Josh Benner

Tag: Comedy

  • Forgiveness and John Crist: Comedian cancels tour over sexual misconduct allegations

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    John Crist was the satirical comedic voice of the Christian millennial, making fun of the popular megachurch culture, contemporary Christian music, and consumerism within the church.

    On Facebook, he has over 2 milloin followers. Over a million on Instagram. 500,000 on YouTube. Christianity is not known for producing great comedians, but Crist struck a cord. He was set to have a Netflix comedy special debuting on Thanksgiving.

    He had the fashion since of a youth pastor. The homeschooled son of a pastor.

    This week, Charisma News broke a story of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct engaged in by Crist.

    Charisma News is certainly not known for being a source of investigative journalism, and while I’m not saying that all of the allegations are necessarily true, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Crist has cancelled his upcoming tour and has issued an apology. It’s not that he’s saying everything reported is true, he did say:

    While I am not guilty of everything I’ve been accused of, I confess to being guilty of this—I have treated relationships with women far too casually, in some cases even recklessly. My behavior has been destructive and sinful.

    Crist’s statement also talked of receiving treatment for “sexual sin and addiction struggles.”

    I’ve seen a number of Christians defending this man. That is completely disheartening and unacceptable. Reading through comments on his Facebook and Instagram, some people talk of being disappointed in his actions (rightfully), and those are met with comments such as “I guess you must be perfect,” “I guess you’ve never sinned,” “God is gracious.”

    This type of response completely ignores the victims and mitigates the severity of what Crist did. Yes, God is gracious. And the good news of the gospel is that a person can be forgiven of their sins no matter what they’ve done. But that does not mean that there are never earthly consequences for our sins. This type of attitude enables continued sin because it accepts “he said he’s sorry” without also looking to see if there’s real repentance and change. Real discipleship and contrition.

    It’s good to apologize for the wrongs you’ve done. It’s also easy. It’s easy to say you’re sorry when you’re caught.

    But a changed life is what produces the fruit of a true belief.

    This story further troubles me because in seeing people defend Crist, it’s a window into how sexual abuse can happen within churches. In a lot of ways, Crist is like the megachurch pastor or popular televangelist who has a fall from grace due to sin. He’s popular, has a following, portrays himself as living up to Christian ideals.

    People are sticking up for John Crist because they like him. And so they’ll overlook his actions. Instead of seeing the wrong he’s done, they look to the “wrong” of anyone who would make a moral judgment on him.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the pastor of Christian Bible Church in Cissna Park, Illinois. He has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He has an awesome wife named Kari.

  • Saturday Night Live sketch uses humor to tackle issues of meaning

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    Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    A recent Saturday Night Live sketch featured SNL alum Adam Sandler as the host of a fake tour company. The premise of the parody commercial is explaining what his Italian tour company can (and cannot) do for customers.

    If a person is unhappy in America, they will be the same unhappy person in Italy. “You’re still gonna be you on vacation,” Sandler’s character points out. Sandler continues, “there’s a lot a vacation can do – help you unwind, see some different looking squirrels – but it cannot fix deeper issues: like how you behave in group settings or your general baseline mood. That’s a job for incremental lifestyle changes sustained over time.” (more…)

  • John Crist jokes about customizing church

    Comedian John Crist is crushing it. He’s become a social media sensation. Next year, he’s launching his Human Being tour that has 40 shows and is quickly selling out. He has a great eye for contemporary WASP culture in the American church.

    Today, he released a satirical video on a new product: Virtual Reality Church, which was essentially virtual reality glasses which allowed a person to entirely customize a church service. This is said in jest, but I found this video to be a striking commentary on the church in America.

    In the video, it allows for all of the aspects of a church service to be customized: the denomination, what your virtual reality avatar wears, the fashion of the worship leader, whether or not you have to interact with people, the of the worship leader, the style of the message (and the subject of the message).

    In the video, Crist says: “Feeling a touch of white guilt? Add a minority worship leader.”

    “No more having to endure songs that you don’t like. With Virtual Reality Church, you’re in charge.”

    There are so many churches that the whole experience is like Starbucks. You can customize it whichever way you want. People pick (and stop going) to churches based on the style of preaching, the style of music, the programs they offer, the youth group, the look of the building. There are hipster churches, contemporary churches, traditional churches. There are popular churches where other churches mimic the same gimmicks.

    The underlying issue with this is that it sends this bad message: church is about you and for you. Crist touches on this point too. At the end of his video he says, “Finally, an answer to the question: how can I make Sunday morning even more about me?” The video signs off by calling virtual reality “the future of church attendance.”

    Sadly, that humor isn’t too far off from reality. With the popularity of mega church pastors, there are people who podcast famous pastors and value those over involvement in a local church.

    And churches are largely part of the problem in feeding into this culture. In America, where we have so many options with everything, every business with which we interact lives and dies on our satisfaction.

    And we often treat churches in much the same way. Like it’s just another business that we’re patronizing. Where if you’re not happy with a church, if you decide you don’t like something about a church, it’s become so easy just to uproot and go to the next church.

    Ask not what the church can do for you. Ask what you can do for the church.

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    Crist has done other satire videos. One was a spoof of popular shows like “House Hunters,” but where they were listing the features they wanted in a church. In another parody video, Crist pretended to be an executive for a Christian music record label and poked fun at the predictability and shallowness of many popular Christian songs.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Review: the Hangover 2

    With the immense popularity of the Hangover, its sequel which hit the screens this week could not have been anything other than a box office smash hit. Many wondered if it could possibly live up to the original, and while I knew that this was not going to occur, I at least expected there to be a few scenes in the Hangover 2 that had the audience rolling. Unfortunately, the humor was not even in the same realm as the original Hangover.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sequel that had the same plot as its original. I have also never walked out on a movie, I didn’t with this one either, but two thirds of the way into the movie, when it was obvious how it was going to end, and as I came to the stark realization of, ”This movie is not funny, and that is something that is not suddenly going to change,” I strongly considered leaving.

    I really wanted to like this movie, it simply had no redeeming qualities. It was much darker than the original. In the original Hangover, part of the charm was the weirdness of Alan’s character, played by Zach Galifianakis. For the first half of the Hangover 2, I felt that they were trying to have bizarre comments and actions of Galifianakis comedically carry the movie. Even as much as I like Galifianakis, I don’t feel that can work for a major comedy. It certainly did not work for this one.

    Some people will disagree with me, and I have even heard people say it was almost as good as the original.

    Could they be right? No.

    This movie had so much hype and people were so excited to see the sequel to the beloved Hangover, that for many, the opinions of this movie are skewed. It’s also important to consider the context in which people watched this movie. Across the country, moviegoers packed theatres, and eagerly watched this movie, ready to laugh. In that type of festive atmosphere, and in a crowd, it is much, MUCH easier to find something funny than it would if a person were to rent a movie and watch a DVD alone.

    To that end, people who have seen this may recall laughing and having a good experience, but I firmly believe that is much more a product of the festive theatre environment than it is of this movie actually being funny.

    I think the reasons people are saying this movie was good are from a subconscious desire to be seen as normal instead of out of an objectively favorable view of the movie. Plain and simple, the Hangover 2 was horrible. I don’t know how much more clearly I can express that opinion. It is not worth seeing. And in the coming weeks when the initially large theatre crowds wane, it will become abundantly more clear over time just how unfunny this movie was.

    As I have already said, the sequel has the same plot as the original. The only real difference is that the original was funny.

    jrb