For Christians, is SNL the Goal or a Clue?

The Collision of Comedic Authenticity and Church Culture (Things That Matter #4)

In comedy clubs, honesty gets you laughs. In churches, it gets you complaints. The crazy thing is: I’m not exaggerating one bit. Get a little too honest in church and people don’t know what to do. Church is an interesting thing. I love the church but I’ve learned over the years that many people can fake a sermon or a staff meeting, just like professors can fake a classroom lecture. But I’ve also learned this: you can’t fake five minutes on a comedy stage with a hot mic and a hot crowd. You just can’t! I’ve also learned that there are often more honest people, especially comedians, in comedy clubs than in church board meetings. I also know which one actually confesses its sin more openly and frequently. But why am I bringing any of this up?

Because lately, I’ve been reading some thought-provoking stuff: Marcus Pittman talking about needing a faith-friendly SNL, Terry Mattingly exploring how culture is shaped by comedy and what the inner workings of this type of an SNL would like look, and Michael Stefan suggesting we build platforms that are actually funny and not just Christian-themed infomercials in disguise or SNL knock-offs. Honestly, it’s all worth discussing.

I mean, the church has been cranking out VeggieTales reruns and VBS skits since the dawn of VHS. We’ve proven, at least on some level, that we can make people laugh, even if we’re doing it in khaki shorts, WWJD bracelets, and socks with sandals. But maybe there’s another way. And maybe what we really need isn’t merely a Christian SNL. Maybe we can dream even bigger? Maybe what we need is a movement?

Maybe we need a new kind of comedy ecosystem driven by comedians of faith, people who are clean(ish), smart(ish), sharp(ish), and unafraid(ish) to make people in the pew squirm as well as people in the club laugh. Not shock-jockeys. Not Bible thumpers in banana suits. Not them! I’m talking about actual Christians who are comedians, who tell the truth, and who are authentic to the core. I’m talking about comedians who say the things everyone else in the lobby is whispering after the service, but do so on a stage with a mic and a punchline. I’m talking about comedians who aren’t afraid to bring anatomy into the sanctuary just because someone thinks elbows are edgy now. I’m NOT talking about people who laugh at Bobby Lee’s clips on social media but act Amish on Sunday mornings.

We need a way of Christian living that does cause panic every time a joke about nipples or divorce or testicle trauma makes it into a set list. We need a comedy movement rooted in faith but not terrified of honesty and raw authenticity. Not just “clean,” not just “family safe,” not just weird guys with Bluetooth headsets doing routines about how their wives shop too long at Target. Ugh! We need actual comedians. Smart ones. Funny ones. Ones who can thread the needle between deep conviction and unfiltered observation. Ones who don’t have to tell jokes based on Bible passages but can.¹ We need a space for comics who believe in Christ and can still roast church culture and pop culture alike.

And we need Chief Cultural Architects. (Notice, that’s in the plural!) Here’s a working thesis: Comedians must be part of the future of faith-based cultural architecture. Why? Because theology alone won’t move the needle. Think tanks won’t shift the tide. But you know what will? All you need to do is to go to YouTube to find what shifted the last election cycle. Know what it was? Guys with mics and jokes. Theo Von. Joe Rogan. Andrew Schulz. These aren’t pastors or pundits. They’re comedians who told the truth, who are real, who made fun of everything, cussed, challenged, and let the audience decide what was funny. And that comedic sensibility is why Gavin Newsom and Michelle Obama starting podcasts ahead of the next election cycle won’t really make a difference. They’re not funny! But Von, Rogan, Schulz, Gillis, Hinchcliffe, et al, they didn’t need permission from the Evangelical Inner Council of Vibes and Decency. They didn’t ask for it. They just got up and did it. And, as a result, they’ve created an entire comedic universe in which they now live, move, and have their being.

