God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire, by Terry Lindvall

God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire, by Terry Lindvall

(New York University Press, 2015, 384 pp, $35)

a review by Edd Doerr

The long story of religious satire is told in scholar Terry Lindvall’s new book, off the press in mid-November. Lindvall’s detailed chronicle  runs from ancient Rome through such greats as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Erasmus and Rabelais to Voltaire and on to Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce (my favorite) and then to Monty Python and Stephen Colbert. The book is a useful guide through this vast and often controversial output, though I do not agree with all he writes, as with his praise for C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Belloc and Waugh, whose work defended what Bierce and others satirized. The book would be even better if it had been expanded to include more examples of the best satirists’ work.

Oddly, Lindvall does not mention Bill Maher, George Carlin, Mel Brooks, Larry David or Kahlil Gibran. And although he cites the Monty Python troupe and Colbert, he

overlooks the British series “The Vicar of Dibley” and two hilarious Irish series, “Father Ted” and “Moone Boy,” the latter two being satire too strong for American network television.

Edd Doerr

(Edd Doerr is a columnist in Free Inquiry,  president of Americans for Religious Liberty, and a published poet.)

In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present.  He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. 

A Fit of Pique on mindless utterances & deeds of the Religious Right

by Edd Doerr 

John Rafferty is the long time president of the Secular Humanist Society of New York and editor and writer for its excellent newsletter, PIQUE.

 If you have not already read his 2013 book, A Fit of Pique: Dispatches from the Culture Wars, let me suggest that you order a copy while they last.

 Here’s what I said about the book in a plug on page 2:

 “John Rafferty’s refreshing, wide-ranging writings for Pique are comparable to those of Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce. A Fit of Pique is a delightful garden of gems, a garden richly fertilized by the droppings – er, mindless utterances and deeds of the Religious Right.”

If you like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert or George Carlin, you’ll like Rafferty’s 224-page opus. See  also an online youtube interview.

John's Self Reported Background:

a philosophical humanist all my life, and became an active one when I joined the Secular Humanist Society of New York in 1997. Over the next several years I became a regular contributor to the SHSNY newsletter, PIQUE, and joined the SHSNY Board of Directors in 2003. I became the 

Editor of PIQUE in 2004, and in 2007 was elected President of the Society, positions I still hold.

In 2012 I will assume the Chairmanship of Reasonable New York, a consortium of eleven New York-area freethought organizations (including New York Society for Ethical Culture, Center For Inquiry-NYC, and New York City Skeptics, as well as SHSNY) that work together to advance the cause of reason and science both here and nationally.

I am a professional writer, and have been all my life. The hours are generally good, most people can’t do what I do, and the work involves no heavy lifting.

After college, the army and jobs as a social worker, bartender, junior-high-school teacher and free-lance “true-adventure” writer for pulp men’s magazines, I became a copywriter in the advertising department of Esquire Magazine. I left to be associate creative director of a small advertising agency, then director, and in 1972 started my own firm, an agency specializing in magazine advertising and public relation

Since dissolving that business in 1988 (the desktop revolution, which I celebrate personally, was doing me in professionally), I have made my living as a copywriter and free-lance creative director, while editing newsletters on scientific equipment, archaeology, and (pro bono, of course) secular humanism.

I am a graduate of Queens College, SUNY (B.A., Philosophy, 1959), and was a New York State Regents Graduate Fellow at The New School for Social Research (1959-61) studying under distinguished humanist Horace Kallen (Secularism is the Will of God), but left (marriage, a child, only one income) before earning my M.A. Currently I am in a three-year graduate-level program in Humanist Leadership conducted by the Humanist Institute.

I am an active member of The Players, America’s oldest theatrical club.

I am four times a father (best job I ever had), eight a grandfather, and live happily in midtown Manhattan with my wife, the nonpareil painter and environ-artist Donna Marxer.

You can get a copy of the book,  while they last, for $15 directly from John Rafferty, 141 E. 56^th St., NY, NY 10022-7715.

A collection of a decade's worth of his essays, amusements, and outraged rants in the pages of PIQUE, the newsletter of the Secular Humanist Society of New York.  From "An Atheist's Christmas" to Ronald McDonald & 'Touchdown Jesus'", it's all, in the opinion of philosopher Massimo Pigliucci, "...highly opinionated, incisive, always straight-shooting writing, and you won't regret spending some thoughtful- and enjoyable- hours with it." 

"Simply wonderful," says NY Society for Ethical Culture Leader Anne Klaeysen, "I was hooked from the first great story."