I confess to mixed feelings about Jon Stewart. There’s a great deal about his work that I don’t particularly like. I don’t like his profanity, the worst of which is mercifully bleeped out before it makes it onto the YouTube clips that are my main source of snippets. I certainly don’t like the blasphemy or the steady trickle of sexual innuendos, which unlike the f-bombs are apparently no longer regarded as offensive enough to fall under the editor’s knife. I don’t care much for the knee-jerk big-government undercurrent to Jon Stewart’s own political views. (Please can we stop talking about “free healthcare”? Someone has always got to pay; the only questions are who, how, and when.)
But just once in a while, I can almost tolerate the tirade of verbal filth for one simple reason: The presenter of the Comedy Channel’s award-winning Daily Show teaches us all how to laugh at what is surely the most laughable aspect of modern life – politics.
Like all comedians, Jon Stewart has his favorite targets (it must be hard even for die-hard Democrats hard not to feel sorry occasionally for Fox News), and he finds some shades of political folly more amusing than others. Regular viewers will know that those on the political right tend to feel the sharp end of his tongue more often that their left-leaning counterparts.
Yet anyone who feels inclined to accuse Stewart of unquestioning support for the current US administration should perhaps take another look at his serial dismemberment of the IRS over the scandal of illegitimate “special scrutiny” applied to groups with names containing such politically incendiary phrases as “Tea Party,” “Patriot,” and “Constitution.” When it comes to modern politics, Jon Stewart pokes fun at pretty much everything.
The absurdities of modern political life have in recent weeks been more glaring than usual on both sides of the pond. Here in the UK, prominent Member of Parliament Brooks Newmark was forced to quit after sending an explicit photograph of himself over the internet to someone he believed was a woman, but who turned out to be a reporter for a national newspaper. Before his resignation, he held the post of Minister for Civil Society. This is the sort of thing that makes Jon Stewart’s job easy.
But it’s the electioneering that’s really laughable. In Canada, the outgoing Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford has in recent months added more than a little color to what might otherwise have been a rather tedious race for a successor. In the US, the mid-term elections have left Republicans whooping for joy after a wave of victories more overwhelming than most dared to believe possible.
Meanwhile, British TV screens have been dominated by the failed attempt of the Scottish National Party to persuade Scottish voters to abandon the United Kingdom and forge their own path (it nearly worked – you could tell from the sharp dip in the London stock market).
In each case, the pre-election politico-media waffle has been dominated by the usual screed of prejudice-stoking rhetoric; unprincipled non-policies; evasiveness; back-biting; flip-flopping; ignorance of basic political and economic realities; and grandiose promises so filled with hot air that they soon drifted into orbit, which is probably a good thing because if they ever landed back here on earth someone would be sure to get burnt.
Almost all of our leading political pipers have been playing the same tired old tune: Vote for us, and we’ll make the world a better place. It reminds me of a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (another feast of televisual theatre which is admirable for reasons similar to The Daily Show, though with similar reservations, since unfortunately this time not only the blasphemy but also the profanity survived the editor’s cut) where our hero’s mother pokes her head out of the window and squawks at the assembled masses, “He’s not the Messiah! He’s a very naughty boy!”
But the ludicrousness of our politician wannabes pales into comparative sanity when compared to the gullibility of the electorate. If there’s one thing more ridiculous than a crowd of politicians promising to save the world, it’s a flock of voters who believe them. And the modern western world is full of such folks – people like us who in a moment of madness forget about the last few centuries of abandoned political pledges and reassure ourselves that maybe, just maybe, this time, it’s going to be different.
The real problem is not the messianic pretensions of our political leaders, but the hordes of credulous citizens ready to deny themselves, take up their rosettes, and follow. And when the world abandons reason for madness, laughter truly is the best medicine.
Laughter, according to the Bible, is no laughing matter. The LORD laughs with contempt at the rebellious folly of the kings of the earth as they shake their puny fists at his Messiah (Psalm 2). He laughs with derision as the nations of the world plot evil against his righteous people (Psalm 59). Wicked men gnash their teeth in fury against the righteous, but the LORD simply chuckles to himself, for he knows that their days are numbered (Psalm 37).
Indeed, if we knew our Bibles better, we might hear a little more laughter in our living rooms during the evening news. For the righteous should join in the laughter of God when they see the impending destruction of those who trust in the abundance of their riches but refuse to make God their refuge (Psalm 52).
Instead, tragically (and yes, laughably), Christians are often right at the forefront of those lining up to rest their weight on yet another splintered political reed. It really has come to something when we need unbelievers such as Jon Stewart to show us how to respond biblically to the nightly news headlines.
Of course, not all politicians are the same. I thank God for our local member of Parliament here in London, England – an unashamedly Christian man who is a member of a local evangelical church and does a great job in a party that, I suspect, must occasionally make life a little difficult for him.
My impression is that on the other side of the Pond there are a good many more Christian men and women in politics with the courage to display their Christian convictions in public because they really believe that the gospel is true, and not merely in an attempt to win the block vote of the major denominations. Such men and women deserve our support; they need our prayers; they should probably receive our vote. But the true mark of such Christian political conviction is not a bulging manifesto filled with promises of fine-sounding things that that We Shall Deliver, but rather a considerably thinner document that by its very brevity testifies that there are a great many things that no civil government on earth can ever do.
The true mark of Christian political wisdom is the recognition of the state’s inherent, divinely-ordained limitations. I’m still looking forward to the day when our aspiring political leaders endorse a manifesto declaring not only that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the one True God; not only that his Son the Lord Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings on earth; not only that the Bible is his inspired and authoritative word to which all of human life – including political life – is to be conformed; but also that the church, and not the state, is the institution through which the Lord Jesus Christ in present in the world and through which has promised that the world will be saved.
When we have leaders with that kind of character – leaders who do more than pay lip-service to our Judeo-Christian heritage; leaders who stand on an uncompromisingly Christian, black-coffee-Calvinist, the-Bible-tells-me-so electoral ticket – then we will really have cause for jubilation. On that day, I’ll be out on the streets, knocking on doors, selling bumper stickers. For now, let’s remember not to put our trust in princes.
Rev Dr Steve Jeffery is Minister at Emmanuel Evangelical Church, London, England (Blog, Facebook, Twitter).