Medill Reports Chicago
‘Best Church’ delivers scandalous sermon on women
by Cat Mayin Koo
March 08, 2010
It was a sunny Sunday, there was a pastor and there were congregants. But this was no church service.
Rows of plush seats were transformed into imaginary pews at the Lakeshore Theater as the satire group, ‘Best Church of God,’ lampooned the Bible’s attitudes toward women in an offbeat, some would say sacrilegious, tribute to Women’s History Month.
‘Best Church of God’ was founded in 2008, with the mission to preach the “absolute, literal and unerring word of the Bible as set forth in the original English.” Its performers/writers, many of whom have ties to Second City, researched their material by attending fundamentalist church services.
“I think you should poke holes at sexism. I think you should poke holes at racism,” said writer/actor Trish Vignola. “You should poke fun at anything society tells you [that] you should accept and can’t change.”
Sunday’s performance, before a receptive crowd, cited specific verses, figures and passages from the Bible.
“There are verses about women not speaking in church, there [are] verses about women not taking on the appearance of men...and basically being subservient,” said troupe director Jay Steigmann.
Writer and actor Aemilia Scott smiled at the thought. “I have never read the Bible as much as I have now,” she said.
One of the churches the writers visited was Willow Creek Community Church, whose pastor disagreed that Christianity diminishes the role of women in leadership.
“Our church takes on an egalitarian view of women,” said Todd Katter, the interim campus pastor for Willow Creek’s Chicago congregation.
Katter holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, but he left his job at a financial firm to join the church boasting more than 20,000 members nationwide. Katter noted that many of his colleagues in seminary school were women training to take on leadership roles.
But religious audience members who attended the parody, which featured a sketch mocking a woman pastor, said it felt authentic.
“It was kind of like real church for me,” said Mimi Ko, 26, who comes from a conservative evangelical background. “The commentary they’re pointing out is very true with what goes on in a lot of churches in terms of the judgmentalism.”
Even with real meat being doled out as the body of Christ during fake Eucharist, older audience members saw the humor in the satire.
Stephanie Keenan, 69, a retired high school teacher from Iowa, was brought to the service by her children.
“I thought it was really funny. I wasn’t offended,” she said.
Apparently, this isn’t always the case.
“You will see people be so outrageously insulted, they’ll walk out,” Vignola, said. “Sometimes you just see people in slack-jawed awe.”
The Bible tends to be told from a male perspective that overshadows the prominence of strong women in the text, said Naomi Steinberg, a Bible scholar at DePaul University.
However, Steinberg, who did not see the show, would probably still be offended by it.
“It’s very inappropriate to generalize about women in the Bible,” she said.