Douglas E. Cowan, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Sociology
University of Missouri-Kansas City

Abstract

Using a recent episode of the adult cartoon South Park, this essay explores the function of ridicule in the cultural construction of religious rivalry. Principally, this essay argues that ridicule is not a product of derision, but of the social relationships that make derision meaningful. Functionally, ridicule serves two purposes: (1) stabilization, that is, it preempts or reduces deviance within both the aggressor group and the aggressor audience; and (2) hierarchization, that is, it reflects and reinforces a dynamic of status ascription within a given domain of social interaction.

Introduction

[1] From the plays of Aeschylus to the pamphleteering of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, from the satirical stories and essays of Mark Twain to the unrestrained sarcasm of Hunter S. Thompson, and from the antipathetic propaganda of war-time posters and advertisements to the often stinging insight of editorial cartoons such as G.B. Trudeau’s venerable Doonesbury, ridicule has served as a trenchant form of social commentary. An often powerful means by which deviance is established in an effort to exert social control over particular groups or individuals, the ability to portray one’s opponents as ridiculous, pathetic, ignorant, or absurd has long been part of the arsenal brought to the arena of social conflict. While there is some scholarly literature on the process and function of ridicule (see, for example, Caranfa 1981; Getz 2002; Janes and Olson 2000; Kemeny 2003; Klapp 1949; Klein-Zolty 1994; Raphael and Herberich-Marx 1994; Schwartz 2001), it is such a prevalent commentarial form that we often miss its significance as a mechanism of labeling, deviance, and the reinforcement of cultural hierarchies. Specifically, making particular groups or individuals appear ridiculous serves two mutually reinforcing purposes: (1) it marginalizes the target group and reduces its status both in the eyes of those doing the ridiculing and (presumably) their intended audience, and (2) it amplifies the place of the group or individual doing the ridiculing and increases its status. That is, ridicule renders the target inferior, while simultaneously invoking the superiority of the one doing the ridiculing.

[2] Originating in the Latin rideo (“to laugh”), ridicule is not a point in conceptual or performative space, but rather a range of behaviours designed to highlight or caricature specific aspects of the target and to elicit particular responses in the audience. While ridicule can be as simple and crude as pointing out what one regards as the deficiencies in another’s physical appearance and laughing at them, more sophisticated forms are predicated on the shifting nuances of language, the inversion of accepted categories of cultural interpretation, and an ethical imperative that seeks to demonstrate the way in which targeted social phenomena, groups, or individuals ought to be regarded.

[3] In this essay, I will use one particular example of cultural satire—Episode 712 of the adult television cartoon, South Park (Parker and Stone 2003)—to explore (1) the concept of “the ridiculous” as a species of cultural deviance, and (2) “ridiculousness” as a tactic in the prosecution of religious rivalry, an instantiation of the reflexive relationship of inferiority and superiority in which both the ridiculed and the ridiculer inevitably stand. It is important to note at this point that, although I will offer a fairly detailed précis of the episode, South Park is not the principal focus of the paper. Rather, it provides the platform from which to discuss larger issues of religious rivalry and cultural contest—specifically when these occur as aspects of evangelical Christianity.

[4] Entitled “All about the Mormons?”, Episode 712 came to my attention in a couple of ways. First, in a message to the online evangelical discussion list AR-forum, Richard Abanes, a prolific Christian author and countercult apologist (see, for example, 1998a, 1998b, 2001, 2002a, 2002b), wrote:

I thought I would post this announcement for a show I rarely endorse—SOUTH PARK. They are going to run an absolutely hysterical episode about a Mormon family that moves to South Park. GET YOUR VIDEO RECORDERS READY FOR THIS ONE. It is an absolute scream, especially for all of us anti-Mormons (Abanes 2003; emphasis in the original).

[5] Then, within a few days, students in each of my classes made reference to the same episode and in much the same fashion. That is, South Park, arguably one of the most consistently irreverent programs currently airing, would be dealing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and that their treatment would be characteristically low-brow and crude (albeit often very insightful and very funny). In terms of the cultural construction of religious critique and ridicule, it is not unimportant that Abanes considers himself an “anti-Mormon,” and that one of my former graduate students who made similar comments about the show is a convert from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now the Community of Christ) to conservative evangelical Christianity. The question, then, is what made this episode of South Park “hysterical” or “an absolute scream,” in Abanes’ words, and what does that designation mean in the cultural construction of religious ridicule and rivalry? As I indicated above, before we consider this question, however, and those that derive from it, a fairly detailed précis of the episode itself is in order.

Episode 712: “All about the Mormons?”

[6] “All About the Mormons?” tells the story of the Harrisons, a Latter-Day Saints family who move from Utah to the mountain town of South Park. The middle child, Gary, is the same age as the small gang of South Park regulars—Stan, Cartman, Kyle, and Kenny. Unlike the regulars, however, Gary is a model student (4.0 average) and star athlete (state wrestling champion) who immediately shows up the other children in class at South Park Elementary. In typical South Park style—though hardly an inaccurate portrayal of the real-life experiences of newcomers to many schools—the other children decide to “welcome” Gary by beating him up on the playground. Usually the voice of reason on the program, Stan Marsh is given the task of administering the beating, but when he approaches Gary, he is met by an almost Gandhian response:

STAN: I’m gonna kick your ass... bitch.

GARY: How come you want to fight me? Oh, I get it. I’m the new kid. Yeah, I guess maybe I deserve it.

STAN: Huh?

GARY: It’s really tough being in a totally new place, but I think all you guys are really cool. So, I understand if there’s initiation rites.

STAN: Dude, stop it.

BUTTERS: Kick his ass, Stan!

STAN: Shut up, Butters!

GARY: The other kids are watching. Look, do what you gotta do, I won’t fight back. I just hope that maybe afterwards we can try to be friends someday. (All episode references are to Parker and Stone 2003)

[7] The fight, of course, does not take place, and when Stan returns to his group of friends, not a little confused by his experience, he tells them, “I’m going over to his house for dinner tonight.” “You’re having dinner with his family?” responds Kyle, incredulous. “What kind of family has a kid like that?”

[8] What kind, indeed?

[9] This incidence of schoolyard satyagraha (“truth-force”; Gandhi [1927] 1957) brings Stan to Gary’s house for “Family Home Evening,” a well-known tradition in the LDS Church. In Gary’s words, this is “when we don’t allow any TV, and just entertain each other with music and stories.” According to LDS teachings, in a concerted effort to strengthen internal family ties—a not insignificant stabilization mechanism for a new religious movement that has often found itself in conflict with local authorities and other non-Mormons (for a variety of perspectives on this conflict, see, for example, Abanes 2002b; Barrett 1973; Cowan 2003; Givens 1997; Hansen 1981; Ostling and Ostling 1999; Quinn 1998; Warenski 1978)—Family Home Evening originated with President Joseph F. Smith (1838-1918) in 1915. In 1970, President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972), Joseph F. Smith’s son, designated Monday night as Family Home Evening. No church activities would be planned for that evening, so there would be nothing to compete with intentional family interaction. Latter-Day Saints contend that “our dedication to this program will help protect our families against the evils of our time and will bring us abundant joy now and throughout the eternities” (“What is Family Home Evening?” 2003).

[10] When Stan arrives, Gary’s family is uniformly warm, welcoming, and interested in him—as we learn later, in striking counterpoint to his own family. They play board games, dance, and perform songs and dramatic readings. For Stan’s benefit, this Family Home Evening ends with a retelling of the story of Joseph Smith, Jr., (1805-1844), the founder and first Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and, according to Gary’s older brother, Mark, “only the most important person in the world.” More specifically, the children urge their father to recount their church’s story of how Smith found and translated The Book of Mormon, the foundational text of the LDS faith.

[11] Very often on South Park, extended narratives of this type are presented as musical comedy, and the story of The Book of Mormon is no exception. The introductory song begins:

CHORUS: Joseph Smith was called a prophet / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum / He started the Mormon religion / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

TOWNSPERSON 1: There goes that kooky Joseph Smith.

TOWNSPERSON 2: You know, he claims he spoke with God and Jesus.

TOWNSPERSON 3: Well, how do you know he didn’t?

CHORUS: Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

[12] This begins what is, in fact, a fairly standard retelling of Mormon origins. Seeking divine guidance on which religious path to follow, Joseph Smith had a series of visions in which the existence of a book made of golden plates was revealed to him, as well as the means by which these plates might be translated. The plates narrate what Latter-Day Saints believe is the pre-Columbian history of the Americas, including intertribal warfare between the “Nephites” and the “Lamanites,” two of the “lost tribes” of Israel, and the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus in the Americas. Mormon mythistory maintains that Joseph Smith translated these plates by peering into two “seer stones,” the Urim and Thummim, which he had placed into his hat, and then dictating the results to a variety of amanuenses—his wife, Emma Hale Smith (1804-1879), his financial backer, Martin Harris (1783-1875), and an early convert to Mormonism, Oliver Cowdery (1806-1850). Though he quickly gathered followers, like many religious innovators he was also met with ridicule and outrage by those who regarded him as a spiritual fraud (see, for example, Howe 1834).

[13] When Stan returns home—after a group hug from the Harrisons and despite the fact that he is well past his curfew—his own family barely notices his arrival. When he asks why they have never talked about Joseph Smith like the Harrisons, Stan’s father responds, “What are they, religious kooks?”

STAN: They’re not kooks. They’re cool. I mean, how come we never have a night where we don’t watch any TV, and we just do stuff together and eat and drink.

MR. MARSH: We have that, Stan, it’s called ‘Friday night kegger.’

[14] Mr. Marsh’s reaction to Stan’s insistence that there must be something to the Harrisons’ deeply-held faith is particularly instructive. Finishing his beer as he puts on his coat, he tells his family:

MR. MARSH: I’m going to go have a ‘talk’ with this ‘Mr. Harrison.’ If he thinks he can fill my son’s head with wacko religious crap, he’s wrong.

MRS. MARSH: Randy, don’t cause trouble.

MR. MARSH: Let me handle this, Sharon. You gotta put these cult people in their place or else they never stop. I’m gonna go kick this Mr. Harrison’s ass.

