Colorado Springs – On any list of the least likely places these days to find people slapping their knees and howling with laughter, you’d imagine the pastor-troubled New Life Church might rank a notch below the waiting room in a colonoscopy clinic.
But last Saturday night, still reeling from the firing of pastor Ted Haggard amid accusations he had an affair with a gay man, nearly 4,000 of the church’s followers gathered in the cavernous and Broadway-stage-like prayer center. And for 90 minutes, they laughed and roared and chuckled and hooted and filled the hall with ovations, at times pounding their hands together so hard their psalms must have hurt.
New Life opened the doors to a comedy show, a night billed as “Thou Shalt Laugh,” with nationally known comedians Thor Ramsey, Taylor Mason and Michael Junior – all described as “Christian comedians.” The three comics tore into many subjects, including edgy themes such as why only white guys play acoustic guitar and why black parents never name their daughters Becky.
They steered clear, though, of more touchy and sensitive subjects. An example of something not joked about was pastor Haggard.
“The timing of our scheduled comedy night could not have been worse,” interim senior pastor Ross Parsley told the congregation at the show’s opening.
“If we had known about the events that would take place we never would have had this event. But the Bible tells us, ‘Don’t forsake an assembly of yourselves.”‘
And so they came in great numbers, couples and families and teenagers nearly filling the sprawling prayer center.
First they got Ramsey, who kicked things off by making fun of the fitness craze.
“They say you eat healthy and you live longer,” he said. “But the Bible says the Earth is not our home. So if you eat healthy you’re not being faithful. I say have a Twinkie for Jesus.”
As the laughs echoed up to the steel catwalks, stage lights and monstrous speakers suspended from the ceiling, Ramsey dug deeper, targeting silicone breast implants in Southern California, where he lives.
“I know why God flooded the Earth when he did,” Ramsey said. “If He did it now, none of the women in L.A. would drown. They’d just be bobbing up and down. They’d be life rafts.”
Comic Michel Junior was up next. He’s black. And thin. And he wasted no time in noting that the audience was, well, not black. He strolled onto the stage, moved the black microphone stand out of the way and opened with: “I did that so you didn’t confuse us.”
He once worked, he said, sorting apples in a factory. And then he quit.
“The boss said he needed two weeks notice,” Junior said. “So I told him, ‘OK. In two weeks you’re gonna notice that I ain’t been here in two weeks.”‘
Someone in the congregation, near the back, actually shouted “Amen.”
Junior talked then of the quiet rumor, well-known in Christian circles, that says Jesus had a brother whose name was James.
“That had to be tough,” Junior told the crowd. “His parents were always saying ‘James, why can’t you be more like Jesus?’ And wherever Jesus went, little brother James went too. He followed Jesus everywhere.
“I bet he almost drowned once.”
The throng roared with laughter.
And then, abruptly, the laughter stopped. That awkward pause came right after Junior told the crowd he had four children, including “three before I was even married.”
But he got the audience back with this one: “The day before picture day at school my daughter told me she could take something from home to have in the picture with her, like a teddy bear. I told her for that kind of money she’d be taking her brother and sister.”
The show closed with ventriloquist Taylor Mason and a cast that included an outspoken young dummy named Romeo.
A minute into the act, one man’s laughter boomed from the middle of the audience.
“He’s laughing at me,” said Romeo the dummy.
“He’s laughing because you’re a puppet,” Mason said in his own voice.
“Yeah,” Romeo said. “He’s married. He knows what it’s like.”
The laughter was deafening. A moment later associate pastor Rob Brendle came to the stage and closed the show.
“I had a terrible week,” he told his flock. “I didn’t laugh. And now people ask how New Life Church will go on, and I don’t know. But we’re a family. We cry together. And we laugh together.”
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
