Slouching Toward Zion And More Lies

Rating:
Summary: It's a Different Kind of Humor
Review:
Robert Flynn is a gifted observer of human behavior and an imaginative and knowledgeable writer. He pokes jokes at it in a Swiftian satirical way. He is funny and his jokes are, perhaps, more serious than he intends. His humor is not the sidesplitting variety but the smirking kind.
He pokes fun of all religions. God knows the sanctimonious religionists need it. Mostly, though, he pokes fun of Baptists. Perhaps they need it the most.
His iconoclastic humor, although allegedly tongue in cheek, has more truth than tongue. And it is his meaning that all religions are ridiculous and it is only to God that we all owe individual allegiance. Dump the religions and start social clubs.
The short stories in this book are short, but there are twenty-three of them. Perhaps there are too many. Since they all carry the identical themes (poking fun at religions), by the middle of the book, it started to get somewhat tedious. But then we come to a style change when we get to, "Mission in Mexico." It is humor on religion but also great slapstick comedy too. The following paragraphs in this story, I think, tells the true story as Flynn sees it:
"The purpose of secular media is to be rich and powerful so they can buy political gossip, photographs of alien beings, news of the world's largest cucumbers, and stories of lurid crimes and violent deaths. With those, they divert the attention of the masses from the rules, machinations, and powers that hold them in sway....Since Christians had not been able to convert all Americans, they must require the government to force everyone to behave like Christians, regardless of whether they believed as Christians."
Some other examples of his writing style and humor are as follows:
"God didn't hear the prayers of Methodists because they had never been baptized. Sprinkling was no more baptism than quiche was church cuisine. `Besides, Methodists dance and praying knees don't grow on dancing feet,' Billy Mac preached.
"But God is always ready to hear the prayer of a born again Bible-believing, full immersion, washed in the blood, slain in the spirit, from grace to grave, confession to coffin, dunking to death, repentance to resurrection, sinner's-prayer to heavenly crown Baptist."
"Billy Mac predicted that Baylor would never win a major bowl game until Baylor taught the Christian view of history: that God inspired the American Revolution and sent plagues of diseases to kill the Indians and give Americans free land."
I think the best thing I liked about the book was that it was different than anything I had ever read. That alone makes it worth reading.



Rating:
Summary: Laughter is the best medicine
Review: We all want to be healthier and there's no better way to flex your laughing muscles than reading Robert Flynn's Slouching Toward Zion and More Lies. He delivers this dose of humor like a charming and chatty country doctor--a quick pinch and then the proffered lollipop.

Stories like The Church Softball League and Chicken Soup for the Damned should have everyone laughing, regardless of their religious beliefs. At the same time, Flynn gives the reader a pause to step back think about his or her beliefs.

If you like this book you may also like his previous title, Growing Up a Sullen Baptist and Other Lies.

Not recommended for those who have surgically had their sense of humor removed or are chronically over serious!