Satire Response with Rejoinder

Letter in response to Josh’s Satire and Sarcasm essay:

Josh brings up great points in his article on Satire and Sarcasm.

It needs to be noted that unlike the mockery and satire of our brethren, Christ’s “diatribes” were always to false leaders, and always direct. They are personally directed and always at corrupt and godless leaders.

Christ uses metaphors to paint a clear picture of his message, but can this be considered ridicule, mockery, or satire? I am not too sure about this.

In David’s case, we see his prayers and Psalms, and find that in his appeal to God, he calls for destruction to his enemies. In the face of his enemies however, particularly within the “family”, he is respectful and careful so as not to sin.

I cannot think of a sound Biblical example that parallels the endless mockery that we here from our brothers, particularly targeting the “Pray of Jabez”, and the “Left Behind” series.

At a seminar I attended last year, it seemed impossible to go ten minutes without a sarcastic remark being made about these “enemies”, but it achieved nothing except to presumably make us feel smug (and give us something we could commonly talk and laugh about). When a brother in our midst happened to show irritation about the endless arrows thrown, he pointed out that one of the authors attended his church, and was putting millions into missions and into Christian Enterprise, and that he was a humble and Godly man.

One of the advantages about having these new “enemies” to mock and ridicule, is that we are getting a slight break for the constant mockery of the other “enemies” that we used to mock before these two hugely successful publications surfaced.

I personally think that we should freely mock ourselves, and I can think of no Biblical example of the ridiculing and mocking we do hear day in and day out from out camp.

Methinks a large motivation is based upon something other than the attempt to correct the enemy. We would be wise to search out the real motivation behind our erroneous ways.

From a friend and great admirer of Joshua.

-Rob Smith

Rejoinder from Josh:

First off, I would like to say I entirely agree with you that the objects of the satire of Christ and David were certainly false leaders and the enemies of God. Indeed, Elijah’s scathing remarks in 1 Kings 18 are similarly directed to false religious leaders. “And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened” (v. 27).

But that is the very point I was making: “[W]hen the object of the ridicule is the heathen and the workers of iniquity, then mockery is definitely appropriate, as they don’t even share the privilege of brotherhood in Christ. These are the people David and Christ were reproving and mocking.” Too often we act as if there are no enemies of God today, or false leaders. We must realize that they are alive and attacking Christ’s church, and satire is an appropriate way to highlight their error for their good and for the church’s good. The way to identify the false leaders, however, is properly the topic of a separate article.

Second, I do not support AT ALL the constant use of sarcasm in the sense you refer to. The people who do this often have no concrete understanding of what is even wrong with the people they are criticizing. They simply use the arrow-shooting to unite their small group by finding a common enemy to abuse. This is entirely against the goal of satire which is to correct and protect from error. Rather, it is used to protect an individual group of people, which leads to division in the church. I believe this is prevalent and wrong, and I definitely should have made that clearer in my article.

But as I said at the beginning of my piece, “While there definitely are perversions of satire that are intended only to stir up strife and dispute, you cannot toss out the principle of Biblical sarcasm just because of its perversions.” I still feel there are appropriate uses of satire for the reasons I laid out in my piece.

Third, while the authors of Left Behind definitely are giving millons to missions, this still doesn’t reassure me about the content of their book. Working on spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth is certainly a noble deed, but since the ends don’t necessarily justify the means I don’t think this automatically makes their book good or worthwhile.

I read Left Behind and part of Right Behind, and I saw the problems with Left Behind that Nathan Wilson was striking out against. I really do think Left Behind is a bad book on a number of fronts, and the Church needs to start writing better fiction. After all, the great commision was not only to go to all nations, but also to disciple them. While Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins are using their monetary gains in obedience to the Great Commission through spreading the Gospel, I believe their books are also to some extent going against the Great Commission by promoting wrong views of soteriology, ecclesiology, and most notably, eschatology.

In summary, I think we should definitely guard our hearts in any sort of disagreement. We don’t want to mock in a smug manner to make ourselves feel good. This is sinful, and we must repent of it whenever we find it in ourselves. We must realize that if we can’t satirize appropriately, this is probably because we can’t even rebuke appropriately. But if we take care to fear God and keep love in our hearts, and to “mock ourselves,” then both forms of admonition will be sound, and the Lord will bring repentance to whoever needs it.

I sure hope Paul was being sarcastic when he said, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves” (Gal. 5:12).

Related Links:
  ”Satire and Sarcasm,” by Joshua Clark