Laughing at Ourselves
So I followed the links recently to Michael Kruse’s Why did the Emergent Chicken Cross the Road. I read it, it was cute, I smirked. Yet as I thought about it later, I realized how odd posts like that are. Think about it. How often is it commonly accepted to simple state the beliefs and practices of a religious group as the punchline of a joke? If those statements had been about evangelical “chickens” instead of emergent, would the response have been the same? Would such outright mocking be accepted if it was directed at anyone else? It’s not that I find the list (or others like it) offensive, it’s just that I’ve noticed that Emergents are expected to take such mocking in stride. In fact if we are offended by things like that we are mocked even further and told to get over ourselves. At the same time if any of us criticize the beliefs of another group (not even in a mocking way) we are derided as unfair and accused of thinking of ourselves as better than others. I’m all for taking criticism and being willing to laugh at oneself, I just find the double standard curious.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Hey Julie! I agree with your assessment. However, I think it is good to be the ones who can take a joke, tolerate those who would criticize us, and turn the other cheek. It’s a good place to be in my opinion.
Well … see it’s like this. While everyone says we’re adolescents who haven’t grown up yet, really we’re the grown ups who know how to take a joke. Some people’s skin is a little too thin … other people know how to laugh. I’d much rather know how to laugh.
Just for the record, this was my third chicken post. Four days earlier I had Why did the Presbyterian Chicken Cross the Road? and two days before that (which got the whole thing started) Why the chicken crossed the road – update.
Clearly the Emergent Chicken got the most reponses but I suspect that is in part because so many Emergent folks actually read blogs.
Peace!
Thanks for clarifying! We do seem to be a blogging movement.
Going back to the Wittenberg Door, through the book Growing Up Born Again (are you a GUBA?), to current websites like larknews.com and stuffchristianslike (an admitted knockoff of stuffwhitepeoplelike), there is a strong albeit small-minority undercurrent of evangelical self-mockery. Heck, as a freshman at Wheaton we had a bro/sis floor get together to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail – which takes plenty of potshots at various sacred cows in the C of E and RC churches, with considerable overlap into evangelicalism. (Unfortunately I doubt they would have ok’ed Life of Brian).
Some (many?) evangelicals have reacted to such media with anger or by taking offense, and acted as if it was God being mocked/parodied rather than the quirks of some of God’s misguided followers. We humans all tend to take ourselves a bit too seriously, don’t we? Even more so if we think we are doing God’s work.
If Michael Kruse’s post wasn’t funny then don’t go to Parchment and Pen. I didn’t find either funny, particularly offensive, or too enlightened. I’m guessing the emergers could make a better “chicken post” on themselves mostly because they already seem pretty willing to poke fun at themselves. Care to give it a try Julie?
Went back to P&P today and read some of the comments. Two were about “reformed” chickens and I literally laughed out loud. I think one atleast was written by someone who falls in line most of the time with “reformed” theology. Still hoping for your version, Julie.
Oh I thought about it. my brain is just to fried most of the time to get too creative. but maybe…
well i haven’t read the source material, but i would think there is only one logical response to the question “Why did the Emerging Chicken cross the road?”
To get away from the modern side.
sean