God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert by Terry Lindvall (review)

Terry Lindvall believes that “religious satiric laughter is in need of a history” (11), and as the subtitle of this book promises, that is exactly what he delivers—a history of religious satire from the Hebrew scriptures to contemporary times. As Lindvall explains in his introduction, the main title references Psalm 2, in which the psalmist considers God’s mockery of the absurd idea of mere humans grumbling against God’s ways and trying to substitute their will for God’s will. In his first chapters, Lindvall situates the origins of Western religious satire in the writings of the Hebrew prophets and psalmists of the Hebrew scriptures, who “focus upon the people of God, their own community of faith, and its hypocritical leaders” (5). Although not all later religious satirists have belonged to the communities they satirized, for the most part these writers set the pattern for Western religious satire. For Lindvall, the truest, most effective, religious satire not only attacks but also attempts to remedy what it recognizes as moral discrepancies. While not always funny, any religious satire grabs an audience when it entertains. Nonetheless, Lindvall also contends, the most admirable works of satire combine wit and humor with moral purpose, offering what he refers to as a combination of “laughter and a vision of reform” (6).

God Mocks is organized chronologically. Lindvall starts with chapters on satire in the Hebrew scriptures and classical Roman satirists and then dedicates subsequent chapters to early Christian writers, medieval satire, Protestant and Catholic satire of the Reformation era, better known works of the Augustan satirists from the long eighteenth century, and continental European satirists of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. He then turns to American and British satirists of the last three centuries and ends with one chapter dealing with contemporary religious satire. Obviously, not every satirist gets equal treatment; however, Lindvall pays more than adequate attention to significant authors and works.

How satire expresses itself differs, of course, with the age that produces it. Writers who produce satire never totally disentangle themselves from the attitudes and mores of their times and may even be part of what they rail against. Even when the religious satirist is, as Lindvall says, a trickster, he is not the amoral trickster of folk culture but is instead always intent on getting his people to reform. This was particularly true of the Hebrew prophet. His was a calling rather than a choice. As Lindvall illustrates in his first chapter, “Circumcised Saints,” stories from the Hebrew scriptures demonstrate an element of embodiment; their satire is characterized by an earthly, even coarse quality. The prophet Hosea, for instance, is married to an unfaithful wife, just as God is betrothed to his unfaithful people, and Hosea’s children, with names suggesting questionable origins, are promised new names if the Jewish people alter their ways. Elijah mocks the Canaanite prophets of Baal when their sacrifices do not go up in flames; Elijah asks his rivals if Baal is off on vacation or has left to take a piss. The humor of these Hebrew writers shows itself primarily in a kind of holy taunting, a sarcastic ridicule of either their enemies or of the people themselves, who are also slow to learn. In a number of texts, the Jewish people are compared to stubborn and wayward mules. Yet the words of the prophets are seen as effective, bringing about what they promise for good or ill. The language of the sacred texts themselves is more than just words; it is haunted with the sense of God’s power to make happen what has been promised.

Starting with the second chapter, on classical Greek and Roman satire, Lindvall situates writers in a “quad of satire” with ridicule and moral purpose intersecting with humor and rage. For Lindvall, Isaiah’s scorn for men who carve gods out of wood...