Fred Clark > Quotes

“To get a sense of what I mean by evangelism as the practice of hospitality, visit your local church. Don’t go upstairs, to the sanctuary, go downstairs to that room in the basement with the linoleum tile and the coffee urn. That’s where the AA and NA meetings are held. At its best, Alcoholics Anonymous embodies evangelism as hospitality. They offer an invitation, not a sales pitch. They offer testimony — personal stories — instead of a marketing scheme. They are, in fact and in practice, a bunch of beggars offering other beggars the good news of where they found bread. At its worst, AA sometimes slips into the evangelism-as-sales model. You may have found yourself at some point having a beer when some newly sober 12-step disciple begins lecturing you that this is evidence that you have a problem. He will try to sell you the idea that you are a beggar so he can sell you some bread. The ensuing conversation is tense, awkward and pointless — the precise qualities of the similar conversation you may have had with an evangelical Christian coworker who was reluctantly but dutifully inflicting on you a sales pitch for evangelical Christianity.”
― Fred Clark, The Anti-Christ Handbook: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind

“The Creationists (Knopf, 1992)”
― Fred Clark, The Anti-Christ Handbook Vol. 2: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind

“One of the oldest books in our Bible contains a hymn of praise to the Creator that rambles on for chapter after chapter. It’s the longest such hymn in the Bible, skipping about through all the earth and all the universe with the wide-eyed, giddy enthusiasm of a kid in a candy shop, marveling at all the wondrous things that God has made. But this isn’t a psalm of David or a song of Moses. This is from the book of Job, and the one speaking, according to that story, is none other than God. No human speaker in the Bible matches the goofy enthusiasm, delight and affection for all creation that God expresses there in the final chapters of Job.”
― Fred Clark, Long March of the Koalas: And other creationist adventures

“Evangelism” today is not seen as the practice of hospitality, but as a kind of marketing scheme. It is not an invitation, but a sales pitch. Not a matter of “taste and see,” but of “buy now.” Or, to use one of my favorite descriptions of the work of evangelism, it is not “one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread,” but rather one overfed man trying to convince another overfed man that he’s a beggar in order to close the sale on another loaf.”
― Fred Clark, The Anti-Christ Handbook: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind

“As far as a “technology that could remove people from their clothes,” Billy Dee Williams would recommend Colt ‘45 – works every time.”
― Fred Clark, The Anti-Christ Handbook: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind