John Morreall

Humor Us!

Preaching & Worship

“To anyone who does even occasional public speaking, it’s obvious that humor gets attention, relaxes your audience, creates rapport, and makes your message memorable. But few books on preaching have delved into these and other benefits of humor. McKenzie and Lynch make up for lost time with this tour de force of historical research, funny stories, and advice for preachers. Their tips and questions ‘To Ponder’ alone are worth the price of this book. I was especially taken with their exploration of Christianity as a comic vision of life—as ‘the certainty of the ultimate victory of . . . hope over despair’—with its links between humor and faith, hope, and love.”

What's So Funny About God?

Theology

“From the first page to the last, this book sparkles with good humor and engaging wisdom. In smart, funny ways, Wilkens shows how humor is the ideal approach to our 'magnificently paradoxical' human condition as spiritual animals, somewhere between angels and apes. 'If you don't believe God has a sense of humor,' he writes, 'just look in the mirror.' He includes not only Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and modern theologians but also humorists like Jim Gaffigan, Gary Larsen of The FarSide, and the writers of The Big Bang Theory. Arguing that our unique ability among animals to appreciate humor is linked to our rationality, moral sensibility, and aesthetic sense, Wilkens makes a good case for adding a fourth transcendental to the true, the good, and the beautiful—the funny. Along the way, he provides comedic interpretations of biblical books like Jonah and Esther and others in the New Testament. This is the best Christian understanding of humor to date—and by far the funniest.”