[15] Though he invokes an intensely negative description with which Latter-Day Saints have had to deal for most of their history, and one that continues among the evangelical countercult to this day, Stan’s father has a very similar experience with the elder Harrisons as his son did with theirs. Embarrassed that he might have thought they were proselytizing Stan, they assure Mr. Marsh that they had no such intent. “We just moved here from Utah,” says Mrs. Harrison, “and we’re so used to everyone being Mormon that we—that we forget that not everyone wants to hear about it. Boy, you must furious!” “You know, to be honest,” replies Stan’s father, now happily munching on Mrs. Harrison’s fresh-baked rice krispie squares, “I’ve never known any Mormons. I don’t even know what you people believe. Who was this Joseph Smith guy?” Not surprisingly, this question leads to the musical continuation of the career of the Mormon prophet, this part highlighting attacks on Smith’s credibility and the consequent veracity of the Mormon faith that have been a staple of anti-LDS polemics since Smith’s own time (see, for example, Abanes 1998b, 2002b; Ankerberg and Weldon 1991; Decker and Hunt 1984; Howe 1834; Martin 1976, 1978; McNiece 1898, [1917] 1996; Tanner and Tanner 1981; White 1997):

CHORUS: He found the stones and golden plates / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum / Even though nobody else ever saw them / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

[16] Be that as it may, when Stan’s father returns home, he is carrying a copy of The Book of Mormon, and announces to his wife that, instead of “kicking Mr. Harrison’s ass . . . we’re having their family over for dinner tomorrow night”:

STAN: See, that’s what happened to me!

MR. MARSH: Well, it’s just that the Harrisons are really nice people, and you should see how loving and together their family is. I think there’s something to that religion.

STAN: That’s what they made me think, too!

MR. MARSH: All right, that does it! From now on, our family is Mormon.

[17] While, in typical South Park style, the protrayal of Gary’s family is admittedly over-the-top—painting their faces just prior to donating blood, gushing declarations of familial love, and a kind of hyper-positivity about life that is not uncommon among the deeply devout—it is not inconsistent with the ideal sought by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and stands in stark contrast to the ignorance and pettiness of South Park’s regular residents. The musical story of Joseph Smith continues, though taking on an even more openly skeptical tone and presentation:

MARTIN HARRIS: What’s this all about, Mr. Smith?

JOSEPH SMITH: Mr. Harris, can you keep a secret?

MARTIN HARRIS: Well, sure I can.

JOSEPH SMITH: I have in my possession an ancient book written on gold plates that tells of Jesus Christ’s second coming, here, in America.

MARTIN HARRIS: In America, really? That sounds kind of . . .

CHORUS: Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

[18] Obviously, the chorus is now meant to be heard in a rather different way.

[19] When Stan and his family try to emulate the Harrisons on the next Family Home Evening, it is, predictably, a dismal failure; they have merely appropriated the trappings of the LDS faith, not its substance or its depth. Stan begins to question some of the LDS beliefs about creation, the translation of The Book of Mormon, and, most importantly, Smith’s prophetic authenticity. Reflecting this, the musical narration of the Joseph Smith story continues, and invokes what many critics believe is the most damning piece of evidence against the veracity of The Book of Mormon and the legitimacy of Joseph Smith:

CHORUS: Martin went home to his wife / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum / Showed her pages from the Book of Mormon / Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.

MARTIN HARRIS: And, so, Joseph Smith put his head into a hat, and read to me what the golden plates said. I wrote it all down, and we’re going to publish it into a book.

LUCY SMITH: Martin, how do you know he isn’t just making stuff up, and pretending he’s translating off golden plates?

CHORUS: Lucy Harris, smart, smart, smart / smart, smart, smart, smart, smart

MARTIN HARRIS: Why would he make it up?

CHORUS: Martin Harris, dum de dumb . . . / Lucy Harris, smart, smart, smart / Martin Harris, dumb.

[20] Here, the choral refrain of “Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum” moves completely from an asymbolic harmony line—a simple note on the scale repeated to underscore the melody and the lyrics—to a symbolic commentary on Mormon origins—belief in these origins is (and by extension ought to be) considered “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”

[21] Dumbfounded himself, Stan responds to the story of Mormon origins in a manner that has not changed since Eber Howe’s first critique, Mormonism Unvailed, was published in 1834, only four years after The Book of Mormon itself. “Wait,” says Stan, after Mr. Harrison recounts the final chapter of The Book of Mormon origins, “Mormons actually know this story, and they still believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?”

MR. HARRISON: Well, sure, the story proves it, doesn’t it?

STAN: No, it proves that he did make it all up. Are you blind?

MARK: Well, Stan, it’s all a matter of faith.

STAN: No, it’s a matter of logic. If you’re going to say things that have been proven wrong, like that the first man and woman lived in Missouri, and that Native Americans came from Jerusalem, then you better have something to back it up. All you’ve got are a bunch of stories about some ass-wipe who read plates nobody ever saw out of a hat, and then couldn’t do it again when the translations were hidden.

MR. MARSH: Hey, Stan, don’t denounce our religion.

STAN: I don’t want to be Mormon, Dad!

[22] The next day, Gary’s final words to Stan bring us to the crux of the issue in terms of religious origins, faith commitment, and the cultural construction of ridicule:

GARY: Listen, I just wanted you to let you know that you don’t have to worry about me trying to be your friend anymore.

STAN: I don’t?

GARY: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice, and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You got a lot of growing up to do, buddy.

[23] Gary, however, cannot completely escape the South Park élan, and says in parting: “Suck my balls.” To which Cartman replies, in the closing words of the episode, “Damn, that kid is cool, huh?”

The “Ridiculous” as a Species of Cultural Deviance

[24] In an article written more than a generation ago, sociologist Orrin Klapp wrote that “fool-making is a continuous social process and operates to enforce propriety and to adjust status” (1949, 157). He regarded the fool as “a collective concept of a kind of person or conduct peculiarly ridiculous and inferior,” and the ability to label someone a fool “a propaganda device of special significance” (1949, 157). Most significantly, though, especially in terms of the evangelical Christian response to Episode 712 demonstrated by both my initial informants, Klapp argued that “the fool represents values which are rejected by the group” (1949, 157). While this is undoubtedly accurate, Klapp’s assessment is incomplete. In terms of the cultural function of ridicule as a species of deviance labeling, I would like to suggest that, depending on the relationship between the ridiculer and the ridiculed, as well as the relationship in which each stands to the audience for which the performance of ridicule is intended, the dynamics are much more complex and much more nuanced than this.

Cultural Attributes of Ridicule

[25] What makes ridicule effective? That is, what are the cultural attributes required to make what we might call a “ridicule event” meaningful, and without which no such meaning can be generated?  Obviously, there needs to be (1) a person or group doing the ridiculing, and (2) a person or group targeted for ridicule. Following Getz (2002), who argues that ridicule is a particular form of social aggression, I call these the “ridicule aggressor” and the “ridicule target,” noting that each can be an individual, a group, or an individual functioning as a metonym for the group. As sub-categories, it is important to point out also that there are both primary and secondary aggressor(s), as well as primary and secondary target(s). In the case of South Park, for example, Trey Parker and Matt Stone can be considered the primary aggressors in the principal ridicule event; they created the performative vehicle for ridicule by writing and producing Episode 712. By using the South Park episode to reinforce what they believe is the ridiculousness of Latter-Day Saints’ belief and practice, on the other hand, Abanes and his countercult cohort function as secondary aggressors; they use the primary aggression of someone else to generate their own subordinate ridicule event, one which is aimed, by implication, at all Latter-day Saints (the secondary targets). They point out what they regard as the ridiculousness of all Mormon believers by laughing at the particular believers in Episode 712. “It is an absolute scream,” Abanes writes (2003), “especially for all of us anti-Mormons.” In terms of the apologetic agenda of the evangelical Christian countercult—which will be considered in more detail below, but which, put simply, regards all faith traditions other than its own as spiritually suspect at best and satanically inspired at worst (see Cowan 2003)—secondary targets for this kind of ridicule could easily be any of the other religious groups or movements that countercult apologists regard as problematic.

[26] Since ridicule is primarily a performative act, there must be (3) an audience for whom the act of ridicule is intended; this can be the group of which the aggressor is a part or before which he or she is officially or unofficially performing. In order for a meaningful ridicule event to occur, however, one in which the audience understands the humour intended by the ridicule, there must also be (4) some kind of preexisting relationship between the aggressor and the target, and (5) some manner of shared understanding within the aggressor community (and the audience, if the ridicule is externally performative) about why this particular ridicule event is to be regarded as humorous. This is especially so if the target exists in the abstract, and is, as Getz (2002) puts it, “not present but imagined, [in which case] the intention of the humorist is often self-presentational, or face-saving.” I would like to suggest that, because of the necessary connection between the aggressor and the target, ridicule is always self-disclosive, revealing at least as much about the former as it does about the latter. The significance of this relationship is highlighted by the question mark at the end of Episode 712’s title: “All About the Mormons?” That is, is the episode “all about the Mormons,” or does it more accurately expose and hold up to ridicule the kind of cultural and religious provincialism that renders the religious Other deviant and suspect?

[27] In the case of South Park, for example, though there is an obvious element of ridicule in Episode 712 itself, it is the lengthy and preexisting relationship between the evangelical Christian countercult and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that renders comments such as Abanes’ a meaningful secondary ridicule event, one that makes it “hysterical.” Similarly, the often antagonistic relationship between religious movements and former members makes the episode meaningful for my former student. Thus, it is important to note here that ridicule is not a function of derision alone, but of the social relationships that make derision meaningful. Would a person with no background knowledge of Latter-Day Saints history and beliefs have found the episode “absolutely hilarious”? Or would she have focused more on the hostile and petty reactions of the narrow-minded South Park regulars to newcomers in their midst? Would she have pointed out the similarly fanciful—and often contested—origins of culturally dominant religious traditions, and the charges of manipulation to which they are open? Finally, (6) ridicule is a temporary phenomenon, and requires ongoing reinforcement to maintain its social and cultural effectiveness.

Correlates of Ridicule in Episode 712

[28] If the attributes of ridicule are the cultural components necessary for a meaningful ridicule event, the correlates of ridicule are the arguments, allegations, or examples used to render a particular practice or belief ridiculous, absurd, or pathetic. Following Stark and Bainbridge’s usage (1985, 19-20), an attribute identifies elements that are always present in a thing, a correlate may or may not be present in particular examples of that thing. While having a surface on which to sit is an attribute of a chair, having that surface padded in tuck-pointed brown leather are correlates. Attributes define phenomena; correlates specify particular instances of phenomena. In the context of Episode 712 and the evangelical countercult reaction to Mormonism that results in a ridicule event, these correlates illustrate (1) the tension between competing systems of belief that claim to share a common religious pedigree, and (2), in light of those claims, what countercult apologists like Abanes regard as the patently ridiculous nature of LDS origins, belief, and practice.                                                                

[29] In the late modern period, evangelical countercult writings about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints range from more-or-less sincere attempts to interact with and engage the similarities and differences between the two faith communities (e.g., Blomberg an d Robinson 1997; Beckwith, Owen and Mosser 2002) to what could be described as little  more than Christian hate literature (e.g., Ankerberg and Weldon 1992; Decker 1982, 1987; Decker and Hunt 1984; Decker and Matrisciana 1993). Most, however, like Abanes’ work, fall somewhere between these two extremes and content themselves to point out (endlessly, it seems) the particular correlates of ridicule noted below (for other examples that range along this continuum, see Geer 1986; Martin 1976, 1978; Rhodes 1995; Spencer 1984, 1986; Tanner and Tanner 1981; White 1997).

[30] For evangelical countercult apologists such as Richard Abanes, I would suggest that the epigrammatic moment in Episode 712 is Stan’s exclamation during the Harrisons’ family visit.

STAN: Wait, Mormons actually know this story, and they still believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?

Indeed, this is precisely what Abanes and his colleagues regard as ridiculous, and why they continue to publish reams of material yearly “exposing” the origins of the LDS church and calling on the evangelical faithful to combat what the grandfather of countercult apologetics, Walter R. Martin (1928-1989), called “one of the cleverest counterfeits of the true gospel yet devised” (1980, 63; for similar appraisals, see Martin 1976, 1978; though, see also Cowan 2003, 71-76, 134-41). In this, three particular correlates of ridicule emerge in terms of what countercult apologists regard as (1) the untrustworthy character of Joseph Smith, (2) the suspicious origins of The Book of Mormon, and (3) the subsequent growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in light of what they consider the patently ridiculous nature of (1) and (2).

[31] In his own writings about the LDS Church, for example, Abanes concentrates much of his energy on both the character of Smith and the Book of Mormon origins. Alluding to what he considers the ridiculous nature of LDS history and belief, he titled an early essay “Mormonism Through the Looking Glass” (1998b), and dealt briefly, for example, with “Joseph the Occultist” (1998b, 190-97), as well as the possibility of other sources for The Book of Mormon from which Smith simply plagiarized the ur-text of the LDS faith. He expanded these in two considerably lengthier treatments (Abanes 2002b, 2004), concluding in One Nation Under Gods that “the history of Mormonism is rife with nefarious deeds, corruption, vice, and intolerance,” and that its “fruits” “included lust, greed, theft, fraud, violence, murder, religious fanaticism, bribery, and racism” (2002b, 436). That Abanes attributes many of these to what he argues are Mormonism’s fraudulent origins is clear. That few religious traditions, however, including Christianity, are exempt from similar charges either largely escapes or is patently ignored by evangelical apologists like Abanes, and countercult literature is suffused with similar examples of this glaring omission. In short, while these are extended exercises in demonstrating what countercult apologists regard as the ridiculous nature of LDS beliefs, they are predicated on an evangelical Christian worldview that allows for no religious authority other than its own and that preemptively dismisses the possibility that there are any other faithful means by which humanity might approach the divine.

[32] The question remains, though: Why would writers such as Abanes, Ankerberg, Weldon, and others expend such enormous amounts of time and energy on such projects? For Stone and Parker, the investment of time is obvious. Their television program is highly popular and requires a constant stream of new material for satire and ridicule. But what of Abanes and his countercult colleagues?

Cultural Functions of Ridicule        

[33] Klapp argued that “because fool-ascription is a status descent, social relations are continually rendered unstable by fool-making” (1949, 159). By this he meant that labelling someone a fool in the context of a particular group destabilized the group as a result of the change in constituent status quo. While this could certainly be the case, based on an understanding of ridicule that is predicated on the relationships described above, I would like to suggest that ridicule also serves two much more powerful functions: (1) stabilization, that is, ridicule preempts or reduces deviance within both the aggressor group and the aggressor audience; and (2) hierarchization, that is, ridicule reflects and reinforces a dynamic of status ascription within a given domain of social interaction.

[34] First, by directing the attention of the group beyond group boundaries, ridicule focuses collective awareness and reflexively stabilizes the identity of the aggressor group—at least in terms of the constituents of the particular ridicule event. Put simply, members of the aggressor group or the audience for which the ridicule event is intended do not want to be included in the target group. When a group of people who share affinities that make a specific act of ridicule meaningful point and laugh together at what they regard as the unfortunate circumstances of another—recall, once again, Abanes: “It is an absolute scream, especially for all of us anti-Mormons”—this shared understanding stabilizes identity within the aggressor group. As I have suggested above, this focused awareness is reflexive, in that, ridicule has power only in the context of a dyadic relationship between the one(s) ridiculed and the one(s) doing the ridiculing. In pointing out the (alleged) flaws in the target, the aggressor asserts (or at the very least implies) that he or she does not possess those same flaws, and neither does the group for whom the ridicule is performed. Put in the rather stark terms of primary group theory, ridicule establishes a stable but temporary relationship between we who ridicule and they who are ridiculed, in the countercult case, we who believe correctly versus they whose beliefs are ridiculous.

