How Then Shall We Mock? Ten Principles for Wielding the Sword of Holy Satire

Chesterton once asserted that wit “can truly be the sword of the spirit, and the satirist bears not the sword in vain.”^[1] Men like Augustine, Irenaeus, Luther, Calvin, Pascal, Spurgeon, and Lewis would heartily amen such an evaluation. Yet, in contrast to these older saints, modern ones instinctively dislike satire. An anxious reticence to employ this subversive and polemical language pervades modern Christianity. Though reasons for this hesitancy are legion, Kevin DeYoung models the allergy well in his critique of Doug Wilson’s serrated speech. He argues that Wilson abuses and misuses this holy weapon and thus scares many away from Christ (or, ironically, attracts the wrong kinds). While granting that this category of speech can be useful in theory, DeYoung leaves little place for satire in practice, concluding, “Sarcasm and satire by the minister are best used sparingly.”

1. G. K. Chesterton,“Humor,” The Spice of Life and Other Essays, edited by Dorothy Collins (Beaconsfield, UK: Darwen Finlayson, 1964).

I want to interrogate that word “sparingly.” What falls in that bucket? What guardrails did the older saints erect to protect their use of this sword? Most importantly, how would God have us wield satire? I’ve argued elsewhere that satire is a thoroughly biblical category, so what prudential principles does the Bible provide for its use?

I aim to move toward answering those questions with ten biblical principles, but before getting there, we need to answer a preliminary question: What is satire?^[2]

2. Update: As noted in the podcast introduction to this Longform, this month seeks to engage last year’s dust up related to the Christian use of satiric speech, along with all the ways that Christians are called to speak words that please our Lord. Notably, in the same paragraph that Kevin DeYoung questions satire in his critique of Doug Wilson, he commends the use of “good satire.” Employing good satire, as one of many good words, is the aim of this month and this essay. We pray this piece will move the ball forward in that discussion. (The COA Editors)

Subversive Persuasion

We begin by coming to terms. Satire is an overarching category of what Os Guinness calls “subversive persuasion,”^[3] which includes ridicule, mockery, taunting, oversimplification, and hyperbole. The category resists tidy delineation. However, Leland Ryken’s definition is widely accepted (at least in Christian literature). He defines satire as “the exposure of human vice or folly through rebuke or ridicule.”^[4]

According to Ryken, satire has four components. 1) Satire is aimed at a specific target, thus involving a certain degree of specificity. 2) Satire leverages a medium, whether a whole narrative, a parable, or a single metaphor (e.g., “cows of Bashan” [Amos 4:1]). 3) The medium conveys a satiric tone, communicating the author’s critical attitude toward the target. Broadly speaking, the tone may either wield laughter (humor) or the lash (bite/anger) against the target. 4) Whichever tone is taken, satire always assumes a norm. Satire’s ability to expose incongruities requires a standard to measure against.

In his book-length exploration of satire, Terry Lindvall singles out two further characteristics of Christian satire.^[5] First, satire (generally) attacks with the hope of healing. Lindvall proposes, “The heart of true satire is recognition of a moral discrepancy between what is proclaimed and what is practiced, often with an attempt to remedy it.” Second, although not always funny, satire leverages wit and humor to elicit “recognition of the ridiculous.” Only by wedding these two aspects—moral concern and wit—can satire blossom into a “redemptive art.” Lindvall concludes, “At its best, Christian satire combines laughter and a vision of reform.”^[6]

Finally, holy satire serves as “a form of rebuke and admonition, deployed to correct and reprove someone when they’re headed down a sinful or foolish path.” Joe Rigney points out that this kind of language operates on a dimmer switch to fit the situation and the sin, increasing in intensity from playful ribaldry to prophetic upbraiding.

In sum, satire is a form of subversive persuasion that aims to expose the folly of sin in hopes of reform. Now, we can return to DeYoung’s concern—namely, what biblical principles protect holy satire from unraveling into petty squabbling, sarcastic comebacks, and playground name-calling?

How Then Shall We Mock?

I propose the following ten principles as good and godly guardrails for satirical language:

1. Holy satire burns with love.
2. Holy satire seriously hates sin (and laughs at it).
3. Holy satire imitates the saints.
4. Holy satire channels Chesterton.
5. Holy satire should be practiced in thick, Christian community.
6. Holy satire celebrates God’s revealed will as the Norm.
7. Holy satire may confront for the sake of onlookers.
8. Holy satire answers a fool—and doesn’t.
9. Holy satire resists being steered.
10. Holy satire is a late-game strategy (normally).

