Laughing Till It Hurt

That was my experience last night at Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book reading.  Nadia is an inked, sarcastic, in-recovery, former stand-up comedienne, emergent, Lutheran church planter from Denver.  Her first book, about watching 24 straight hours of TBN is a mostly sardonic and occasionally sentimental narrative through Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Team Impact (read that chapter here), and both Nadia’s and my favorite TBN preacher, Jesse Duplantis.

Nadia sells herself short when she says, as she did last night, that she’s not a writer but a preacher with a keyboard.  In fact, her writing is crisp, hip, and witty.  It reminds me of Russell Rathbun’s amazingly funny book, which I called the Christian Confederacy of Dunces in my blurb.  In fact, Russell sat next to me at the the reading last night.

Anyway, Nadia is a gifted writer.  But I’ll say that her experience as a stand-up greatly benefits her at a book reading.  The room was filled with laughter over and over again as she read to us from a few chapters of the book.  What I thought was interesting was the room was filled with some pretty leftward-leaning Christians, whom it was clear had never watched a minute of TBN.  In fact, most of them were unfamiliar with most of the names in the book.  Russell and I, however, were in the know because we, like Nadia, understand that TBN is like crack — instantly addictive.

Actually, that applies to Nadia’s book, too.  It is instantly addictive, especially if you’ve ever whiled away the hours watching Paul and Jan, the Power Team, or anything else on TBN.

Bottom Line: BUY THIS BOOK: Salvation on the Small Screen: 24 Hours of Christian Television

Join the book’s Facebook group here.