Teaching the faith by making fun of stuff
This Web video series was created in 2011 by Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod pastor Hans Fiene. It began on YouTube
, and now has its own site as well.
Lutheran Satire contains examples of the following tropes:
- Analogy Backfire:
- In St. Patrick's Bad Analogies, Patrick tries to devise simplified analogies to explain the Trinity to uneducated Irish peasants, who then call out every single one of them (including the iconic shamrock) as a heresy.
- In "Donall and Conall Meet the JWs", Conall's reaction to finding out that the word Jehovah's Witnesses use as the true name of God is actually a word the Jews created specifically to avoid saying the true name of God:
Conall: That's more ironic than rain on your wedding day, Patrick... which is not ironic, like at all. - In St. Patrick's Bad Analogies
- Anti-Climax: Twice in quick succession in "Saint Patrick: The Musical." Saint Patrick's bishop responds to his impassioned plea to allow him to preach to the Irish with an "Okay." Once there, as Bono sings about how difficult it will be to convert the Irish, Patrick cheerfully announces that he's already done.
- Armor-Piercing Question: In "Donall and Conall Meet the Mormon Missionaries":Donall: According to the Mormon church, you don't have a true church without 12 living apostles?
Brice: That's right.
Donall: But also according to the Mormon church, the apostle John never died, and is in fact still roaming this earth.
Kyle: According to section 7 of "Doctrines and Covenants," that's correct.
Donall: Patrick, is St. John the Evangelist currently an apostle in the Mormon church?
Brice: Uh... - Author Avatar:
- The pastor who debates Horus is a stand-in for Hans Fiene, the creator of the videos.
- Martin Luther also tends to act as a stand-in for Fiene's views in any video where he appears.
- Author Tract: The whole point of the series is to explain and argue for Lutheran doctrines.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- In "Ishtar Ruins Easter", we're set up to think that "Ishtar" is actually Horus in disguise, but it turns out that she's actually an unrelated and unnamed elderly woman who never appeared in any other video.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Jeff, Frank the Hippie Pope's producer.Frank: Yeah, but if a dude is like, "I'm a gay Christian," like, who am I to judge, you know?
Jeff: You're the pope? The supreme pontiff? "The true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church and the father and teacher of all Christians," to you "full power has been given to tend, rule, and govern the universal Church." According to the group of people that you lead, there is literally no one on the face of the planet more qualified to judge than you! - Biting-the-Hand Humor: Several videos include ribbing of the LCMS, Fiene's denomination:
- Blatant Lies:
- Horus' attempts to re-identify himself in "Horus Ruins Christmas:"
Horus: I'm not Mithras, I'm, uh, Quetzlcoatl, Aztec god of the wind, and while all think that you—
Preacher Man: No Christian on the face of the planet ever heard of Quetzlcoatl until the 16th century.
Horus: Well then, I'm... Balder, Norse god of the—
Preacher Man: There were 193 popes before Balder's mythology was actually written down.- And later, the "ancient Egyptian scroll" he found:Horus: Not so fast, preacher man! Behold, it is I, Horus, Egyptian god of the sun! And while you were busy indoctrinating these idiots with your medieval mumbo-jumbo, I, Horus, was busy discovering a very ancient Egyptian scroll that will most assuredly unveil the heights of your hypocrisy and send your silly little Jesus cult crashing to the ground.
Preacher Man: And what is the name of this very ancient Egyptian scroll you just discovered?
Horus: www.AtheistMixologist.NeilDeGrasseTysonIsMyHomeboy/HeyChristiansYUNoFollowYourFairytaleBook.blogtown.net
Preacher Man: Right. And what did you learn from this very reliable and meticulously researched source?
- Horus' attempts to re-identify himself in "Horus Ruins Christmas
- Breakout Character: The top three most-viewed videos are all Donall and Conall.
- Call-Back: At the end of this video,the two Anglicians criticize Luther for speaking in an Ancient Egyptian rather than German accent.
- Catchphrase:
- Donall and Conall call everyone Patrick.
- Conall in particular is quite fond of talking about people being stabbed in the face.
- Horus: "Not so fast, preacher man! Behold, it is I, Horus, Egyptian god of the sun!"
- The Cameo: Walther makes one when
Donall and Conall meet Richard Dawkins.Donall: I mean, really, Patrick! By your logic, the first president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod can prove himself to be the best-looking man in the world! All he'd have to do is lock every man on the planet in his dressing room right before the beauty pageant begins!
C.F.W. Walther: Oh no, even then I would still lose. - Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
- Preacher Man has no problem mocking and insulting Horus.
