Religious Comedy

Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho was the most verbal of the famed comedy team the Marx Brothers, his broad slapstick portrayals elevated by ingenious wordplay and double entendre. In his spirited biography of this beloved American iconoclast, Lee Siegel views the life of Groucho through the lens of his work on stage, screen, and television.

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., the grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as "God") has been phoning it in. When God decides to retire (to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant), he also decides to destroy Earth. The angels manage to strike a deal with their boss. He'll call off his Armageddon, if they can solve their toughest miracle yet: getting the two most socially awkward humans on the planet to fall in love.

In this riotous, globetrotting sequel to The Story of God, the universe’s premier antihero, God, returns, as lonely, misguided, angry, and troubled as ever. Regretting many of the decisions he made in his debut book, and wrestling with his continued ambivalence to both his son(s) Jesus and his frenemy Satan, God decides to set things right with creation - again. But this time, he asks, why stick around the dusty Land of Israel or a decaying heaven when there’s a much bigger world to explore - and countless others out there just waiting to love and praise him?

Paige McAllister needs to do something drastic. Her boyfriend can't even commit to living in the same country, her promised promotion is dead on arrival, and the simultaneous loss of her brother and her dream of being a concert violinist has kept her playing life safe and predictable for six years. A moment of temporary insanity finds her leaving her life in Chicago to move to Sydney, Australia. There she finds herself, against many of her convictions, as a logistics planner for one of Australia's biggest churches and on a collision course with her boss' son.

This transformative audiobook invites you to imagine scenes like David, Saul, Doeg, and Ahimelech brought to life on stage, blending tragedy with a surprising dose of divine humor. Yes, humor—because the Bible shows us a Yahuwah with a profound sense of joy and laughter. As Solomon wisely said, "A merry heart does good like medicine," and the Apostle Paul reminds us, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Jesus himself was anointed with the oil of joy, bringing laughter, light, and healing wherever he went.

The year is 1970. The horror soap opera Dark Shadows is all the rage, the Vietnam War is raging and nine-year-old Katie, an imaginative and independent latch-key kid, comes home from school to discover her mother’s suicide. Taken in by her older sister who has recently become a Jehovah’s Witness, Katie is shown an illustration from a bible picture book featuring wild animals peacefully lounging by a pool of water, surrounded by happy people picking fruit. An enticing offer is made: “Katie, this is Paradise. Do you want to see Mom again, happy and living forever?

In this short story from Nathan Englander's collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, a Protestant, after a religious awakening in the back of a New York taxi, realizes he has a Jewish soul.

Restore the wonder of the parables, the joy of the Gospel...and the discomfort of the Sword of Truth stabbed firmly in your gut. Not the Parables of Jesus contains more than 40 different takes on the original parables to snap us out of our over-familiarity and to open our eyes to the truth of the Gospel. Often fun, sometimes poignant, and occasionally painful, these parables reveal our cultural biases, hidden assumptions, and the lies we believe.