There's a fresh wave of humor among clergy, comics and believers alike, who are putting out new books and taking to the comedy club stages.
They provide a laugh-track counter-trend to the political attacks and Supreme Court cases that often place religion in the public square today. And they create an oasis of common ground where friction among the faithful can be set aside for laughter.
Their jokes can be contemporary but they're rooted in holy texts. When Muslim comic Azhar Usman tours the U.S. with a routine called, "Allah Made Me Funny," he stands on a passage from the Quran: "It is He (God) who causes man to laugh and weep."
There are no jokes at the expense of the prophet or anything sacrilegious. There are plenty of human foibles for fodder, Usman says.
"Allah gets a good laugh out of people who deny him. Think of it from a cosmic view _ God creates human beings with the capacity to question his existence, thereby enabling humanity with a mind that can reach wrong conclusions while He watches. It's pretty funny."
Ages before stand-up comedy, the self-righteous were skewered in Scripture where "the poor are rich; the rich are poor; the blind see; the sighted are blind," says Jesuit priest and humorist James Martin.
Not only can the Almighty take a ribbing from Adam and Eve's descendents, God makes jokes, too. "Humor is a sign of God's creativity. Look at giraffes. If Jesus didn't have a sense of humor, he wouldn't have been fully human," he says.
Even Christian martyrs could be faithful and funny. Martin points to the 258 AD martyr St. Lawrence. As he slowly roasted over a bed of coals, Lawrence told his Roman torturers, "This side is done. Turn me over and have a bite."
"People who can't laugh have a wrong-headed notion about Christianity and the Bible," says Martin, author of a new book, "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life."
Cal Samra, of Portage, Mich., publishes the "Joyful Noiseletter" and humor anthologies that offer family-friendly Christian jokes and fit-for-the-church-bulletin cartoons to numerous denominations.
Samra sees religion humor from early in Genesis, where Sarah, 90, and Abraham, 100, laugh upon learning they'll have a child. They call him Isaac, whose name means "He laughs."
Coming up for the newsletter's Christmas edition: A cartoon of the wise men following the star to a manger where a young woman holds a baby, five are wailing in the manger and a seventh howls in Joseph's arms. The caption says "Sorry, wrong manger but good luck to you."
"God laughing with us." Samra says.
Susan Sparks, pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, has been cracking up with the Good Book since she spotted the Almighty cracking wise in 1st Samuel 6:4, where God plagues the Philistines with
"We cry with God. We come to prayer bent over with tears. Why not laughter?" she asks.
"I take my cue from Voltaire, who said, 'God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh,' " Sparks says.
She often tours with Usman and Rabbi Bob Alper.
Still, religious humor is risky. "Humor and power don't go hand in hand. Humor exposes truth and that can make people nervous," says Sparks, author of "Laugh your Way to Grace: Reclaiming the Spiritual Power of Humor."
Jana Riess encountered that nervousness in writing "Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor."
In her memoir of trying to live by 12 practices preached by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, there's a chapter on Mormon hospitality. Riess commends her gynecologist, who knitted stirrup foot warmers to make patients more comfortable, "should our Lord ever need a Pap smear."
No go. Mormons don't see a feminine God and neither will her readers when the book goes on sale in November. It was cut but Riess still thinks God would have been amused.
"We take God and ourselves far too seriously. I put my failings out there and find what's both funny _ and holy. I probably wouldn't be a Christian at all if I couldn't laugh," she says.
Liel Leibovitz, who writes "Blessed Week Ever," the weekly Torah column for the Jewish magazine "The Tablet," doubts anyone could believe in God without laughing.
"There's shared DNA between faith and humor. Both are attempts to deal with fundamental human anxiety and things you can't control. That's why so many rabbis and priests walk into a bar at the beginning of jokes. Laughing gets you past the anxiety," Leibovitz says.
"There are Torah passages that crack me up. Look at the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. God is about to reveal himself and everyone is in chaos. The about-to-be-chosen people want to know, 'Can we transfer this membership card to someone else?' "
"They want to know about being chosen? Chosen for what? And God's answer is, 'You figure it out! What am I, God?' It's mind blowing and entertaining at the same time, which is all you could ask of a text."
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