[35] Douglas Groothuis, a popular countercult author who has written numerous books and articles condemning various aspects of the New Age movement for similar failings that Abanes notes among the Latter-Day Saints, calls the process I have been describing as ridicule “negative apologetics.” For Groothuis, and I would argue most countercult apologists, this process “assumes that . . . if non-Christian world views are largely based on false ideas, the weakness of those world views can be highlighted through argumentation” (1988, 67). That is, removing the conditional “if” (which Groothuis uses here in purely rhetorical fashion), because these worldviews are “based on false ideas,” they can and ought to be demonstrated ridiculous. Indeed, many countercult apologists regard this as their primary religious duty. According to Groothuis (1988, 67), “Negative apologetics says, ‘Your perspective doesn’t make sense; and it doesn’t fit the facts. Therefore, you shouldn’t believe it.’”

[36] “We who ridicule those who are ridiculed” leads to the second cultural function of the process: a dynamic ascription and/or reinforcement of relative status within a particular social domain. For many countercult apologists, the notion of a hierarchy of religions somewhat overstates the concept. Rather, based on the acceptance of certain doctrinal principles and the performance of particular rites of conversion, there is a mutually exclusive relationship between those who are saved and those who are not. In stark soteriological terms, there are evangelical Christians, those who subscribe to the “correct” set of beliefs (the “saved”), and everyone else (the “unsaved”). Within the camp of “everyone else,” however, there is a clear hierarchy based on how close to evangelical principles and rites of conversion countercult apologists feel the targeted religionists are. While some evangelical Christians might find dialogue with Latter-Day Saints fruitful (for example, Blomberg and Robinson 1997), for example, I suspect few would entertain the thought of similar dialogue with theistic Satanists. Oneness Pentecostals may be regarded as fellow Christians in need of theological realignment, but Raëlians are simply dismissed as “cult” members. Following Groothuis’ principle of negative apologetics, however, all other faiths are considered ridiculous and all are hierarchized according the relative degree of ridiculousness when considered against the standards of evangelical Christianity.

“Ridiculousness” and the Cultural Construction of Religious Rivalry

[37] The cultural process of ridicule depends on a number of factors, two of which are the substance of the inferiorizing information, and the cultural relationship in which the ridiculer and ridiculed stand. An equally important factor, though, is the cultural frame in which the inferiorizing information is communicated, the social context according to which we determine whether something should be taken seriously or not. A classic example of what happens when cultural frames are confused is Orson Welles’ famous 1938 “Mars Attacks” broadcast. Because some of the audience either did not know or had ceased to believe that they were listening to CBS’s Mercury Theater of the Air, and interpreted the reading of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds as an actual news broadcast, they took it seriously. Although the reports of mass hysteria, armed response, and an exodus of frightened citizens from Harlem have been relegated to the status of urban myth, or, in the words of Edward Jay Epstein, a “fictoid” (n.d.), that some people mistook fiction for fact that night is not in dispute. Because they confused the cultural frames in which that particular information was communicated, they misconstrued radio theater for broadcast journalism.

[38] Thus, in terms of ridicule and the cultural process of deviance specification, it is worth asking how Abanes and his countercult colleagues, or my former graduate student, would have reacted if the same information about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (less the song-and-dance, of course) had been presented as a PBS special or on the History Channel, and not as part of program devoted to cultural satire and broadcast on Comedy Central. Represented as responsible television journalism, for example, would it have elicited similar reactions? Would Abanes or my former student have found it “hysterical” if presented on The Learning Channel or The Knowledge Network? My position, not unsurprisingly, is: No, they wouldn’t. As I indicated at the beginning of this essay, the actual information Episode 712 presents about LDS beliefs, origins, practices, and the critiques they have endured is fairly accurate—Stone and Parker’s satiric commentary notwithstanding. A PBS program devoted to this kind of information about LDS origins would not have gone unnoticed by the evangelical countercult community, but their reaction to the information is related to the frame of its presentation, and reveals, I would argue, considerably more about countercult apologists than Latter-day Saints.

[39] Members of AR-forum, the Internet discussion group to which Abanes posted his initial notice, regularly post messages about television programming that they regard as relevant to their evangelistic mission. Sometimes there is concern that “deviant” religious subjects are being treated too seriously—a network special on Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003), for example, and what many believers regard as its denigration of traditional Christianity, a topic on which Abanes has also published (2004). Other times, members offer commentary or seek insight from their colleagues into the theological or moral value of this program or that. In January 2005, when NBC began airing Medium, a program about a psychic who assists in criminal investigations, numerous AR-forum members opined that this was yet more evidence of the spiritual decline of late modern society. Often, when considering what we could call “intrareligious” conflicts, these requests or comments are articulated in terms of whether “Rev. X” or church “Y” has a “sound theology,” whether they believe in “orthodox” Christianity— which means in practice whether they hold to the same beliefs as the countercult apologists. (On the evangelical hubris of orthodoxy, see Cowan 2003, 54-60). Because they recognize that it is counterproductive, though, outright ridicule such as that implied in Abanes’ note is relatively rare. Thus, the frame in which the information is presented becomes important.