While certainly not exhaustive or final, these principles move toward a synthesis of what, by good and necessary consequence, may be deduced from Scripture, along with what sober-minded saints have taught regarding holy satire. When fenced within these prudential boundaries, mocking is (most likely) holy and pleasing to God.

1. Holy satire burns with love.

Holy satire blazes forth from the furnace of love. Sadly, the greatest misunderstandings arise just here. Modernity asserts that satirical language is unloving and, therefore, unbecoming of winsome Christians. However, this objection springs from a truncated vision of love. So, what love fuels holy satire?

First, love for God. The Christian’s primary allegiance belongs to the triune God. His goodness, truth, and beauty are the Christian’s deepest delight. Therefore, love for God should dominate, dictate, and motivate all Christian words and deeds—including holy satire. This joy in all that God is animates a passion to defend his name. Thus, Jesus, who alone has loved God perfectly, was consumed with zeal for the place where God’s name resided, and thus he relentlessly satirized the hypocrisy that makes light of God’s holiness (see Matthew 23). The same fiery love moves the prophets and inspires godly rebuke (Titus 1:9–13). Love for God manifests in righteous zeal and happily fights to defend the Loved.^[7]

7. Wilson’s “The Satire of Jesus” is a helpful chapter on this subject (A Serrated Edge, (Moscow, ID: Cannon Press, 2003).

Second, love for others. Love for others is not sentimental kindness. It is an unflinching determination to do good to others, whether they see such action as loving or not. Indeed, as John Piper has argued, loving others aims to help them to see and savor the greatest of those goods—the triune God. Love’s chief end for men is the chief end of man: to glorify God by enjoying him forever.^[8] Love will settle for nothing less. C.S. Lewis shatters the modern illusion of love as mere kindness or tolerance. He explains,

8. See John Piper’s revision of the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s first question in Desiring God (Multnomah Publishing: Sisters, OR, 2003), 18, 28, 31, passim.

Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; the mere “kindness” which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole of Love . . . Love is more sensitive than hatred itself to every blemish in the beloved . . . Of all powers he forgives most, but he condones least; he is pleased with little, but demands all.^[9]

9. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (Broadway, New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 38–39.

This is the kind of love for others that compels holy satire. By exposing the absurdity of sin, holy satire aims at “perfecting the beloved.”

Thus, satire does not finally seek to demolish but to edify. “Holy mockery seeks to edify others by exposing rebellion for the folly that it is.”^[10] Satire spares not the rod because hard hearts may need to be bruised and broken before mending. It cuts to heal (cf. Hos. 6:2–3). “In afflicting the sinner, satire works as a scourge of God, purifying the soul through a kind of comic mortification.”^[11] If we take Jesus as an example, sometimes the most loving thing to do is call someone a whitewashed tomb (Matt. 23:27).

Men of other ages understood this connection between love and satire. Augustine explains, “Charity may sometimes oblige us to ridicule the errors of men, that they may be induced to laugh at them in their turn, and renounce them.”^[12] In the same vein, Pascal contends, “The spirit of charity prompts us to cherish in the heart a desire for the salvation of those against whom we dispute, and to address our prayers to God while we direct our accusations to men.”^[13] Thus, all Christian satire, worthy of that name, is moved by love for others grounded in love for God. It springs up from a white-hot celebration of the gospel and a will for the good. It begets hope mothered by mockery.

In sum, Chesterton was spot on when he observed that only a man who truly loves a thing will tear it down to build it better. “Before any cosmic act of reform, we must have a cosmic oath of allegiance.” After all, “Love is not blind . . . Love is bound”—bound to work from love of the Good for the good of the loved.^[14] This is the kindling of all holy satire.

14. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Centennial edition (Nashville, TN: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 66.

2. Holy satire seriously hates sin (and laughs at it).

This point serves as a corollary to the previous one. If you kneel in awestruck adoration of God, you will hate evil (Prov. 8:14). Pascal put it this way: “It were impiety . . . to be wanting in contempt for the falsities which the spirit of man opposes to [the truth of God].”^[15] In other words, those who fail to treat sin and folly with contempt display a poverty of love for the good, true, and beautiful.

