Rejoice, rejoice! Rationalism is cool, credulousness is socially unacceptable – and comedy is dominated by critical thinking on religion. In a remarkable piece in the Telegraph last week, Cristina Odone reflected on Frank Skinner's recent interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury. In that encounter, Skinner, who is Catholic, had complained (with, I suspect, a twinkle in his eye) that belief was unfashionable in standup, and that it was time Christianity struck back at atheism. Odone takes these arguments and runs with them, dubbing Skinner "the comic who took on the establishment" and claiming comedy is in thrall to secularism.
Can she please tell me which comedy shows she's been watching? I'd love to see them. Can she mean Marcus Brigstocke's God Collar, a hymn to the consolations of religion? Can she mean the award-winning sitcom Rev, a sympathetic portrait of life as an Anglican vicar? Her, and Skinner's, contention that comedy is the preserve of rationalists just isn't true. I've lost count of the times I've seen standups take potshots at Richard Dawkins, usually of the (untrue, I think) "he's just as fundamentalist as the fundamentalists" variety.
The only legitimate point made by Skinner and Odone is that, yes, within the confines of mainstream cultural activity, a type of let's-not-talk-about-it soft-atheism does just about hold sway. And, yes, it would be unusual to see a standup discuss their religious faith onstage. Tim Vine and Milton Jones, both Christians, avoid personal material in their work; both are one-liner merchants. For my part, I'm not sure that a disinclination to let go of ancient habits of thought is a great qualification for comedy, which – at its best – demands a degree of critical thinking. But I'm all for comedy invoking wonder and the numinous. If he cares so much, Skinner should give Christian comedy a go.
But just because mainstream culture is – at last – spiritually neutral, that doesn't make Skinner's outburst (in Odone's words) "breathtakingly subversive". Among her weirder claims is that atheists are "in control of what counts: the media, academia, and many of the professions". Well, maybe. But what about the rise of faith schools? The Pope's recent visit and the survival of the established church? Blair and Bush's God-sponsored wars? Not to mention the global outlook. In the bigger picture, religion remains, overwhelmingly, the establishment, and atheism a still-revolutionary challenge to that, which needs constant reassertion.
I'd love standup comedy to supply it – and in pockets (Robin Ince's rationalist comedy nights; the work of Tim Minchin and – sometimes – Ricky Gervais) it does. There's no evidence to back up Skinner's claim that, at the Edinburgh fringe, "most comics take three or four minutes to explain they [are] atheists" and that "you have to be an atheist if you want to be a cool modern comic" is just not objectively true. Mind you, being a Christian, lack of evidence probably doesn't bother him.