[40] Episode 712 produced the particular reactions it did, not because of the information about the LDS faith that it conveyed, but because of the cultural frame in which that information was presented. It was considered “hysterical”—which I conceptualize here as “ridiculous”—because it was presented in a cultural frame in which things are regularly ridiculed. While this relationship may seem obvious, it is a useful example of how religious rivalries are constructed, reinforced, and prosecuted in an effort to establish and maintain cultural dominance and superiority. Abanes took advantage of the rare opportunity presented by the South Park frame to articulate in rather stark terms what countercult apologists often mask behind a rhetoric of pious concern for adherents of suspect religions—what you believe is ridiculous, it “‘doesn’t make sense; and it doesn’t fit the facts. Therefore, you shouldn’t believe it’” (Groothuis 1988, 67).

Conclusion: Why It’s All “Slightly Ridiculous”

[41] When he learned that I was writing this essay, Richard Abanes protested that he didn’t really mean anything by calling the attention of the AR-forum list to the program. He pointed out that one of his favourite episodes (though from a show he apparently “rarely endorses”) had to do with Easter and the Passion of the Christ. Significantly, however, he did not call this episode to the attention of his countercult colleagues, nor did he point out that its hilarity was particular for “all of us evangelical Christians.” He did, however, direct his colleagues to the “ridiculousness” of Latter-Day Saints’ beliefs.

[42] So, why is any of this important? Among a host of other contributions, theorists ranging from Sigmund Freud ([1901] 1960) to Harold Garfinkel (1967), and from Erving Goffmann (1959, 1967, 1971) to Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1991, 1993), have taught us that small things matter. Seemingly mundane conversation, throwaway comments, the unspoken assumptions that allow for meaningful communication and significant interaction among social groups—all of these contribute to the functioning of human collectivities as groups, and not simply as random aggregates. In this, the throwaway comments of an evangelical Christian apologist and a former student converted from the RLDS to evangelical Christianity have led to a consideration of the foundational manner in which ridicule contributes to the process of religious rivalry.

[43] According to Manuel Castells, a culture is “a set of values and beliefs informing behavior” (2001, 36). This implies that each of us lives not in one culture, as we often think, but in several different cultures, moving between and among them according the demands of our daily lives. However, continues Castells (2001, 37), culture is not individualistic; rather, “it is a collective construction that transcends individual preferences, while influencing the practices of people in the culture.” Broadly construed, the culture of the evangelical countercult—the “set of values and beliefs informing [its] behavior”—are restricted on one side by a high need to maintain the boundaries of what its adherents regard as “proper” conservative Christianity, and, on the other hand, as a function of that worldview maintenance, a commitment to proselytize (and ultimately convert) adherents of any other religious tradition. To this end, religious “others”—whether defined intrareligiously as “heretics” or “false teachers,” or interreligiously as followers of “false religions”—are continually created by members of the evangelical countercult, and held up to a wide variety of ridicule and abuse.

[44] Conceptually, there are two aspects to the ridicule as a mechanism of social labeling: the primary intent of ridicule (inferiorization) and the philosophy often behind ridicule (to make something appear ridiculous as a method of social commentary and control). For countercult apologists such as Abanes (and those he includes in his South Park note as “anti-Mormons”), ridicule as a means of boundary maintenance and social control operates in two interrelated cultural orientations: (1) its LDS orientation, and (2) its evangelical Christian orientation. Each of these divides further into two specific functions. In mundane terms, for countercult apologists, every person who converts to the LDS Church is one less conversion to evangelical Christianity; each one who leaves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for evangelical Christianity, on the other hand, is one more victory in the ongoing spiritual battle against counterfeit religion.

[45] In its Latter-day Saints orientation, as a primary ridicule event Episode 712 serves the countercult agenda (a) prophylactically and (b) therapeutically. As prophylaxis, its satiric representation of LDS beliefs as ridiculous acts to prevent conversion to the LDS Church. “Wait,” says Stan, incredulous, “Mormons actually know this story, and they still believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?” As a function of therapeutic restoration, countercult apologists hope that representing LDS beliefs as ridiculous will facilitate the conversion of Latter-day Saints to evangelical Christianity. For those who question the aptness of a disease metaphor in this instance, consider the opinion of Ron Rhodes, another prolific countercult apologist and dedicated “anti-Mormon,” on “the culting of America.” “Of course,” writes Rhodes (1994: 26), “there are no skull-and-crossbones POISON warning labels stamped on the cults, labels like those found on deadly elements. Tragically, though, innumerable people in the United States are drinking down spiritual cyanide by the megadose and are completely oblivious to the fact that they are bringing about their own doom.” In its evangelical Christian orientation, rendering the religious Other ridiculous serves both (c) the process of evangelism, what Abanes and his countercult colleagues regard as the real mission of faithful Christians, and (d) boundary reinforcement, as the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are inferiorized and marginalized, evangelical Christianity (at least as it is understood and practiced by countercult apologists) is centralized and superiorized.

[46] If the increasing reflexivity of anthropology and sociology has taught us anything it is that what appears ridiculous is culturally constructed and situationally determined. No one stands outside the parameters of their own observations, watching the play of social actors from a place of omniscience and objectivity. Ridicule—the process of making something appear ridiculous, absurd, or pathetic—need not take the form of open derision, as those who commented on Episode 712 believe. Consider some of the more problematic positions from which classic scholarship began: Emile Durkheim’s conception of the “primitive,” for example, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life ([1912] 1996); or Sigmund Freud’s classic, Totem and Taboo, which describes the aboriginal peoples of Australia as “the most backward and miserable of savages,” to whom “it is highly doubtful whether any religion, in the shape of a worship of higher beings, can be attributed” ([1913] 1950, 4); or Bronislaw Malinowski’s intensely unflattering portrait of his research subjects in A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term ([1967] 1989). More recently, in New Age Thinking, M. D. Faber offers a “psychoanalytic critique” of the New Age movement, a critique that he believes is demonstrated clearly within the context of Freudian epistemology. Indeed, few scholars are as unequivocal (or derisive) in their thesis as Faber, who writes, “I regard New Age thinking as essentially regressive or infantile in nature . . . New Age thinking makes war on reality; it denigrates reason; it denies and distorts what I consider to be the existential facts of our human experience; it seeks to restore the past, specifically, the before-separation-world, in an idealized, wish-fulfilling form that has little or no connection to the adult estate” (1996, 14-15).

