P.G. Wodehouse Meets Jonathan Edwards

Last updated on: October 19, 2012 at 6:09 am by Justin Hawkins

P.G. Wodehouse Meets Jonathan Edwards 2012-10-19T06:09:51-06:00 Justin Hawkins

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Review of Evangellyfish by Douglas Wilson

By JUSTIN HAWKINS

Commenting in his youth on his own pastorate, Reinhold Niebuhr remarked that “I make no apology for being critical of what I love. No one wants a love which is based upon illusions, and there is no reason why we should not love a profession and yet be critical of it.” By this metric, Pastor Doug Wilson loves the ministry. If Mark Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind was “an epistle from a wounded lover,” then Wilson’s Evangellyfish is a scathing burlesque from the pen of a dangerously witty and unsettlingly observant lover. And he has a bone to pick with the megachurch.

The story centers around Chad Lester, a titan of Christianity. He pastors (in the very loosest sense of the word) a Midwestern megachurch flushed to the gills with multimedia technology and vague, platitudinous theology. But it is truly difficult to fault Chad himself for the latter; after all, his sermons are written for him without his input and delivered to him on Friday night as he walks out the door on the way to his mistress’ home. So, really, who can fault a pastor for poor theology when he has such other pressing things on his mind? And as the narrator informs us, “He was an average red-blooded male, with perhaps above average red-blooded male problems. What could he say? He and King David both. Chad had slept with quite a number of women who did not have the last name of Lester, but it’s not like he was even in Solomon’s league. A friendlier age would have simply called them concubines, except maybe the married ones. He wasn’t sure what they should be called.”

The book follows Chad and his church as they become embroiled in allegations of sexual abuse by a male counselee that had visited Chad’s office, a long time prior. These allegations are entirely false, for the simple and convincing reason that “the nature of Chad Lester’s undecalogue-like activities had been extensively and exclusively hetero.” Furthermore, virtually the entire female contingent of the church’s board of elders can attest to the innocence of the very reverend Lester by virtue of their firsthand experience with his heterosexuality. And for what it is worth, Chad is not alone in his exploits, even among the church’s leadership. So there you have it.

The foil to Chad’s foibles is a small-town Reformed Baptist pastor, John Mitchell, whose only real flaw is a righteous indignation that caused him, on one occasion, to “extend the right hand of fellowship forcefully to Chad Lester’s left eye.” But this was entirely justified, as a fuller reading of the book will attest.

“Ripped-from-the-Evangelical-headlines” might be a stretch to describe this book, but it would be only an exceedingly small stretch. This is because Wilson’s insight into the foibles and the outright nonsense of some parts of modern Evangelicalism is far too keen for comfort. From Wilson’s perspective, there is plenty in Evangelicalism to lambast, and little is too sacred for satire. His characters display “an abstract faith in the act of journaling.” The church’s well-watered foliage decorating the “acres of asphalt” of the parking lot look like “wet, botanical orcs.” Their media trailers “look like Russian fishing trawlers off Long Island at the height of the Cold War, antennae everywhere.” When reading Wilson’s descriptions of the churches we have so unreflectively and consumeristically constructed, one gets a tangible sense of just how serious the head-shaking from a Calvin or a Luther might be were they to return to life and assess the state of the Church in America.

Evangellyfish is P.G. Wodehouse with a dash of Jonathan Edwards. It is a snarky excoriation of the silliness of megachurch life, impelled and driven by a strong sense of the sacrilege that such silliness represents. Each page could contain probing thoughts, like “what size earring would the apostle Paul have worn if his mission had been to the skateboarding and pants-drooping youth of today?” or “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” At its very best, it is a call to repent of our collective evangelical silliness. At its worst, it is still irresistibly funny. And mirth, it can be convincingly argued, is itself an important spiritual discipline.

Previous Post

October 18, 2012

When the Legend Becomes Fact...

Next Post

October 22, 2012 We the Underpeople

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What food did God provide for Israel in the wilderness every morning?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Olives Barley Manna Quail