Christian comic… or comic who happens to be Christian?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 8th, 2008

There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing or thinks you should be doing what you’re doing differently.

This even applies to the folks who do Christian comedy.

You might figure that all Christian comics get along… that they’re all part of the same gang, all in agreement as to how to approach the task of making Christians laugh. You’d figure wrong.

From VideoBusiness.com, is an article by Chris Gennusa titled “Godly Humor– Christian Comedians Keep Their Comedy Acts Clean.” The occasion is the release of four DVD’s which, in one way or another, deal with religion or feature one or more Christian comics.

Jeff Allen is one of the four comics featured in “Apostles of Comedy: The Movie.”

Depending on where Allen is performing, sometimes more than just the comic’s “potty mouth” is left on the cutting room floor. “If I go into a comedy club, I do the same show I would in front of a church group, but I don’t share my [religious] journey at the club,” says the veteran comic, who says he “found Christ” 12 years ago, after doing stand-up since the late ’70s.

Not every comic agrees, however, that leaving your religious beliefs at the velvet rope is a wise choice. “I think a Christian comic is someone that makes you laugh while sharing the story of Jesus,” stand-up comic Bob Smiley says. “I try to do that at every show I do. If you are going to add the ‘Christian’ part to your job title, then you ought to have the message of Christ in your show.”

We interviewed Allen way back in 2000. (Pardon the broken image links… it’s from the Wayback Machine!)

SHECKYmagazine: You found God…how much material did you lose?

None, there really isn’t one piece of material that I used to do that I haven’t been able to rework for the churches. It actually made a number of them better because I had to get a thesaurus out and use the language, which make for better stories.

Speaking of Christian comics… or comics who happen to be Christian, we ran into Taylor Mason the other night (see photo below). Mason, who was recently featured on early episodes of this season’s Last Comic Standing, was performing locally. In addition to doing standup, Mason is also doing a bit of writing on the side for a website called New Christian Voices (“dedicated to taking a lighter, joyous, humorous look at spirituality.”) which employs a handful of comedians to generate their content. Among the other comics are Brad Stine and Teresa Roberts Logan.

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