[47] In any “alien” culture, there will be much that will seem patently ridiculous. The task of a responsible sociology of religion, however, especially one that orients itself according to “whatever passes for ‘knowledge’” (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 15) in a particular culture, is first and foremost to understand seemingly ridiculous positions in their own context. When we compare these seemingly ridiculous positions, the culturally constructed and authorized nature of these positions becomes clear. Consider the case of another former student, a Sikh newly arrived in the United States, who believed (not unreasonably given the yearly commercial hype and popular culture) that Easter was a festival during which Christian worshipped bunnies.

Postscript: Professors Durkheim and Berger Visits South Park

[48] Though I suspect that very few Latter-day Saints would express it so bluntly as Gary Harrison, if there is an emic epigraph in Episode 712, it is Gary’s final speech to Stan:

GARY: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice, and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You got a lot of growing up to do, buddy.

[49] While many, though by no means all, episodes of South Park end with “the moral of the story,” as it were, this particular ending calls to mind one of Emile Durkheim’s most important “rules for the explanation of social facts, that is, “the utility of a fact does not explain its origins” ([1895] 1982, 119). “When one undertakes to explain a social phenomenon,” Durkheim wrote, “the efficient cause which produces it and the function it fulfills must be investigated separately” ([1895] 1982, 123; emphasis in the original). While some may not regard The Rules of Sociological Method as his most theoretically sophisticated work (e.g., Lukes 1982), the importance of this particular règle in terms of the emergence and undisputed success of Mormonism is clear, and is something of which countercult apologists such as Abanes either willfully ignore or are unaware. That is, explaining the fanciful origins of a social fact like the late modern Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—even if those nineteenth-century origins are found to be entirely fabricated or drawn from distinctly questionable sources—does nothing to diminish the cultural force those facts carry for Latter-Day Saints today. Temples, wards, churches, bookstores, and Family Home Evenings exist as instantiations of meaningful Mormon community. Together with a great many of his evangelical countercult peers, however, Abanes believes that if he can demonstrate the ridiculous nature of LDS origins, then the social fact that is the Church will be weakened.

[50] As Peter Berger trenchantly pointed out in The Sacred Canopy (1967, 29), however, “all socially constructed worlds are inherently precarious.” That is, they are constantly open to the threat of challenge and disconfirmation. And, indeed, as I indicated earlier, this is one of the principle means by which members of the Christian countercult seek to discredit target traditions, to disenchant religious adherents, and to encourage conversion to evangelical Protestantism. Creatively misreading Durkheim for a moment, their argument runs that if the “efficient cause” can be demonstrated flawed, then the social function must be similarly flawed. A reasonable premise, perhaps—there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of empirical evidence for it so far.

[51] Consider the Mormons. If an authentic “Salamander letter” were to be uncovered, if an undisputed document in Joseph Smith’s own hand declared the whole thing an elaborate hoax, does that mean that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it exists today would collapse? Unlikely. Or, consider modern Pagans. If, as Ronald Hutton (1999) and Aiden Kelly (1991) contend, the origins of modern Wicca extend no further back than Gerald Gardner, and do not represent anything like a Pagan revitalization movement, does that mean that modern Paganism—which also claims to be the fastest growing religious movement in the U.S. and in Australia, by the way—will simply disappear? Similarly unlikely. Or, finally, to take perhaps the most obvious example, if in the dusty hills outside Jerusalem an ossuary were to be found and its contents indisputably verified as the bones of Jesus Christ, does that mean that one-third of the world’s population would simply fold up its religious tents and go searching for the nearest dharma center?

[52] I rather suspect not. If nothing else, religious belief and practice have demonstrated tremendous resilience in the face of hostility, critique, and disconfirmation.

[53] In the case of Christianity, at least, I would like to suggest that, metaphorically speaking, the bones of Jesus have already been found, and have been available for viewing roughly since the middle of the nineteenth century. As soon as thinkers like Darwin and Lamarck appeared on the scene and suggested a view of creation other than that delineated in the bible; as soon as the German higher critics pointed out that Moses did not, in fact, write the Pentateuch; as soon as Schweitzer began the search for the historical Jesus and Bultmann divorced him from the Christ of faith; and as soon as liberal theologians began to consider the social and theological value of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue, the bones of Jesus were placed on public display. That is, the theological grounding on which the notion of extra ecclesiam nulla salus was based for more than a thousand years was suddenly called into question, and much of the Christian Church was forced to reconsider its positions, to deal with the cognitive dissonance these discoveries and theories and challenges presented.

[54] It may seem ridiculous to some, but it is the bedrock of religious faith and practice to others.

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