Horus: This is absurd! If this is really what Christians believe, then give me one good reason why I've never heard any of this before?
Preacher Man: Because you're a biblically illiterate buffoon who has never listened to a single Christian sermon on the issue, talked with a single Christian theologian about the subject, read a single one of the countless words Christians have written on this topic, and your only familiarity with the matter is what you've learned from the Web site of another hopelessly ignorant unbeliever who is convinced that after a 20-second glance at four context-free passages from Leviticus, he is already a greater Biblical scholar than every Christian in the last 2,000 years, including the very men who wrote the Bible?
Horus: I meant "give me one good reason" not counting that one.- After God tells the Westboro Baptist Chipmunks that He loves everyone, including homosexuals, the Chipmunks stage an anti-God protest before the pearly gates to tell Him that He hates Himself and will burn in Hell.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Apparently, saying you're "not much of a feminist" is reason to staple a cadaver's ovaries to your forehead ... at least, it is if you're Trevor.
- Distinction Without a Difference: John Calvin's position on transubstantiation.Calvin: No no no. [Zwingli] says that "is" does not mean "is." What lunacy! I say that "is" means "is" as long as the definition of "is" is not "is." It's a completely different position!
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The earliest videos done with artificial voices.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted with the Westboro Baptist Chipmunks.Chipmunks 1 and 2: Also, conveniently, God doesn't care about harmless trangressions like ours/So if you're hateful and heartless and vile, hey, that's cool—
Chipmunk 3: 'long as you ain't a f— [TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES PLEASE STAND BY]
Chipmunk 2: Whoa, whoa, whoa...
[beat]
Chipmunk 2: That didn't rhyme! - Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The preacher in the Horus videos is only ever referred to as "Preacher Man".
- Everyone Has Standards: Horus's main role in the videos is to demand Christians abandon their faith for ridiculous reasons, but in "Horus Ruins Christmas 2", even he gets annoyed by Pastor Kathy claiming to be a Christian preacher without accepting anything in Christian dogma.Horus: I want to celebrate it by destroying the faith of actual Christians who believe in an actual Jesus who was the actual virgin-born Son of the actual God, who actually died and actually rose again to give actual salvation to actual sinners who actually needed it! Do you have anyone left here at this glorified MSNBC press circle you call a "church" who believes that?
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Satirical videos from the perspective of a Lutheran minister.
- Gonk: Walther.Donall: (after complimenting him) However, your face does look like the Grim Reaper had a baby with Humpty Dumpty.
Walther: Oh yeah, no, that's true. I am an incredibly unattractive person. - Hitler Ate Sugar: Luther accuses Zwingli of abandoning perfectly valid doctrine just because Catholics believe it. Zwingli accuses Luther of being a "halfway-papist sissy baby."
- Hypocrite:
- Several of the speakers in "I'm a Christian but I'm Totally Not":
"I don't unquestioningly believe something just because my pastor tells me it's true. I unquestioningly believe something because my gender studies professor tells me it's true."- Horus attempts to invoke this, accusing Preacher Man of failing to follow Biblical prohibitions such as that on eating shellfish. Like all his attempts, it's a No-Sell, as Preacher Man refutes him by explaining the distinction between moral and ceremonial law.
- Identical Stranger: Despite appearances, Donall and Conall aren't twins, or even brothers.Donall: Oh, I suppose all fifth-century Irish Catholic peasants look the same to you.
Conall: That's racist, Patrick! - Immediate Self-Contradiction: Donall and Conall claim to be illiterate. Sort of.Joseph Rutherford: For more information, please read some of our literature.
Donall: (gasp) How dare you!
Rutherford: What?
Donall: You're talking to a couple of fifth century Irish peasants here. You know that we're both hopelessly illiterate!
Conall: Yeah, Patrick! Quit pamphlet-shaming us!
Charles Taze Russell: Wait. You can't read?!
Donall: Not a word! Now let's dive into the grammar of John 1:1 to address your terrible translation. - Isn't It Ironic?: "Hallelujah (Is Not a Christmas Song)" laments the use of a song about a sexual relationship as a Christmas carol.
- Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: Conall is a Coldplay fan?Donall: You abducted it like the Philistines absconding with The Ark of the Covenant!
Conall: Purloined it like Ahab and Jezebel pilfering Nabal's vineyard!
Donall: Swiped it like David stealing Uriah's wife!
Conall: Poached it like Coldplay plagiarizing the pancreas out of Joe Satriani!
Donall: Okay, there are like five people who get that reference. - Logical Fallacies: Donall and Conall call out Richard Dawkins and the Mormon missionaries for these.
