I’ve written a new book. It’s called The Gospel According To A Sitcom Writer.
It focusses on the comedy that’s actually in the Bible. There are so many funny and odd moments where you would have laughed if you’d been there.
Or at least, you might have laughed about it afterwards.
You would think it was ‘weird’ if your friend Jesus suddenly ascended into heaven, right?
And you don’t need to read between the lines too much to spot a rivaly between Peter, ‘the Rock’ and John, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’.
Surely the lack of parables in John’s gospel is simply crying out to be redressed? What would it look like if a sitcom writer and part-time theologian filled some of the blanks?
I also explain that the Good Samaritan might have had another side to him, why I don’t like Pilgrim’s Progress, and how mainstream TV gets Christianity totally wrong.
I’ve taken my BBC sitcom writing brain and applied it to the texts of scripture (that I hold to be the inspired word of God), giving us some new and liberating ways of looking at the gospel. I take scripture seriously but in order to do that, you have to be open to the fact that sometimes it’s funny.
Arguably, more inspired than the Gospel of Thomas, and a whole lot funnier, The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer will make you laugh out loud and shake your head in wonder. You’ll never read the Bible the same way again.
It’s available signed from me personally in the UK here – along with my previous book, The Sacred Art of Joking, along with CDs of A Monk’s Take and The God Particle. Why not pick up a stack and solve some birthday present problems?
Outside the UK, Amazon’s probably your best bet.
You can also hear me talk to other people about bits of the Bible that make them laugh in a YouTube series named after my previous book, The Sacred Art of Joking: