In what Plass describes as "the neurotically positive world of evangelical Christianity" it is unusual to find a genuine satirist who operates, as it were, from the inside.
Adrian Plass describes himself as "a born again Christian – is there some other sort? – or a bigoted, narrowminded git, depending on your perspective".
Looking Good, Being Bad is, meanwhile, described as "a spiritual whistle-blowing exercise" designed "to allow outsiders to laugh at aspects of the church that really are silly, and to persuade insiders to look more carefully at their own self-deceptive practices".
Plass covers many areas, including the random and meaningless use of ‘pulpy words’ such as love, faith, grace, and obedience in exhortational addresses.
He also parodies the modern obsession with producing versions of the Bible that are ‘relevant’. In one modern Bible, Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush, is recast in teenage speak, so that God becomes ‘G-dog’ and utters the immortal line, ‘Talk to the bush, ‘cos the face ain’t listening…’
Wilder flights of imagination have produced the Armpit Angel Voice Sound System and the Automated Arm Raiser, illustrated within the text by Anna Danby.
Plass comments, "The book purports to be an annual report from something called The College of Churchmanship, written and edited by its president, Professor Peter Caws (C.S. Lewis readers may mind a concealed significance in the name), and is inspired by Stephen Potter’s very funny Lifemanship books, published in the late forties and early fifties."
Looking Good, Being Bad - The Subtle Art of Churchmanship (ISBN 9781850788140) is out this week from Authentic Media, priced £9.99