15. Pascal, “Letter IX,” 168.

Holy satire articulates that contempt with wit and verve. Because satire thrives on revealing incongruities, “Satire is particularly suited to exposing the silliness of sin.” Rigney even includes this contempt of sin in his definition of satire as “an appeal to reality over against the absurdities of sin and rebellion.”^[16]

16. Rigney, “On Satire”

Now, some may ask: Won’t laughter lead to levity in our view of sin? Not necessarily. The seriousness of sin sometimes demands we laugh at it. The Bible everywhere assumes that sin is deadly serious and yet often mocks it. Why? Laugher allows us to recognize sin for the utter folly that it is, instead of elevating it with the kind of respectability and approval the world demands (Rom. 1:32). “There are many things which deserve refutation in such a [mocking] way as to have no gravity expended on them,” explains Tertullian. “Vain and silly topics are met with special fitness by laughter. The truth may indulge in ridicule, because it is jubilant. . . . wherever its mirth is decent, there it is a duty to indulge it.”^[17] Treating some sin and error respectfully cedes ground the Bible calls Christians to defend. We should, like our God, hate rebellion against him enough to mock it (Ps. 2:4).^[18]

After all, laughter not only reveals the depths of our hearts—what tickles our fancy—but it also catechizes our loves and hates. My family makes it a habit to mock the evolutionary propaganda that saturates most nature documentaries for just this purpose. It teaches my kids not to take the modern myth seriously. Augustine encourages a similar lambasting of heresies: “Laugh at these things, while pitying them, to show their falsehood and absurdity.”^[19] The world implicitly understands the power a chuckle can have, leading Rigney to ask, “Could it be that one of the ways that the world advances its rebellion, its blasphemy and heresy, is by teaching us what to laugh at and by demanding that we take its folly seriously?” Holy satire refuses to take the cue and creates its own laugh track.

19. Augustine, “Reply to Faustus the Manichaean,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. IV. Book XV, Chapter 4.

To summarize the first two points, holy satire grows out of ordered loves. The tongue that wields it must be fine-tuned to delight in God and detest evil.

3. Holy satire imitates the saints.

Contrary to the romantic illusion of individualism, Scripture commands imitation. Imitate the prophets “who spoke in the name of the Lord” (Jas. 5:10). Imitate Jesus, whose practice of holy satire left his lips sinless (1 Pet. 2:21–22). Imitate Paul, who imitated Jesus (1 Cor. 11:1). Strikingly, in Philippians 3:17, Paul brackets his call to hierarchical mimesis with satirical language, naming the Judaizers dogs and appetite-worshippers (Phil. 3:2, 19).

Pascal catalogs the satire of the church fathers and concludes that they were those “who, having been the imitators of the apostles, ought to be imitated by the faithful in all time coming . . . They are the true models for Christians, even of the present day.”^[20] Thus, the prophets mocked, Jesus mocked, Paul mocked, ancient saints mocked, and modern Christians should imitate them. That Christians will imitate imperfectly in no way negates the command any more than imperfect obedience vitiates any command.

20. Pascal, “Letter IX,” 171–72.

It would be appropriate here to look at one of the texts often leveled against satire. In Ephesians 4–5, Paul provides several principles of godly speech. Christians should speak truth to neighbors (Eph. 4:25) and avoid corrupting talk, clamor, slander, malice, filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking (Eph. 4:29, 31; 5:4). Christian words should edify, fit the occasion, mediate grace to the hearer, and overflow from a grateful heart (Eph. 4:29; 5:4).

On a cursory reading, Paul’s manifesto of godly speech may seem to prohibit satire. However, there are several reasons to assume he does not intend that. First, Paul himself used satire and called Christians to imitate him. Whatever Paul means in Ephesians 4–5, his habits of speech elsewhere exemplify, and do not contradict,his intention. Second, Paul bids the Ephesians to “not grieve the Holy Spirit” with their speech. Put positively, let the Spirit inspire your speech. Yet, the Spirit sometimes inspires saints to employ insults, hyperbole, and satire (Acts 13:9–10). Therefore, some subversive words do not grieve the Spirit. Finally, right in the middle of this exhortation, Paul says, “Be imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1) and walk in love as Christ did. But of course, Christ judiciously employed holy satire, and he did so in love. If we are to imitate Christ, who used satire, then Paul cannot categorically prohibit satire here. To riff on Lewis, it’s no good trying to be nicer than God.^[21] He approves of satire. He invented it.

21. C. S. Lewis originally (and rightly) said, “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God.” See Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins), 64.

In sum, holy satire is mimetic. Looking to the saints, steeped in Scripture and Christian tradition, the sanctified satirist loves what God loves, hates what God hates, laughs at what God laughs at, and mocks what God mocks.