Meanwhile, “Christian comedy” is still trying to figure out if “poop” is too edgy. I’m serious! I’ve been in ministry for over 20 years. I’ve served in several denominations. I’m a professor at a Christian liberal arts college. I’ve got nearly 30 published books, nearly 100 academic conference presentations, and I still have people call me “Pastor” in comedy clubs. I’ve literally prayed with people after sets in clubs. But heaven forbid I tell a joke about a prostate exam to a church crowd, or I’ll end up in a Presbyterian tribunal explaining why I think God gave men fragile egos and doctors cold hands.

Here’s a reality I know to be true: there’s a huge gap between how Christians act in public and what they laugh at in private. I’ve had Christians howl at my jokes about marriage, puberty, and manscaping so long as we’re hanging out or in a club. But try those same jokes at a Christian event, and you’d think I slapped a toddler with a hymnal. (Come on, you know you’ve all wanted to do it!) Suddenly everyone’s clutching their pearls (no pun intended, men) like they’re auditioning for a VeggieTales reboot: “Larry Learns Boundaries.”

I don’t mean to be denigrating here either. I really don’t. I think the Christian comedy circuit has given us some great comedians: Tim Hawkins, who can sing a bit so well you forget it’s a joke. Michael Jr., who keeps things sharp while still loving Jesus. Chonda Pierce, who made trauma hilarious and church moms feel seen. Mark Lowry, who basically invented “funny gospel” before people realized what gospel could be. These are people who paved the road. But there’s a sad part: many got stuck on that road behind them or alongside them while trying to please everyone and offend no one.

Then you’ve got the ones who turned off the road and took a hard left. Taylor Tomlinson and Pete Holmes both started in the Christian world. But they went too raw, too real, too fast for the gatekeepers. Pete’s whole show Crashing watches as if it’s about how the church kicked him off the stage for being human. There was, of course, a lot of living that flew in the face of the church comedy circuit’s ethos. I get that. There’s something to be said for that. But Taylor’s journey is similar. Both were essentially asked by the Christians holding sway over them, “Could you be a little less... honest and authentic?” And when they refused to do so, both went and found bigger platforms.

Even Jon Crist’s latest special wrestles with this tension. He jokes about growing up in a house where you could watch brutal murder scenes but had to look away when a boob came on screen. I get that. I’ve got kids. I get the weird Christian moral panic (even as it’s being highlighted by a guy who was ousted by the powers-that-be at one point over his viewing choices and then let back into the circle) that allows violent bloodbaths in a Sunday night movie but draws the line at a bikini. I admit it: to a degree, I’m that guy; I’m that dad. I literally dissuade my teens from watching commercials, which I think are essentially another form of brain rot. But Crist is doing what more Christian comedians need to do, pointing out the absurdity in the system while still believing in something deeper. And I don’t mind him pointing the finger at me. Good for him!

And let’s not forget Anjelah Johnson, who tiptoes to the edge of Christian comfort like she’s doing the Cha Cha Slide across a purity pledge orchestrated by a late 90s / early 2000s Joshua Harris. She’s hilarious. And real. And she offers up just the right amount of squirm-inducing jokes for those uptight people who think saying “fart” is the start of a slippery slope to Hades. Okay, she’s more real than that, but you get my point.

Anthony Jeselnik roasts the Catholic Church, which he grew up in, and he does so mercilessly. He now calls himself an “apatheist,” someone who doesn’t care if God exists. I wish that weren’t the case. Emily Catalano talks about growing up Evangelical and now being agnostic. She roasts church culture hard, too. And you know what? It’s not mean. It’s not cheap. It’s just... true. That’s what lands. That’s what resonates.

People want to hear from someone who lived it, laughed at it, and can still laugh at some of it. They don’t want propaganda. They want someone who’s not afraid to say, “Yeah, that’s messed-up.” As I always say anyway, “If it’s messed-up, it’s material!” Look, I’ve been in church circles for two-and-a-half decades now. I’ve seen massive corruption and minor corruption.

