Daniel Radosh tours the Christian comedy circuit in Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture

In his new book, Rapture Ready: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, author—and chosen person—Daniel Radosh journeys deep into the often hidden world of Christian culture, discovering a vast and vital economy teeming with Jesus-approved music, fashion, and even a God-fearing equivalent of Def Comedy Jam. In this excerpt from the book, Radosh probes The View's Sherri Shepherd and other Christian comedians to discover the unique challenges of getting (tasteful) laughs from the sometimes humorless faithful.

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The morning after the comedy showcase I returned to the Cornerstone Church for the opening session of the Christian Comedy Association's annual conference. At the registration table I picked up a badge with my name and the designation "press." I sighed. While I was willing to identify myself as a member of the media elite in one-on-one conversation, I was concerned about wearing the label in a room full of skeptical Christian conservatives. Soon I realized that the real problem was wearing it in a room full of aspiring comedians. Two different people got the hilarious idea to press the badge and wait for a reaction.

Great comedy comes from insecurity, self-loathing, and pain ... Jesus helps you know joy and feel truly at peace. This seemed the biggest impediment to Christian comedyIn fact, I was welcomed as warmly as anywhere I had been. Once again, being Jewish gave me a certain cachet, this time as both the theological older brother and as a member of a group that does have a reputation for being funny. A gregarious blond woman grabbed my arm to tell me how much she identified with Jewish culture. "My Jewish friends say I'm more Jewish than anyone they know!" she exclaimed. I eyed the three-inch silver cross around her neck and said nothing.

CCA President Dan Rupple began the morning with a comedian's prayer. "Father God, we're just trying to find a middle ground between being humble and being noticed, between being secure and desperately needing the approval and validation of nearly everyone around us." I'd been wondering about this very issue. Any comedian will tell you that great comedy comes from insecurity, self-loathing, and pain, while any Christian will tell you that Jesus helps you know joy and feel truly at peace. This, perhaps more than latent Puritanism, seemed the biggest impediment to Christian comedy.

"There is always a struggle between the comedian who is grossly insecure, and the Christian who is supposed to be secure in the loving hand of his almighty God," Rupple told me later, relaxing on a leather couch in the church Starbucks. "The reality is, we understand that we are secure spiritually, but our flesh is still very insecure—and I think it is that conflict that great humor can come from. Often people think the term Christian comedy is an oxymoron, 'cause there's nothing funny about being a Christian. I think it's really the exact opposite. I think it's hysterical what the Christian struggles with, trying to live out their beliefs in a world that is, for the most part, unbelieving. It's also, I think, quite humorous what some people go through to turn against God"—that is, to persuade themselves that pleasure or power or any other worldly measure of success is all that one needs out of life.

I mentioned what I'd learned about most contemporary Christian music—that it tries to avoid addressing the struggles of Christians in favor of painting a rosy picture of the Christian life. "I imagine that's harder to get away with in comedy."

"Sure. One of the staples of comedy is truth. Comedy has to have its basis in truth. It's an exaggeration of the truth. That's usually where the joke comes from, or from something's incongruity with the truth. Saying that it's all a bed of roses, you are not being truthful, and so I don't think you can be very effective as a comedian. Christian comedians are very, very prone to being very honest and candid with their struggles of what they are going through, probably much more than a musician. A musician has a little bit more luxury to romanticize."

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On the other hand, Rupple said, comedians who are ruthless in exploring their personal struggles often pull their punches when it comes to taking on the behavior and teachings of the church. "Christian comedians need to be a little more dangerous. One of the roles of comedy in our culture is to challenge beliefs, challenge our sacred cows, shake things up a little bit. Be a little bit of an agitator through comedy to get us thinking and questioning. Sometimes Christians are a little hesitant to question their faith. I think it stands up to any scrutiny. If it is the truth of God, you know, bring it on."

Comedy can transcend entertainment, Rupple argued, but only if comedians are truly daring. "I think Christian comedians have been a little hesitant to do that. Even though I don't agree with their worldview or their style, I respect people like Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor—and I even embrace some of their worldview. Pryor or Bruce or George Carlin, they are trying to convey truth, and sometimes they hit it. You know, they say things, and you're like, You know what, he's right. That's right and we have to think that way. A lot of times it isn't what I think is right, or the truth, and sometimes it's even offensive to my Christian beliefs, but I am glad someone's out there trying to say something."

"So what's holding Christian comedians back?"