4. Holy Satire should be practiced in thick, Christian community.

John Donne, a skilled poet-pastor-satirist, knew that no man is an island. The satirist must be planted in thick, fruitful fellowship with other saints in the church. Why? First and most importantly, mature, Bible-saturated saints must hold him rigorously accountable for his words. He must know how to submit to those wiser than him (Eph. 5:21), know how to let love cover a multitude of sins without bearing arms (1 Pet. 4:8), and, because his mimetic efforts will always be imperfect, he must know how to repent and seek reconciliation without delay. Mature believers act as a healthy immune system, keeping serrated language from becoming diseased.

Second, holy satire is properly a whole-body affair. Not everyone is called to be an Ezekiel (few probably are). Although God kept 7,000 men from bowing to Ba’al, only Elijah (it seems) publicly mocked him (Rom. 11:3–4). Only when each part is working properly—both the sharp tongue and the hand that covers it—will the body grow and thrive (Eph. 4:16). Douglas Jones says it well: “Different parts of the body create different things, some swinging at idols, more showing hospitality, creativity, and robust laughter.”^[22] If the body is healthy, a kind of non-anxious playfulness will characterize the whole, lending itself to the shades of serious joy Jones commends.

22. Douglas Jones, “Appendix: Seductive Disrespect,” in A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking, by Douglas Wilson (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2003), 108.

Third, holy satire must grow out of distinctly Christian culture. Jones explains, “Violating the tyrannical decencies of a prevailing idolatry . . . [is] a glorious, sometimes hilarious, negativity, but it has to ride on a deeper, constructive seduction of truth, beauty, and goodness.”^[23] Holy satire must have a godly culture to protect and, more importantly, celebrate, which can only be cultivated by a community of faithful Christian subcreators. The Church militant defends the Church creative.

23. Jones, “Appendix.”

It’s worth noting here that holy satire cannot be in love with quarreling. Although saints must be skilled at correcting opponents, they must not be quarrelsome (2 Tim. 2:24). Hair-pin triggers are a design flaw in satirists. Moreover, the saints must not love to watch quarrels. They must not be rubberneckers. As Virgil warns Dante, “It’s vulgar to enjoy that kind of thing.”^[24] Eagerness to see or start tiffs and rows will render mockery rancid.^[25]

5. Holy satire channels Chesterton.

In conjuring Chesterton, I’m trying to capture two realities that characterize holy satire. First and positively, this kind of speech must overflow from a happy, grateful heart—a heart like Chesterton’s bursting at the seams with thankfulness to God.

Paul presents this Godward joy as the remedy for rotten speech. “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking . . . but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Eph. 5:4). Like a mountain brook, the heart running with gratitude—joy in the goodwill of the Giver—cannot produce the sludge of poisonous speech. That kind of language (which is not the same as holy satire) reveals a withered heart, bereft of gratitude. Thanksgiving is the antidote for ugly speech.

Chesterton perfectly modeled this. His satire cut like a razor but was never ugly. His ridicule was big because his love was big. Only a heart like his, happy in God and humbled by grace, can use satire safely without devolving into the kind of sullied talk that Paul condemns.

Practically then, this positive feature of satire should lead would-be satirists to spend more time in a posture of wonder before God’s lavish goodness, enjoying him and cultivating thanksgiving, instead of hunting for enemies of the faith to dismantle. Ironically, holy mockery in service to God must first be deeply rooted in happy marveling at God. Without such awe and gratitude, the fruit of any speech—satirical or stately—will rot on the branch.

Second, and negatively, holy satire is not reactive. Just because a Christian has a quick wit does not mean he should be quick to the draw. Godly mockery responds with sober-minded intentionality—with stability of soul, clarity of vision, and willingness to act. It is not tossed to and fro by the winds of angst or anger. It never seeks revenge (Rom. 12:19).

Instead, like Chesterton, Christian ridicule is governed by reason and grounded in the sanity of God’s Word. Untethered passion cannot be trusted to control the dimmer switch of satire. When passions run the show, quarrels and bickering take the stage, not holy satire (Jas. 4:1). In fact, when the tongue runs on anger or envy or resentment, it is a flamethrower in a dry forest. Everything will burn (Jas. 3:1–11). Such is not holy satire. And anyone who wields the serrated edge in this way misunderstands the entire medium.

