2 of 3

Would you call yourself emergent?

I would say that I'm a Lutheran who attends an Anglican church and appreciates certain parts of the emergent conversation, and who's a fan of N. T. Wright and Robert Webber. I repeat the Nicene Creed every week, and I firmly believe in everything in it. There's a scene in the movie A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles are having this press conference and someone asks, "Are you a mod or a rocker?" and Ringo says, "I'm a mocker." I have a problem with the label. It's flimsy, because in 10 years people aren't going to talk about emergent.

Have you had any bad interviews since Angry Conversations with God released this spring?

I remember talking with a publisher who asked, "What's the takeaway?" I said, "Takeaway? I mean, in Britain, that means 'take out.' What do you mean?" They wanted to get to the happy place. Granted, I realize they have to make sales and don't want to say, "Here's a real bummer book about a person who went through hard times, and she doesn't have any answers." But a lot of interviewers have the pressure of, "Oh my gosh, we have this woman on the phone whose book is called Angry Conversations with God. We want to assure our readers she's not an ex-Christian who's out to fight the Lord."

How do you reconcile your humor and your faith?

I have to say, getting my life barbecued and reaching the absolute bottom, I had to write about faith because it was the most important thing, and I couldn't not talk about faith without finding humor in it. I lost my fear of what people would think. When I stopped caring about what the church would think and what my comedy peers would think, and just told the truth, this door opened up. So many people came out of the woodwork in secular venues and Christian venues and said, "Thank you for talking about this."

I did one comedy piece called "On Fire for Jesus," about the fire of God. It ended with a story about gold teeth. It basically was the thing [in my life] that precipitated my walk away from God. It was in this prophetic movement that was going on in a church, and people were claiming that God was turning their silver fillings into gold. I said, "Okay God, I know I've been burned before, but I really believe you can do anything." I showed up and people were laughing and roaring in the Spirit. Then the gold teeth happened and I thought, well, why didn't he just turn the fillings back into teeth? Come on. And the pastor there prayed over me, but it was a really violating prayer and I left, walked out to my car, and screamed. I was so traumatized by it.

I told this story at two venues in Hollywood, and people were on the floor laughing. But then I said, "I miss the fire." The people in the audience got quiet and were like, "Ohhh—I know what you mean. I want that too." That's the best. After that, I realized, okay, that's what I need to do. This is better than Pampers commercials.

Do you think making people laugh is your calling?

I do feel like it's a calling. I feel like it's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done.

When I'm on stage and making people laugh and asking, "Do you remember that moment when you were in the backyard and you felt Jesus stand next to you, or you felt the presence of God in Communion? It wasn't a lie. There is something there." Yeah, your life might be crap, but you know what? It's not because God doesn't love you, it's because bad things happen, and we need to love God anyway. In the dark night of the soul, I end up questioning if I had ever heard from God, and if this is a marriage, what was I? Was I the lesser concubine who's way down on his list?

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

July (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53