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Former Satanist High Priest Now America's #1 Christian Comedian, https://thepornfans.com/ screamed the flyers peppering the Oberlin College campus. I had seen "Christian comedians." Most Americans are Christian, which might make most American comedians Christian, however that does not imply religious humor. Most comics are secular, and even anticlerical to make theism the worthy butt of some jokes. But to Warnke's evangelical fans, "Christian" means one thing totally different. Ask them in the event that they're religious and they say "No, I'm a Christian." Ha. Evangelical humor? It could possibly be attention-grabbing. It was positively free. I went.

It was free to me, no less than. Everyone else forked over a requested "free will love offering" on the door. "Thanks," urged a Christian waving a can at me. "You're welcome," I said, guarding my wallet and ducking past a desk of books, tapes, and SatanBuster T-shirts. (A card requesting one other "love reward" was shoved in my hand earlier than I escaped the foyer and walked down the aisle for a front-row seat.)

You never noticed so many Christians! The concert was in Finney Chapel, a giant corridor devoted for decades to secular concerts for our personal students. Oberlin's a secular, even freethinking college. I didn't recognize more than thirty schoolmates in the throng of several hundred. The hall was jammed with remarkably clear-minimize and effectively-scrubbed religious families from neighboring towns and counties. Little boys raced about throwing items of paper. Teenage women stood round trying guardedly cute in tight denims and baggy sweaters. Wives demurely herded their families to seats found by their husbands, who regarded oddly calm and content in their patriarchy.

The road manager warmed up the crowd. "We thanks," he prayed, "that Christians can have extra fun than anyone as a result of the big questions are settled." He praising the teens present. Punctuating his words with "man," "y'know," and "weird," he introduced the star of the present. The publicity flyers had shown Warnke casually reclining in jeans and sneakers, trying harmless in lengthy hair, antic grin, and double chin. But when he emerged onstage the his go well with was polyester, and his sneakers sneakers of leather. He carried a cold black Bible with gold leaf shimmering fiery bronze within the stagelight. Bobby McFerrin's "Be Happy" was piped to the speakers; once it had pale and Warnke had snapped at the sound crew for lousy timing, the present started.

I had questioned what constituted "Christian" comedy. When you get rid of jokes about religion, intercourse, and personal misfortune, what's left that was actually humorous? It wasn't Warnke's materials, which concerned Jell-O, yogurt, Teflon, airplanes, nose selecting, politicians, 5 minutes of dog jokes, and ten minutes on "that bastion of society, the family," with its hardworking father, harried mother, and those darned youngsters. The group ate it up. He pretended to insult six or seven sects easily represented in the viewers but the gags have been nameless, applicable to any group. He did present ability and insight in fingering evangelicals who needed a godly excuse for every part, including quick meals. He threw in a parable from time to time, however didn't actually start preaching till an hour had passed. The segue was very smooth, sliding from joking about his "weirdness" (the teen theme again) to chastising the crowd for judging him on the premise of appearance.

The enjoyable being over - if that account of a complete hour appears brief, well, Warnke himself could have been briefer; I am doing the reader a favor - he introduced Warnke Ministries, claiming a employees of 35 Kentuckians handling 50,000 prayer requests monthly and proselytizing in prisons and mental hospitals. But he placed probably the most emphasis on his people's counseling of abused kids, and the group's working with native police forces and supplying "knowledgeable testimony in court docket to get convictions" on the relationship of the powers of Satan as utilized by baby abusers!

In the next days I searched that year's newspaper indexes for Warnke's little girl, and didn't discover her. I was not shocked. In fact Warnke would slam "Satanism." Just as Christianity can't not claim salvation with out supporting a satan with which to threaten its followers, Warnke couldn't claim to be "America's #1 Christian comedian" with out his background as a "former Satanist high priest." His little lady was as illusory because the Satan to which he claimed she was sacrificed, no more actual than the cannibal Jews of the Middle Ages mentioned to make use of blood and foreskins from Christian infants. What I had not expected was that Warnke, alternating between holier-than-thou and lowlier-than-thou, would feed pablum humor to a hall of mental children, after which shock them. I assume he shocked them, as they gasped at the appropriate moments. He definitely shocked me.

For the past hour, Warnke had been telling the weakest of jokes, his repertoire restricted by the childish conservatism of his viewers. He spoke to an group considering itself clear of mind, limiting its porn to Bible atrocity couched in the King's English of the sixteenth century of the parable by which they lived. Then, after introducing the aims of Warnke Ministries, he gave the shock fiction of Satanic crime on a robust symbol of vulnerability. Are you able to guess what adopted?

You bet your bottom dollar, for have been you there, you would have misplaced it! Money! For a quarter of an hour, Warnke pleaded for funding, sending teen ladies out shaking their cans. Decrying any similarity with Jimmy Swaggart or the Bakkers ("Have a look at me," he leered, tossing his tresses), he beseeched the crowd for specie "to pay the phone bill." The crowd gave generously, the little lady nonetheless vivid to them. Warnke returned to jokes - on Southern food, directed at the "ladies fixin' to get married" - to keep the giving going strong because the ushers "ushed" their approach to the rear.

The "comedy concert" now little more than a camp assembly, Warnke led a hymn. The crowd knew all the lyrics. I didn't stand with them; sitting conspicuously within the front row, I was noticed by Warnke, who beamed a fast, benevolent smile upon me. After the songs he asked the unsaved to stand, forgiving in advance the "righteous and frightened" who sat. From my limited vantage point (I used to be up entrance and sitting, after all) I saw only two stand for salvation. One was a woman behind me, bent with age, who audibly swore as she struggled to rise with help from kin. The opposite was a man who had heckled Warnke. He may have been a plant - shills are common at such gatherings - but for this crowd, I'm positive he was just a household man who wished to save face via submissive repentance. He'd probably been saved twice this month.

The concert ended with Warnke praying for the group and reminding it that providing buckets still circulated. The sheep, newly fleeced by yet one more touring shepherd, this one a Tartuffe of polyester as an alternative of sackcloth, left Finney Chapel, discussing ecumenism as they sorted themselves into sectarian crews as their church buses, youth group vans, and family cars began to pack them off for residence.

I wrote "Christian Comedy from Hell" after attending the live performance, which was sponsored by the poor dupes of Oberlin Christian Fellowship in 1988. The article appeared in Big Apple Atheist in 1991. The exposé "Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke," by John Trott and Mike Hertenstein, first appeared in 1992 as a thirty-thousand-phrase article in Cornerstone magazine, and was published as a full-length book by Cornerstone Press in 1993. The e book continues to be in print and is on the market from Amazon.com. Another Cornerstone replace was featured in 1992. In January 1995 the Skeptical Inquirer reviewed the book. A 1995 assertion is out there on-line from the Watchman Expositor.