Drop the comic altar ego, clergy told

Linda Morris
June 9, 2009

LAUGHTER may be the best medicine, but God is no joke, according to an Anglican bishop who has chided Christian church leaders who think of themselves as stand-up comedians and resort to making jokes during sermons.

The Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, says there is nothing funny in "lame-fisted attempts" to crack jokes and be funny during services and church meetings. Humour has its place, but God and church, he says, is no laughing matter.

"I am frankly sick of 'leaders' ruining the atmosphere of the meeting/service and disrupting the focus on God with half-baked comic lines," he wrote for a Sydney Anglican online ministry resource guide. "Or they detract from my reflection upon some important point made in the sermon with smart cracks or attempts to make funny comments about the preacher or the sermon."

This, he said, interfered with the congregation's relationship with God. the rest