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148. Why Do Some Christians Revile ‘The Chosen’? | with Josiah DeGraaf and Jenneth Dyck
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148. Why Do Some Christians Revile ‘The Chosen’? | with Josiah DeGraaf and Jenneth Dyck
Fantastical Truth, Feb 7, 2023

147. Why Can Christians Celebrate Stories about Merlin and King Arthur? | with Robert Treskillard
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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What’s Wrong With A Little ‘Ha Ha’?

Author Ted Kluck on graciously spoofing “dispensensational” theology in general and “Left Behind” in particular, Tebow-mania, and whether Christians can Biblically spoof at all.
Ted Kluck on Sep 28, 2012
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Subtitle: An Interview with Gut Check Press Founder and Author Ted Kluck

(Editor’s Note: In spring 2011, E. Stephen Burnett interviewed author Ted Kluck [coauthor with Kevin DeYoung of Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church] about his forays into satirical end-times fiction. Now Kluck is back with another interview, this time with himself — which helps shortcut the process.)

Tell us about your new collaborative end-times novel, Beauty and the Mark of the Beast.

Well, it has all of the following in it:  guns, microchips, professional football, hipsters, romance, and a little bit of dispensational theology which, as we learned by reading (or as it were, not-reading) the Left Behind series in the 90s are all the ingredients of a good end-times thriller.

Also, it can be yours for only $2.99 which makes it cheaper than pretty much everything in the world.

Talk about the enduring appeal of end-times literature. 

I think people have a fascination with what happens when the world ends … which as we all know includes people getting microchips implanted in them as well as people floating up into the air naked and leaving behind little piles of clothing with their glasses sitting on top (of the piles of clothing).

So this is a send-up of Left Behind in the same vein as Gut Check’s other semi-successful send-ups if you count selling a few copies, making people laugh and making other people very angry as “successful”? 

Not exactly.  I mean I think it started as a send-up but then the four of us really started to enjoy getting to know the characters, weaving the plot, and watching this story come to life.  That’s not to say that it doesn’t get funny and stay funny (I think it does) but it’s also a real novel in the way that a real novel paints multi-dimensional characters and then has those characters doing interesting things on the page.  We also don’t ever directly mention Left Behind (Frank Turk’s foreword notwithstanding) and we’re careful not to really even spoof dispensational theology.

So what exactly are you spoofing?

We’re spoofing what we call “dispensensational” theology which is what happens when Christians make a really creepy industry (television, books, movies) out of eschatology – what happens when the world ends which, let’s face it, we all have our theological opinions about but we’re all, also, a healthy kind of clueless about as well.  That’s a long-winded way of saying that none of us are dying on that particular theological hill.  In fact, we all acknowledge that there are dispensational-leaning theologians we respect, and who have worked very hard, even if we don’t agree with them.

We’re also spoofing the kind of Christian culture that creates a Christ-figure out of a kid who throws a football on television.

So you’re spoofing Tim Tebow?

“…”

Well?

Not exactly.  Okay, maybe.  We’re not really spoofing Tebow as much as the culture that created Tebow, if that makes sense?

It does.

I’m glad we had this talk.

Me too.  But still … how do you feel about laughing at some individual’s expense?  Is it wrong?

I actually think it’s imperative that we laugh at the kind of culture that makes an idol out of somebody like the Ted Strongbow character in our novel.  A culture in which fans and readers are drawing all of their hope, energy and inspiration from a celebrity rather than from the glorious grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ whose death and resurrection paid for our sins and is our only comfort in life or death.  That culture, to me, is kooky … and is ripe for satire.  And that happens to be exactly the culture we’re living in.

How do you manage living, and making your living, in that culture?

Starting a publishing project like Gut Check Press certainly helps me maintain my sanity in this business.

How so?

Because we’re both (co-owner Zach Bartels and I) Christians and our faith drives what we do as a company…but a very close second ethic is that we do absolutely whatever we feel like whenever we feel like it…which usually means eating lunch out, smoking cigars and laughing a lot.  And also occasionally releasing a book and then doing very little to market the book.

What was it like, logistically, writing with three other people?

It was fun. More fun than writing by myself, that’s for sure, which is saying something because I’m an introvert who got into this business (writing) primarily so that I could be alone most of the time.  This book was a blast.  We would each write a chapter and then hand it off to the next person with no instructions and no expectations.  Our idea was to put a handful of really talented, fun people in a “room” (virtual) and see what happened.

What happened?

173 pages of pretty non-stop humor and action.  There are very few pages in which somebody isn’t either getting punched, shot, implanted with a microphip, falling into or out of love, falling off a light stanchion, feeling conflicted about something, or else doing or thinking something funny.

But shouldn’t writing novels be a serious enterprise?

Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be all the time.  We were particularly interested in doing the kind of end-timesy, sci-fi-y book where people use contractions and actually talk like real people.

How is it different than the Left Behind books?

It tries to be funny, whereas those just sort of were, unintentionally. And although we have discussions underway for 161 sequels, action figures, and a commemorative calendar, it’s been markedly less successful, financially.  This book has made, wait for it, hundreds of dollars.

Ted Kluck
Ted Kluck is the award-winning author of nine books, including two Christianity Today book-of-the-year award winners and three works of satire with his own publisher, Gut Check Press. His work has appeared in ESPN the Magazine, Cigar Magazine, and The Washington Post. Visit him online at TedKluck.com or GutCheckPress.com.
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  1. Lelia Rose Foreman (@LeliaForeman) says:
    September 28, 2012 at 9:58 am

    I just bought Beauty and the Mark of the Beast and I better like it, or I won’t like it.

    Reply
  2. sherwood smith says:
    September 28, 2012 at 10:05 am

    Totally buying this.

    Reply
  3. John Otte says:
    September 28, 2012 at 11:43 am

    I’ll have to check this one out. I’m always up for a good satire.

    Reply
  4. Galadriel says:
    September 28, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    I know we’ve had discussions of satire and parody before, but I’m too tired to dig them up at the moment.

    Reply
  5. Bainespal says:
    September 28, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    Well, I have to admit, you totally got me.  When I saw the cover added to this site’s Library, I was envisioning a group of middle-aged men with horn-rimmed glasses and massive, leather-bound KJV Bibles formulating a plan to write a novel to Spread the Good News and Reach Out to the Culture.  Ha!

    That said, I am uncomfortable with the idea of making fun of the stereotype that I have just confessed to having envisioned.  That stereotype probably is rarely true.  My church community — practically everyone I know well in “real life” — is officially premillenial dispensationalist, and although I don’t want to completely accept that eschatology, the matter is far too serious to me for me to laugh at.

    Still, it made a fine, unintentional joke for those of us who frequently read Speculative Faith! 🙂

    Reply

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  • Left Behind: A Rapturous RemakeLeft Behind: A Rapturous Remake
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  • How To Be A Silly Christian Fiction CriticHow To Be A Silly Christian Fiction Critic
  • Making Sport Of End-times Thrillers, With Ted KluckMaking Sport Of End-times Thrillers, With Ted Kluck
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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