For my money, the funniest tweets in Christendom belong to @XIANITY (www.twitter.com/XIANITY), a mysterious purveyor of brilliant religious satire.
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Each tweet is 140 characters or less of sharp, laugh-out-loud headlines pertaining to church trends, well-known religious leaders or institutions, and the quirkiness of the Christian subculture. For example, "BREAKING NEWS: Prophecy 2010 conference cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances." Or, "MUSIC: "Blah Blah Blah" rockets up CCM charts, seen as perfect setup song for typical evangelical sermon." Or, "POLL: Billy Graham most beloved Christian figure; Number two, Larry the Cucumber." Admit it, you're laughing (even if you think you shouldn't).
Each headline is fake, of course, and unlike The Onion's Twitter feed, the headlines don't link to an accompanying fake news story. But one of the things that make's @XIANITY so intriguing is that it's essentially anonymous. It's obvious there's an intelligent and mischievous person at the controls, someone whose vocabulary and references to church events and idiosyncrasies suggests he or she is, for lack of a better term, one of us. I couldn't help myself--I had to try to make contact. Thankfully, the individual behind @XIANITY agreed to answer a few questions anonymously. Here's what the hidden humorist had to say.
COLLIDE: What prompted you to start the @XIANITY Twitter feed?
@XIANITY: I was in Louisville for a church planting conference in November 2009 and having trouble falling asleep in the hotel room. I had a copy of The Onion that I'd brought to read on the plane. I was thinking that the headlines were the things that always cracked me up, but the stories usually weakened rather than enhanced the satirical point and humor. I thought that doing something with just headlines specifically about Christianity would work, and Twitter was the ideal social media format for that.
COLLIDE: My guess is that a lot of the things you tweet about are things that frustrate you personally--"Jesus Junk," fundamentalism, etc. Is that a fair guess?
@XIANITY: I guess that's pretty close to the truth. My initial foray into this kind of thing started in 2005 with a blog called PURGATORIO, and my first posts were related to my frustration with syncretism and Christian cultural observation. So, there were plenty of Jesus Junk shots and takes on fundamentalism there. The overarching premise of PURGATORIO was to tip over sacred cows until the only thing left standing was Jesus Christ or, sadly, nothing. That sensibility is certainly part of what's in play with @XIANITY on Twitter.
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SOURCE: Collide Magazine
Scott McClellan