6. Holy satire celebrates God’s revealed will as the Norm.

Because satire must always reference a standard, the norm shapes the mockery. If there is no notion of sanity, vain is the effort to make sin look insane. If all is void, you cannot expose the works of darkness (Eph. 5:11). Many have noted that modern society has lost the art of satire largely because we have lost touch with any kind of assumed norm. Relativism renders satire impossible. I wonder if a similar sickness has subtly crept into the church. As God’s ways are less and less prized, as the world’s assumptions more and more shape us, satire becomes harder and harder to stomach.

Yet holy satire celebrates God’s triune nature as the standard of all goodness, truth, and beauty. And that nature is revealed most clearly in God’s word. Therefore, Scripture is the norma normans for all holy satire. This standard holds supreme in both the content and form of serrated rhetoric.

At its best, satire can “put something into a truer perspective” by exposing “the vast incongruity” between sin and the norm.^[26] For instance, Isaiah’s mockery of idolatry reveals the stunning stupidity of splitting half a log to burn in a bread oven while fashioning the other half into a god (Isa. 40; 44:9–20). In this sense, ridicule serves as a reality check. But to know reality, the godly satirist must be soaked in Scripture. He must not only understand the moral imperatives but also deeply love the indicatives from which they grow. In short, he must be wise.

26. Michael J. Ovey, “The Right to Ridicule?,” Themelios  37, no. 2 (July 2012): 182–84.

“The wise laugh at the foolish,” says Augustine, “because they are wise, not after their own wisdom, but after that divine wisdom.”^[27] This divine wisdom, this love of reality—of God’s norm—hedges in holy satire.

27. Quoted in Blaise Pascal, “Letter XI,” 170–71.

7. Holy satire may confront for the benefit of onlookers (or readers or listeners).

In Acts 13, Paul confronts Elymas because the magician was preventing Sergius Paulus from hearing the gospel. He was “making crooked the straight paths of the Lord” even as Paul tried to pave them. So Paul responded with less than winsome language, calling him a “son of the devil . . . full of deceit and villainy” (Acts 13:10). Here, Paul’s harsh language served as a trebuchet to knock down the walls Elymas erected against others hearing the truth. Similarly, when Jesus rained down his seven-fold woe on the Pharisees, he did so because they were slamming the gates of the kingdom shut in people’s faces. As sons of the devil, they neither wanted in nor would allow anyone else to enter (Matt. 23:13). Like grumpy children, if they couldn’t have their way, no one else would be happy either (Matt. 11:16–19). But Jesus would have none of it. He unsheathed his words to clear the gate.

Both Paul and Jesus wield holy satire to allow refugees from the world to escape from the antagonists of the gospel. “The main target needs to be those who know better.” The wise satirist must distinguish between the deceived and the deceiver. It is just here that the appeal to some kind of universal kindness falls flat. To be kind to the antagonists is to hate the refugees. To cater to wolves puts sheep on platters. In other words, undifferentiated kindness is an illusion. It is axiomatic: kindness to sheep means hostility to wolves, and kindness to wolves means hostility to sheep.

Two other corollaries belong under this heading. First, as public as the sin, thus the rebuke. So in general, when satire responds to folly, the mock should reach the same audience the folly affected. Public platforms should be reserved for public sins. Paul confronted Peter’s sin “before them all” because Peter’s sin concerned them all (Gal. 2:11–14). Understandably, a public rebuke may be awkward for the audience, as well as the intended recipient. But that is the point. Public satire aims to expose public error and protect others from falling into the trap.

Similarly, private satire befits private sin (mostly). As far as we know, Nathan’s satirical parable fell on David’s ears alone (2 Sam. 12:1–10). This is the principle of lex talionis applied to audience, and the relevance can hardly be overstated in this media age. A satirical rebuke on social media should not be the first time thousands have heard of the folly being responded to. You don’t confront a private sin with a megaphone.

Second, Paul’s rebuke of Peter (while not explicitly satirical) illustrates the principle that holy satire can be leveled in love at Christians participating in error, folly, or high-handed rebellion. Jesus’s satirical dismantling of the Pharisees, which was more or less an “in-house affair,” further corroborates this point. And the prophets almost exclusively leveled their most poetic mockery at God’s wayward people. After all, judgment begins with the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17), and holy satire is a God-appointed means of cleaning house.

