Inside The Satirist’s Studio — Interview With Becky Garrison, Religion Writer

In the Old Testament, an angel of God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his own son, Isaac, whose very name in the Hebrew language loosely translated means “laughter.” Case closed, right?

Not quite.

Fast forward to the New Testament when the world is introduced to God’s Son Jesus Christ a real fun guy who was always partying with whores, lepers, and non-Jews (read: non-humans).

Let me tell you, I have yet to come across a single frat boy who could turn water into wine AND still be sober enough to include the nerds in the shin-dig.

Strange as it all may be two thousand years later, followers of Christ still can’t seem to get along to even get along though most of them agree that God pulled one over on Satan by resurrecting His Boy from the dead.

Well, that’s where Becky Garrison enters the story.

Granted, this former debutante from North Carolina is not a character found in the Bible, but her work can be traced to the Dallas-based Wittenberg Door the world’s pretty much only religious satire magazine. Over the last 12 years there, she has risen to the position of senior contributing editor, interviewing such figures as Dick Morris, William F. Buckley, Jr., Molly Ivins, and Jim Wallis.

This past April, Garrison came out swinging against not only the Religious Right but also the Spiritual Left in her book Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar (Jossey-Bass, 2006).

“We’re all struggling with the question, “What does it mean to be Christians in the 21st century? I think that’s the right question to be asking. I’m not saying I have all the answers. I’m not saying we do everything correctly, but I think that’s the question we need to be asking,” she explained. “Don’t let other people define what a Christian is. What do we say being a Christian is? How do we go back to rereading the Gospel, and figuring out what it means to be a Christian?”

The Iconoclast’s Nathan Diebenow recently spoke with the one-time member of the Young Republicans, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, and the Junior League to chat about the limits of religious satire, Bush-bashing, conspiracy theorists, and predictions for the 2006 and 2008 U.S. elections.

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ICONOCLAST: Your $22.95 208-page book has been on the bookstore shelves for a couple of months now. What’s it like to make money off the Lord Jesus Christ?

BECKY GARRISON: I don’t view it so much as making money as fulfilling a calling. That’s a question you could ask anyone who is a pastor or anyone involved in any kind of ministry. I view it more as a calling than as a way to make money. If I wanted to be profitable, I could have gone into far more successful forms of Christian marketing and made significantly larger amounts of money.