, turns to evangelism, and eventually becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Throughout the novel Gantry encounters fellow religious hypocrites, including Mrs. Evans Riddle, Judson Roberts, and Sharon Falconer, with whom he becomes romantically involved. Although he is often exposed as a fraud, Gantry is never fully discredited. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
(Another book read first as a teen, and several times since. Dark humor indeed, but salutary)
A Porcine History of Philosophy and Religion
From a reader's review: This charming little common book traces history's greatest thinker pigs from ancient Greece to the twentieth century. We see a Socratic pig in dialog with his disciple, a Franciscan pig with his congregation of animals, and two Sartrian pigs in the days of the resistance. We see a Presbyterian pig searching for signs of Grace revealed (with a magnifying glass), a Campbellite pig being silent where the Bible is silent, and a follower of Kierkegaard demonstrating a leap of faith.
As with any great comic, it's impossible to explain in words why these drawings are so funny. They're simple pen-and-ink sketches, with no detail but with enough features to get the point across. James Taylor may never be listed among the world's great artists, but he certainly has contributed to the wealth of the philosophic community--this book is something of a cult classic among academics--by reminding deep thinkers not to take themselves too seriously. Track down a copy of "A Porcine History of Philosophy and Religion" and enjoy a deep, philosophical chuckle.
O Ye Jigs and Juleps!
A refreshing look into a little girl's humorous outlook on life, her Christian perspective, and the customs and social mores of nineteenth-century America. It contains a collection of essays of a child's experiences at a religious boarding school at the turn of the century. Guaranteed to make the reader LAUGH! With qualities similar to Eloise and Dennis the Menace, Virginia Cary Hudson was only ten when she wrote these essays for her teacher at the Episcopal boarding school she was attending in 1904. This humorous collection (over 1 million sold) of small-town Americana is a modern-day classic that celebrates the honesty and charm of a child's turn-of-the century world.
- On Everlasting Life: Most of the things you get somebody dies so you can get it. But, you have to die your own self to get everlasting life.
- On Etiquette: Etiquette is what you're doing or saying when people are looking or listening. What you are thinking is your own business.
These naively commentaries of school, church etiquette, and everlasting life are both a child's honest impressions that become hilarious when read by adults.
The Joys of Yiddish
Do you know when to cry Mazel tov -- and when to avoid it like the plague? Did you know that Oy! is not a word, but a vocabulary with 29 distinct variations, sighed, cried, howled, or moaned, employed to express anything from ecstasy to horror? Here are words heard 'round the English-speaking world: chutzpa, or gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, "...that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and his father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." Then there's mish-mosh, or mess, hodgepodge, total confusion...and shamus, or private eye.
They're all here and more, in Leo Rosten's glorious classic The Joys of Yiddish, which weds scholarship to humor and redefines dictionary to reflect the heart and soul of a people through their language, illuminating each entry with marvelous stories and epigrams from folklore and the Talmud, from Bible to borscht belt and beyond. With Rosten's help, anyone can pronounce and master the nuances of words that convey everything from compassion to skepticism. Savor the irresistible pleasure of Yiddish in this banquet of a book!
(I grew up near New York, in a community that was blessed with the full spectrum of Jewish experience. This book not only expanded my Yiddish vocabulary; it offered a mordant and resilient perspective on life.)
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.
God is disappointed in you sounds like a good read, too.