8. Holy Satire answers a fool—and doesn’t.

Solomon exhorts the wise wielder of words both to answer a fool according to his folly and not to answer a fool according to his folly (Prov. 26:4–5). Presumably, Solomon knew the law of non-contradiction and so was not indulging in folly himself when he made these statements. He knew some fools should be pelted with pearls, but others would only muddy the jewels (Matt. 7:6). As the Preacher says elsewhere, there is a time for everything under the sun—a time to unleash satire that would make Isaiah proud and a time to be as silent as the tomb.

It takes prudence to parse what kind of folly is before you and what response it requires. Therefore, holy satire must be governed by biblical wisdom and wielded by saints with prudence who know their own proclivities. Of course, cultivating the skill of employing satire will include occasional missteps, requiring further qualifications, apologies, and forgiveness. But what part of growing in maturity does not? Satirical wit is, after all, a kind of spiritual wisdom, given by God to whom he will and honed by practice.

In general, then, holy satire should be a tool for mature Christians, not new converts. Mature mocking takes time and practice. The satirist must be well practiced on the lowest settings of the dimmer switch before turning it up. He needs to hone his godly instincts and satiric muscles jibing with friends, scoffing at the documentary Planet Earth’s proselytizing, and reading good practitioners of the art.

Godly satirists should be “men of some age and wisdom . . . not novices, firebrands, and zealots,”[28] because subversive language knows when to answer the fool and when not to. The dimmer switch needs a deft hand.

28. Wilson, Serrated Edge, 109.

9. Holy Satire resists being steered.

The sanctified satirist must have emotional stability and a clear conscience before God, who alone tests the heart (1 Thess. 2:3–4). He must fear God, so that he does not fear man. He must seek to please God, so that he does not submit to the yoke of pleasing man. Assuming the first eight principles are in play (especially the accountability of mature Christian friends), holy satire must be impervious to emotional blackmail, slander, and name-calling. Further, the godly satirist can be happy with that kind of sabotage “for so they persecuted the prophets” when they mocked (Matt. 5:11–12).

It follows that subversive persuasion should not (necessarily) avoid offense. Jesus himself gave offense and did so both knowingly and intentionally. After rebuking the Pharisees, his disciples ask him, “Did you know that the Pharisees were offended?” And Jesus, in essence, replies, “Why, yes I did,” and then doubles down on the offense. “Let them alone; they are blind guides” (Matt. 15:10–14). Jesus adds satire to the initial offense. Unsurprisingly, he was called ugly names as a result. Yet, Jesus refused to dance to the tune they played (Matt. 11:16–19). He loved too well to be steered.

From this, a principle arises: avoiding offense is a poor litmus test for holy satire. In fact, “Sometimes the central point in religious controversy is to give offense.”[29] Peace at any price is not courage but cowardice and leads inevitably to the tyranny of the easily offended. In the end, each will stand accountable to his Master—not the loudest or most fragile (Rom. 14:4).

29. Woolford, “The Use of Satire,” 27.

10. Holy Satire is a late-game strategy (normally).

In general, the pattern of Scripture shows that satire is not the first tool to reach for. A scalpel in skilled hands may prove a very effective instrument of healing, but rarely should it be the first remedy tried. And at times, it may be the last. Wilson warns,

“Sharp rebukes and the ridiculing of evil practices should seldom be the first approach one should make, but usually should follow only after the rejection of a soft word of reproach, or when dealing with hard-hearted obstinacy displayed over an extended period of time.[30]

30. Wilson, Serrated Edge, 109.

The dimmer switch increases with time and offense.

John Piper agrees: “Satire and irony are not going to be a Christian’s first or main strategy of correction with people.” Elsewhere, Piper emphasizes the need for holy tears to accompany hard words. Lamenting sin should precede lambasting it. Perhaps a good litmus test, then, as to whether the time has come to employ satire is: have you shed tears over the folly you are confronting? The biblical pattern, again and again, reveals that the serrated edge is whet with holy tears. Jeremiah wept, Isaiah wept, Paul wept, Jesus wept. Fitly mourning for sinners can prevent drawing the sword too quickly.

As a general principle, then, holy satire is a late-game strategy reserved for high-handed rebellion. It is a way to startle inattention, frighten indifference, shake the sinner sensible. To urge, “For God’s sake, will you not listen!”

Mock Well

In conclusion, satire is a form of subversive persuasion that seeks to expose the ludicrous nature of sin and folly. Scripture provides ample examples of this kind of rhetoric that the saints should seek to imitate. And God has not been sparing in providing principles to govern this holy weapon. May we mock well for the glory of the triune God and the good of others!