Comedians have the same experience as musicians when it comes to Christian audiences: While they are overly judgmental regarding matters of doctrine, they are less demanding than they should be when it comes to talent"I think they are probably a little afraid of some elements in the Christian community that would be a little narrow-minded and just wouldn't quite get it," Rupple answered. "Sometimes Christians are not the hippest people. A lot of what we did with Isaac Air Freight was satire, and we spent a lot of time explaining 'No, don't you understand: I'm making fun of it. I am not endorsing, I'm making fun of it.' You just have to do the best you can and hope that the majority of the people get what you are trying to say. You don't want to offend anyone for the sake of offending them, but if you say something that's very true and it offends someone, it's probably because they're just not quite getting it, and maybe you can explain it later. That's what e-mail is for."

Not surprisingly, comedians have the same experience as musicians when it comes to Christian audiences: While they are overly judgmental regarding matters of doctrine, they are less demanding than they should be when it comes to talent. "The church audience to a fault is too forgiving, they are too kind, they are not near as discerning and critical as they should be. The very nature of our faith is to be forgiving and gracious, and so we do that with our artists. I think that has, in all the Christian art forms, slowed down the progress, because it's like, 'Eh, it's good enough for the church.'"

Rupple brought up another way in which performing for Christian audiences can make a comedian soft. "We use Christian jargon," he said. "Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. Isn't God good?—all these trite Christian buzzwords. At times, when it's genuine, when it's appropriate, that's fine, but I think we often use it as a safety net. Just like the blue comedian will use a profanity, we'll use Praise the Lord because we know it generates support and applause. It can make you lazy if you are not careful."

Every comedian I spoke with agreed that there are some jokes you can do in clubs that you can't get away with in church, but they handle this divide in different ways. "I try to do the same exact show, outside of giving an invitation" for an altar call, Nazareth told me. "I think Christian now, so whatever joke comes out of me now should be acceptable to Christians." Others, however, tailor their shows carefully.

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Sherri Shepherd is one of the most successful Christian comedians in America. A year after this conference she would be hired as a co-host of The View on ABC. Shepherd told me that whenever she plays a church, her comedian friend Bone Hampton sits her down and explains which parts of her club act won't fly.

"A black person who goes to church, we've still got an uncle or a cousin that's been in prison, that's on drugs, that's crazy," said Sherri Shepherd, "so you can go ahead and talk about it""There's so much stuff that Bone says all the time: 'You can't say that in church.' And I say, 'Why can't I talk about my breasts?' You see a woman with huge breasts, and I got a lot of cleavage, but I can't talk about it onstage? And he says, 'Christians don't want—they already have a visual, they don't want you to talk about it and maybe cause them to stumble,' and I'm like, 'You're kidding me.' So there's a lot of stuff that I do that I can't do in church." Not that she doesn't understand. "You have to respect the audience that you're in front of. They're paying you, so to assault them with stuff is disrespectful. But there's a lot of stuff that I have to remind myself, That's not where these people are. I did a Church of Christ—they don't dance, the women wear skirts—and that was a hard one for me. First of all I'm a black woman, I'm a little ghetto, I have to really be on my p's and q's, because even my Christian comedy, I call it adult Christian comedy. I don't even allow kids in my shows because I talk about adult stuff, even being a Christian."

And that's not all, she continued. "Sometimes you have to change up your material for white Christian audiences versus black Christian audiences. Black people sometimes are a little more liberal as far as what we can give to them, because a black person who goes to church, we've still got an uncle or a cousin that's been in prison, that's on drugs, that's crazy, so you can go ahead and talk about it. Sometimes I find that with white Christians they're like"—here she slipped into an uptight white accent—"'We've been delivered from that; we don't have to go there.'"

Still, Shepherd does understand the importance of limits. "I'm a Christian first and a comedian second," she said, "so there's some things I forgo saying that would be hysterical, because there's people out there that are watching, and I know they're looking at me and I'm a role model. So I'm gonna let that part die because there's a greater thing that I'm doing here."

Besides, she added, there are some things comedians can do in church that they can't do in clubs. "I love doing churches because I can talk about my journey with God. With secular comedy clubs, I'm not there to beat them over the head with a Bible, I'm there to make them laugh. Also, church audiences know the lingo. With churches I always talk about submission, because that's what a lot of churches teach: submitting to your husband. And so I can say, 'I'm trying to submit to my husband,' and the church ladies aren't going to go, 'Oh my God, what?!' But in a comedy club, if I say I'm trying to submit to my husband, I'm going to have a hundred women going, 'Is he beating you? Has he brainwashed you?' So I have to say, 'I'm trying to get along with my husband, I'm trying to be a good wife.' I basically say the same thing, but I take out Jesus and I change up stuff so they can understand it."

