Editorials
Good News Wearing a Red Nose
German church clowns meet to discuss humor and faith
October 28, 2010
The stars fell into the sky when God was practicing juggling. This is Leo the Clown's version of the creation story. Behind this lanky, 1.9-meter-tall character wearing ankle-length trousers and a white shirt is Steffen Schulz from Halle. He is presumably Germany's only full-time church clown.
Contrary to controversy-stirring examples such as the Mohamed caricatures, the MTV series "Popetown" and some covers of Titanic magazine, church clowns make innocent jokes about religion. Most of them are Christian themselves and their program is an attempt to decomplexify access to faith. To do this, they reconcile what often enough is considered to be irreconcilable: humor and faith.
Beginning on Friday (October 22), around 20 practitioners of this minor art are holding their first nationwide assembly in St Laurentius Church in Halle. One of the topics to be discussed there through Sunday will be the conflicting relationship between humor and belief. Most participants slip into the role of these clumsy circus characters during their free time, whereas Leo earns his living as a church clown. Leo says that he earns 470 euros for an appearance and works mostly on Sundays. He performs at worship services, entertains at parish fairs and provides inspiration for youth congregations.
The 39-year-old is a professional care-giver and educator. He also did a distance education course in theology. Now, he says, he can combine Christian faith and work. Yet, he does not want to be seen as a missionary. "This term brings to mind too many negative historical connotations." He simply wants to "tell Bible stories, wearing a red nose rather than a robe."
For the former bishop of Magdeburg Axel Noack, who intends to visit the assembly, clowns can even play an important role in bringing people into contact with the church . He feels that, while some pastors have developed a "genuine people phobia," the clown goes directly to them. He employs a peculiar form of proclamation that is closer to people.
The Catholic bishop of Magdeburg, Gerhard Feige, feels that church clowns can "break molds and dissolve rigidities," and thereby communicate "harsh truths in an empathetic way." However, Feige also likens the interplay between faith and humor to tightrope walking. "It depends on whether one is an outsider or an insider, pleasant or aggressive." A cynical joke "that attacks what is most sacred to you" is no longer funny.
Even Noack, who in his own words has a "broad mind," does not laugh at everything. "It must not become blasphemous." Religious scholar and self-proclaimed "laughter researcher" Harald Alexander Korp from Berlin, in contrast, says Protestants should learn to relax. Unlike Catholics, Protestants tend to perceive joviality as a provocation, says Korb, who teaches seminars on faith and humor at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and the Georg August University in Göttingen.
Leo the Clown's experience has not borne that out. He has been welcomed in nearly all congregations with open arms. "Protestants, too, enjoy a good laugh," he said. Only in the Free churches, reputed to be theologically conservative, has he had a somewhat harder time. The more "sacrosanct" a value, the more painful are jokes about it, is an equation Korp has repeatedly verified. For that very reason, church and humor will continue to be at odds, even if church clowns bring in a degree of reconciliation. "Wherever there are taboos, laughter has its place," he says. (epd)