COLUMN: God is now a book publicist

Every so often in the humor writing business, you start to get worried that the world may be running out of funny things. This has been especially true lately; my colleague Jeff Vrabel has even suggested we might be in the midst of a full-fledged humor recession. But then you get an envelope in the mail declaring, in big, block letters, “MINISTER BELIEVES GOD DEFEATED CLINTON,” and suddenly all is right again.

The Clinton in question is apparently Hillary, and I know: You thought Barack Obama defeated her, even if he now may be wishing he hadn’t. But one North Carolina minister apparently thinks it was all God’s doing, in order to — and I’m going to quote this to make sure I get it right — “make clear His will for woman usurping authority over men.” In other words, Hillary lost because God thought she was an uppity broad; it’s right there in Timothy 2:11-14, wherein God smites she who be uppity.

Now, without getting too deeply into my personal religious beliefs, I should say that I am generally pro-God. However, I’m also fairly skeptical that God is getting too involved in politics, any more than he cares about the outcome of the Super Bowl. I have this gut feeling he’s more of a soccer fan.

I also doubt that he has any problem with women. Jezebels aside, most of the women in the Bible come off much better than the men — I’d take a Ruth or an Esther over an Ahab or a Nebuchadnezzar any day of the week.

But this minister (who I will decline to name, for reasons that will become obvious) paints a vivid picture of his efforts to derail Clinton’s candidacy, even writing her a letter to tell her that “her candidacy was not in the will of God and she would not be blessed.” He apparently “did not get an answer,” probably because if she responded to everyone who told her that her candidacy was not in the will of God, she wouldn’t have time for anything else.

The minister is apparently working hard to remove women from politics completely, before this whole women-in-power thing gets out of hand. Already, these female politicians are everywhere: “It is believed every state has some,” his release states, ominously. (Yes, even Utah! Although there they’re mostly just getting coffee.) Unless America “repents, puts women back into God’s will, [and] stops hugging gays,” we’re basically doomed, he says. To which I respond: It’s going to take a lot more than that to get Kathy Griffin to stop hugging gays.

Which brings me to the reason this minister sent out a four-page press release in the first place: to spread the word of the Lord! Wait, no, I read my notes wrong — it’s actually because he has a book to sell. Um, and that Lord stuff too, probably.

And not just any book: It’s a book that has basically been published by God. First, he “told the Lord in prayer it would take $25,000” to get it published. That’s right, he asked the Lord for the money up front, like you would with a crazy rich uncle you’re trying to get to invest in your independent film. Well, two weeks later, “the Holy Spirit guided him to a website.” You recall Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade? Welcome to the Spiritual Search Engine.

Finally, once he got the book published, he asked God to make it like the Ark of the Covenant, in that it would bring good fortune to any home that kept it, even if people didn’t open it. Translation: We don’t care if you read the darn book as long as you send your check for $29.95. (Payable to the minister, not to God, although his accountant will presumably forward along God’s requisite 10 percent.)

Well, as someone who thinks that if God didn’t want women in politics he wouldn’t have made the male politicians such screw-ups, and who thinks “gays” are perfectly huggable, I’ve decided not to help the minister promote his book by naming him or it in this column. (If you’re that interested I’m sure you can find him through Google, a.k.a. “the Holy Spirit.”) But I have a feeling he may be disappointed, both with his book sales and with the future of American politics.

Still, I think maybe we should lock him in a room with Sarah Palin for a few hours and have somebody write about that. Now there’s a book I’d buy.

This column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”