- Nay-Theist: The Westboro Baptist Chipmunks become this, after God reveals Himself to them and commands them to repent.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: When "Frank the Hippie Pope" says that the greatest problem in the world is "youth unemployment," a caption appears underneath him:Yeah, he actually said that.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Donall and Conall insist that they're just simple illiterate peasants, even though they're clearly well-read in multiple languages and have a very in-depth knowledge of Lutheran theology.
- Old Shame: From Luther's embarrassed reaction when Zwingli asks why the already-married Philip of Hesse is smooth-talking the women around him, it seems his historical endorsement of Philip's bigamy is this.
- Pedophile Priest: Alluded to in "Donall and Conall Meet the JWs", where Donall refers to Frank the Hippie Pope as "Pope To-Not-Catch-A-Predator LXXV".
- Purely Aesthetic Era: The Donall and Conall videos are nominally set in 5th-century Ireland, but they regularly make references to modern technology and pop culture, and present-day figures like Richard Dawkins sometimes appear in them. Even the central plot-lines of many episodes involve Donall and Conall arguing against movements that didn't start until long after the videos are supposedly set, like Mormonism. This gets Lampshaded in "Saint Patrick's Bad Analogies" after Donall makes a Voltron: Legendary Defender reference.Saint Patrick: I've never heard of Voltron.
Donall: Of course you haven't! It's not going to exist for another 1500 years now, Patrick!
Conall: Yeah, get with the program, Patrick! - Recursive Canon: There's a Lutheran Satire series within the universe of the videos, according to the end of "Donall and Conall Meet Richard Dawkins":Donall: If being a jerk made you cease to exist, then every war in human history would've been over the second it started, Rosie O'Donnell would've disappeared in a puff of smoke in 1998 instead of getting fired from The View once every seven minutes, and the jerk who makes those "Lutheran Satire" videos wouldn't even be able to finish recor-
- Religious Edutainment: Snarky comedy videos that will in fact teach you a fair bit about Protestant Christian theology.
- Sarcasm Mode: It's satire; you can expect this in nearly every video. Particularly, the titles of the series "Things Your Lutheran Pastor Totally Loves" and "Things Your Lutheran Sister Totally Loves" qualify.
- Shout-Out:
- Donall and Conall are familiar with iTunes, Voltron, C. Everett Koop, Rosie O'Donnell and The View, Let's Make a Deal, The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl, Police Academy, The Dark Knight Rises, Coldplay, and "Oh My Darling, Clementine" ... despite being from the same time as St. Patrick.
- One of the Buzzfeed parody puppets insists that Footloose is a documentary.
- Horus' last attempt to ruin Christmas is him trying to masquerade as Gozer the Gozerian. The preacher man sees right through it.
- Donall and Conall are familiar with iTunes, Voltron, C. Everett Koop, Rosie O'Donnell and The View, Let's Make a Deal, The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl, Police Academy, The Dark Knight Rises, Coldplay, and "Oh My Darling, Clementine" ...
- Squick:
- Invoked in "Martyrs Read Joel Osteen Tweets".
- The preacher man alludes to "bacon-fried labradoodle" in "Horus Reads the Internet".
- Sucking on a man's nipple as a pagan sign of loyalty in Saint Patrick: The Musical, to the point where Bono claims he'll be throwing up for the next seventy-five years and Donall and Conall note that not doing so anymore is an additional benefit of conversion.
- Invoked in "Martyrs Read Joel Osteen Tweets"
- The Stoner: Frank the Hippie Pope is always seen with a stoned-looking expression on his face.
- Stunned Silence: When Zwingli's rap goes off the rails in "The Church History Mixtape Vol 2: Marburg", the background music stops as Luther and Philip of Hesse - then the Pope, the Mona Lisa, and Horus - stare at him in disbelief.
- Straw Character: Exaggerated in the Church History Mixtapes with Luther's opponents. The narration describes Charles V as "a dork who smelled like wet hot dogs" and Zwingli goes on an extended rant where he refutes his own arguments.
- Take That!: The Vicar tears an irreparable hole in the space-time continuum by speaking the oxymoron "Dave Matthews Band's Greatest Hits."
- Unexplained Accent: Horus, an Egyptian god, has a German accent.
- The Unpronounceable: Conall can never get the pronunciation of "Jehovah's Witnesses" right.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The preacher man is utterly unfazed when an Egyptian god appears out of nowhere in the middle of his church service.
- Verbal Backspace: After hearing Horus' theme song:
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: In "The Reformation Piggybackers", Martin Luther is dismayed to have Henry VIII thank him for inspiring other Protestants to split off from their Church whenever they want.
