The ability to laugh at ourselves is something that can keep us humble and help us maintain our perspectives. It can bring a refreshing pause to serious matters.
Satire often provokes thought, encourages self-reflection, and may even inspire change. Imagine that C. S. Lewis’s character Screwtape, a senior devil in The Screwtape Letters, had written The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. How might the entries read, especially for American Christianity?
The definitions, in The Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Church are inspired by Ambrose Bierce’s classic The Devil’s Dictionary (1911). As satire, they are diabolical wishful thinking: what the Devil wishes were true, period, and which may be far too close to the truth for comfort. The author’s goal is not to trivialize spiritual matters, but to use satire to raise a good laugh while promoting some serious thought about where we are in present-day American Christianity.
About the Author:
Donald T. Williams (BA Taylor University, M.Div. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, PhD University of Georgia) is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Toccoa Falls College in the hills of northeast Georgia. He is the author of many articles, poems, and reviews in various journals and of sixteen other books, including Credo: Meditations on the Nicene Creed, second edition (Stone Tower Press, 2025).
