Are You Laughing Enough?

This week I had the opportunity to hear Stanley Hauerwas speak on “How to be Theologically Funny” for the Berry College Lumen Lecture Series. Hauerwas’ lecture focused on the importance of Christians being humorous when using theology, because humor challenges us to create a common language and framework which the listener can understand.  This is extremely important for the Christian because when you have to explain a joke to someone, clearly something has been lost.

Hauerwas thinks Christians are particularly bad at making fun of themselves and of their theology.  This typically stems from a common fear that we need to “protect or defend God“, but as Hauerwas points out, “Never think that you need to protect God. Because anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure that you are worshipping an idol.”

In the beginning of the Gay Science, Nietzsche laments that “the comedy of existence has not yet ‘become conscious’ of itself.”  Nietzsche directs his frustration towards religion because it provides an answer to the meaning of existence, and by doing so, attempts to make sure that we don’t laugh at ourselves.  But by laughing at ourselves, we admit, to some extent, the comedy of our existence.  Nietzsche believes this is healthy for humans because laughter can serve as an alternative form of redemption to the one offered by Christianity.

How would Hauerwas respond to Nietzsche? During the Q & A portion of Hauerwas’s lecture, a friend of mine asked, “Could Christians laugh if the Resurrection didn’t occur?”  Hauerwas said, yes!

Man’s greatest fear in death is not only that he will be annihilated, but that he will face complete isolation and loneliness.  This is where the Communion of the Saints relieve the fear of isolation.  So we should laugh.  We should laugh because we don’t live with the “tragic knowledge of the eternal nature of things” and our “insight of this horrible truth” doesn’t paralyze us from acting. Despite Nietzsche’s claim on the nature of our existence, we live with the hope of community.  We laugh because we can face the vast unknown with the hope that we aren’t alone!