My former youth pastor, who was also our high school’s band director, literally hooked up with my prom date the night of our prom after I dropped her off. My buddy called and told me. Nevermind that she was the senior pastor’s daugther or that the youth pastor was married and had children. To this day, he’s never gotten in trouble for any of it. He’s still a teacher, as is she, and they both serve in churches still, too. That’s crazy! And people need to hear it. I think they want to hear it because it resonates on deep levels.

My comedy motto is: Laughter > Outrage. I believe that. I can either rage about such things or laugh. I wanna laugh. I want others to laugh. Because when we laugh, we’re bulletproof and can get through anything.

And I’ll say this too: I’m a conservative guy. Theologically. Socially. All-around conservative. Even though I’m still registered as an Independent and always have been, I’ve voted for Trump three times. I simply could not get on board with any of the alternatives. I’m not afraid of ideology or to challenge ideology. I think free speech is perhaps the most important matter for all humans at every point in history including the present. In recent years, I’ve been afraid of losing free speech because of leftist ideologies.

At the same time, I have to point the finger back at myself and make another admission: Christian culture has its own ways of silencing certain speech. Again, see Tomlinson and Holmes as Exhibits A and B. I am also afraid of Christian creatives being scared of their own audience. I am. I fear that some joke I make, which won’t offend Christian #1 at all, will totally offend Christian #2, and it’ll cost me my job and livelihood. It’s a live concern all the time.

I want, almost more than anything, for Christians to stop thinking authenticity is dangerous. I want them to stop thinking anatomy jokes are the same as blasphemy. They’re not. Jokes about manscaping aren’t inherently sinful. Talking about it isn’t either. Laughter is not rebellion. It’s sanity. It is so because it points out what’s wild and crazy and funny about life.

At the end of the day, I don’t know that we need an imitation of SNL or that that’s what’s being called for exactly by anyone. That could be like asking for a Christian version of The Bachelor. Do that and you’re just going to end up with people faking purity for ratings. We need something better. Something organic. Something networked. Something totally authentic. Maybe this is what we need?: A whole ecosystem of comedians with convictions who don’t flinch when the topic gets personal and, within that ecosystem, Christians who’ll have their backs and support them.

We need a comedy movement built by people of faith, not boxed in by it. One that values surprise, wit, emotional risk, and permission to bomb. And not just permission to bomb, but a community that helps you rebuild after you do. Think about it. We’ve had alt-comedy scenes blow up in Chicago, Brooklyn, L.A., Austin. I’ve been reading The Perfect Amount of Wrong by Mike Bridenstine, and the way those Chicago comics built each other up, worked together, pushed each other creatively, it seems like that’s the blueprint. It wasn’t one person. It was a collective.

Look at what Nate Bargatze is doing. He’s clean. He’s crushing. He’s building his own network, his own universe. Nateland isn’t just a podcast. It’s a movement. It’s a group of comics who write, perform, and grow together. That’s what we need. We’ve seen it work in the secular scene. Dry Bar (yeah, I know it’s Mormon-backed) has launched careers. Studio C (also Mormon) made clean sketch comedy that was actually clever. We can do this. We just have to stop waiting for someone else to build it for us.

I’ve spent the last 13 years building a publishing house, GlossaHouse, and growing a network of nearly 300 authors. We’ve made print, digital, audio, and video resources. I know how to build a platform and a network. And I long to do something similar for comedy. That’s what my podcast Messed-Up to Set-Ups is, in theory, about and so is my newly launched joke writing group called The Joke Writer’s Lab. That’s what I’m working on while trying to write jokes and perform myself. I’m also teaching and I’ve got students in my college classes doing stand-up. I hope to help start a student-led comedy group in the near future. I want to build a stage but not just for “safe” jokes. For good jokes. For authentic jokes. For funny jokes.

I don’t know if we need a faith-friendly SNL. Maybe we do. But I also think we need a movement. One that tells the truth and is authentic to its bones. Who’s in? Let me know. And let’s go.

1. See my Bible & Theology Blog here: https://tmichaelwhalcomb.substack.com; my Personal Website here: https://www.michaelhalcomb.com; and, my Comedy Website/Blog here: https://www.michaelhalcomb.live.