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(Formerly the United States of America)
Shocking Tales of Depravity, Sex, and Sin Uncovered by God's Favorite Church, Landover Baptist
by Chris Harper, Andrew Bradley, and Erik Walker
If you're easily offended, this is probably not the book for you. There's something here to offend anyone, mostly
so far over the top you won't even have to work very hard at it. But that's the point. This satirical collection
of essays, images, articles, et al is poking fun at some people and institutions whose extreme manifestations have
been diving offensively off the deep end themselves in the minds of many.
Poking fun is probably the wrong term, though.
This collection actually whacks them over the head, punches them in the solar plexus, then gives them a wedgy
while they're still breathless. Cackling and snickering all the while. It's one of the funniest things I've read
in a long time. You open a page at random, let your jaw drop because you just can't believe they're going there,
then take a break to recover before trying something else. I still haven't looked at everything, because I want
to save some fun to savor later.
The basic idea is to exaggerate into absurdity some of the more extreme and more commercial aspects of born
again Christendom and the religious right as seen in America today; from the luxurious and well-funded home campus
through instructions on how to recognize various elements of the unholy (i.e. anyone who believes or behaves
differently) through spoof ads like that for the Landover Baptist Church Christian Visa - "expires at rapture."
In between are essays to help kids trick their foreign classmates into "renouncing their parents' phony god" a
hilarious True Christian (tm) TV Guide, and an even funnier fake Amazon.com page listing books such as Daddy,
Why did Jesus Kill Grandma (Teaching Toddlers About Hell)? or Laura Bush's Guide to Harlot Rearing when you
only have 20 min and 2 shot glasses. With countless other bits that show an amazing breadth of inventiveness
and absolutely no inhibitions about what they poke fun at or how.
Highly recommended, as I already have to a bunch of friends. Remember that the target is the extremes and
absurdities of behavior, not the idea of being religious itself, and take your sense of humor out for a romp. |
The Reviewer |
Kim Malo |
Reviewed 2006 |
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