Style Weekly On The Sinner's Guide
It's my home town paper, so I'm allowed to toot my own horn, right?
For a more blatantly comedic tour through conservative evangelical culture that is informative, laugh-out-loud funny and horrifying at times, check out this snide, leftie-geared guide to the major evangelical players.With detailed illustrations by Jeff Bechtel, the book offers a comprehensive course on religious power brokers, from James Dobson to Joel Osteen (“the evangelical P. Diddy”) and Rick Warren (“the evangelical Jimmy Buffett”), complete with fire-and-brimstone rankings. A rating of 1 is the least severe (“liberal, even likes gays”), and 8 is the most (“sociopath -- thinks Jesus will return any day with a flamethrower”).
Author of “The Hipster Handbook,” Robert Lanham has a writing style that resembles the hyper-verbose, list-oriented ramblings of edgy modern publications such as McSweeney’s, and the irony-stacked humor of TV programs such as “The Daily Show” or “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
Each chapter is packed with quick-fact information about his subjects as well as tiny pop-up guides for the ADD-addled, featuring comments from five everyday evangelicals as well as fromRonnie James Dio, the elfin heavy-metal singer responsible for popularizing the satanic horns gesture (although his comments are fake, another stand-in for the author’s barbed jesting).
Sandwiched between are scary factoids, such as “a majority of U.S. adults, 54 percent, do not think human beings developed from earlier species, up from 46 percent in 1994 (Harris Poll 2005).” There’s a final quiz and glossary in back.
Lanham is preaching to the choir here and will likely appeal only to those who have already made up their mind, but his book does provide thought-provoking tidbits and funny but telling analyses of the current evangelical scene that might otherwise lead thinking individuals to outright despair if told straight.
If you’re the sort of left-winger who condemns evangelicals but knows little about their leaders, megachurches or followers, don’t miss this funny little guide.
Bill McCartney
