A Time to Laugh: The Religion of Humor

Humor has a place in religion and religion itself is impoverished when if fails to reveal and develop this aspect of itself. Humor is a part of the tough tissue of religion that binds our hearts together in love, worship, or fellowship/community. Often, however, humor is negatively affected by religion, or religious people are allergic to humor. Capps, who is the Dean of Studies in Religion and Psychology in the United States, tries in this book to show the ways in which humor can be recovered for religion. He argues that religion is diminished when it fails to understand and embrace its own historical connection much of it dating to biblical days to humor itself. His chapters deal with topics ranging from humor as an expression of intimacy to humor as the maintenance of the soul.