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Will anyone ever make a Christian version of Spinal Tap? For fans of the Christopher Guest-style mockumentary (Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman) who have grown up in the easily parodied evangelical subculture, we now have an answer. And its name is Jesus People: The Movie.

Jesus People , a Christian-made parody of evangelicals, was created by professional comedy writers and actors in Hollywood. The film is a feature-length version of a six-episode online series that debuted early in 2008 on Independent Comedy Network (ICN), sort of a "minor league" for shows hoping to make the jump to the bigs—traditional TV or, in this case, film. It's currently on the 2009 festival circuit; it will screen at the Gospel Music Association's annual celebration week in April, and will likely be released on DVD in the late summer or fall.

The Jesus People online series—a web hit, with more than 500,000 views—tells the satirical story of Cross My Heart, a Christian dance-pop band-in-the-making. The four-person, coed group—an homage to Christian dance-pop classics like Jump 5—includes an aging CCM pop star trying to resuscitate her career after a sex scandal (played by Edi Patterson), a newbie Christian party girl with a wild streak (Lindsay Stidham), a goody-goody fundamentalist with a fondness for God's wrath (Damon Pfaff), and a token minority member who plays the sympathetic everyman (Rich Pierrelouis). The cast also includes the group's pastor/manager/entrepreneurial handler Pastor Jerry (Joel McCrary), and an impressive array of guest stars from across the comedy spectrum, including SNL's Victoria Jackson, The Office's Kate Flannery, Will & Grace's Tim Bagley, and Waiting for Guffman's Deborah Theaker.

Most of the cast from the web series returned for the feature film version, as did director Jason Naumann and writers Dan Ewald and Rajeev Sigamony. For the most part the story is the same as the online version, just expanded a bit, giving a more embellished, Behind the Music background to Cross My Heart's rise from a fledgling music group to a superstar CCM success story. Where the web series concludes with the band shooting its first music video, the film shows Cross My Heart further along in their career, with a hit environmentalism/apocalypse-themed song—"Jesus Save the World"—catapulting them to the big time.

Cross My Heart shoots a music video

The film skewers the evangelical subculture in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, poking fun at everything from Left Behind eschatology to the familiar "prayer as gossip" trope. Its closest cousin might be 2004's Saved!, though that film did not contain the underlying empathy for Christian culture that Jesus People contains, even with all of its biting and often hilarious cynicism. The Christians involved in Jesus People are adamant that the underlying goal is not to tear the church apart, but to make it stronger, while also having a little self-deprecating fun.

 "The whole point is to show that Christians can understand and laugh about our stereotypes," says Pfaff, who grew up in the church, went to a Christian college (Northwestern College), and identifies with his hardcore-Christian character, Zak. "The worst thing we can do is take ourselves too seriously. We don't want to make a parody out of any of these characters. They need to be relatable, because there are two sides to everyone. Zak is judgmental, yes, but he is also just someone who wants to do what is right."

This even-handed, tough-love insider's approach is what Sigamony believe sets Jesus People apart from your average Christian-bashing film.

"The fact that Dan [Ewald], Jason [Naumann], and I are Christians gives us the legitimacy to make fun of Christianity," says Sigamony, who grew up conservative Seventh Day Adventist and went to the same Christian high school in Maryland (Arlington Baptist) as Saved! director Brian Dannelly. "We believe that what we are doing is necessary. We hope to start a conversation with Christians."

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