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Thor Ramsey spent years playing clubs before he became a Christian. Now he plays churches exclusively, but only because the better pay and less grueling schedule give him more time to spend with his wife and daughter. "You'll know when you cross a line in the church by the reaction of the crowd," he assured me. "You will know you've crossed the evangelical boundary."

"Do church audiences heckle?" I asked. I tried to imagine how a Christian comedian handles hecklers. How'd you like it if I came to where you work and forgave you?

"I get so frustrated with how the Christian conservatives have taken over, and there just needs to be an antidote to their rhetoric," said Christian comedian Michael Rayner. "So much of Christian pop culture is just dreck, you know what I mean?""No," said Ramsey, "but they always come up after and tell you if something struck them the wrong way. They'll heckle you at the end of the show. I do a whole bit on the Left Behind series, and I use the phrase buck naked. A guy actually e-mailed me. There's a verse in the Bible where Paul talks about 'coarse jesting,' and he felt my using the term buck naked was coarse jesting. At the time, I was all earnest. I e-mailed him back, giving him some examples of the Bible being real and not whitewashing things. You could say Adam and Eve were buck naked in the Garden and it would be biblical. Or there is the story of Onan spilling his seed on the ground. When people say that their pastor preaches through the Bible, I know they skip stuff. We went back and forth, and he actually ended up saying—this is an actual quote—'Just because the Bible talks about it, doesn't mean we should.' I go, Boy, that's a mentality you can't argue with right there. There was nothing I could do." He shook his head. "Now I've just got a policy: 'Thank you very much for your comments. I'll take them into consideration.'"

"That's the weird thing about Christian audiences," a comedian named Michael Rayner told me: "They will find so many bizarre things offensive when you're just joking around. Sometimes in my regular comedy club sets, I'll say, 'Usually the comedian tries to flirt with the cute girls, but I'm happily married. Me and my wife make sweet Christian love.' Now, the audience thinks that's really funny, that I say 'sweet Christian love.' But in a Christian audience, that's actually too scandalous sometimes, talking about sex with your wife. Wow, that's scandalous!"

Rayner is an L.A. guy with a bit of a nerd-chic aesthetic. "So many Christians are sort of downer Christians, you know what I mean?" he continued. Often, he said, he gets along better with atheists than with other Christians, in part because of his strong left-wing convictions. "I get so frustrated with how the Christian conservatives have taken over, and there just needs to be an antidote to their rhetoric," he said. "So much of Christian pop culture is just dreck, you know what I mean? It's some kind of preachy, weird message. The thing I hate even about Bible tracts is it's always the biker who's smoking and drinking and doing IV drugs that's going to hell and not the rich businessman who doesn't care about his fellow man, or some Enron executive who raped and pillaged a pension from the working class."

But here's the strange thing: Rayner doesn't use any of this in his set. He's a prop comic. He's more clever than most members of the breed—you may have seen him on Letterman spinning a McDonald's cheeseburger on an umbrella—but it doesn't afford him a lot of opportunity for social commentary. "Given your obvious passion about this, have you thought about doing comedy that addresses it?" I asked.

"I have. When I'm riffing with my friends, I do stuff that I will never do on stage yet, but I'd like to figure out how to do it. I want to be the Christian Lenny Bruce, to dispel Christian myth, to be kind of harsh and cruel and yet uplifting." An obstacle to this goal, he said, is that one of the stereotypes he wants to combat is that Christians have to be "angry and shouty." That means finding a way to get his opinions across without negating his message that it's wrong to force your opinions on other people.

In his personal life, Rayner said proudly, his non-Christian friends call him the good Christian, "because I never get upset when they have their opinions." Similarly, he often finds himself in Christian groups where it's assumed that everyone in the room "is a stone rah-rah Republican." But in either situation, he rarely raises an objection unless he can do it in a one-on-one conversation. "To me, it's always about the personal relationship with folks. Hanging out, chatting, and letting them see that you're a human being. Then if they're interested, that's when you say, 'This is why.' Right now, I'm reading a lot of books to try to figure out, where do I fit in this Christian left? I feel I'm a Christian leftist. I know it seems like an oxymoron, but ..."

"But it seems like a great hook for a comedian, too," I pressed.

"Yeah, that's probably true. A lot of comics are openly atheist. Like, David Cross, I think, is very funny—very atheist. Patton Oswalt always talks about being an atheist. Even Penn and Teller, who do funny magic, huge in the atheist community. Penn does a radio show where he's almost like a proselytizing atheist—but I love him. And I want to be like him, where I'm a proselytizing Christian, but with logic and reason."