‘And lead us into laughter … ‘

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 26, 2026.

“I’ll get real big hair, marry a man, let him lead, write a book called, ’Submissive Wife, Submissive Life,’ adopt a Southern accent out of nowhere,” comedian Taylor Tomlinson joked while imagining what it might look like for her to repent and return to her conservative evangelical roots in her new Netflix special, Prodigal Daughter.

It’s the fourth set she’s performed for Netflix. And while Tomlinson is known for the occasional jab at her conservative upbringing, Prodigal Daughter is the first special where she devotes the entire theme of the night to her deconstruction journey. Prodigal Daughter leans into the religion theme so much that she filmed it at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Doing comedy at a church doesn’t mean Tomlinson opts for a more Tim Hawkins “Chick-fil-A” parody type of stand-up though. She still has plenty of sex jokes and profanity to toss around, which can feel unexpected as you hear talk of “dicks and drugs” echoing off the stained-glass windows and iconic artwork throughout the building and wonder what kind of church this might be.

The mission of Fountain Street Church is to “support the creative tension between intellect and spirit, science and faith, individual and community, tradition and change, challenging us to honor our legacy by embracing the future.” So it provided an ideal setting for Tomlinson to explore her journey.

“I was really jealous that Christianity had worked for other people and not me.”

“If you watch all my other specials, I usually take a few minutes to take a few shots at Christianity,” she admitted. “And that’s because I was working through a lot of stuff from my childhood and also I was really jealous that Christianity had worked for other people and not me.”

Comedy and the deconstruction journey

Conservative evangelicals often take theology jokes from comedians personally. But for those of us who begin to deconstruct our conservative upbringing, comedians can play an important role in helping us name and feel our way through the hurt we’ve personally experienced.

As an independent Baptist fundamentalist, the only comedians I was allowed to listen to were Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke and the occasional pastor. My laughter was limited. So when I moved into mainstream evangelicalism and discovered Mark Lowery and Tim Hawkins, I felt more free to look for the humor in life, as long as it was “family friendly.”

That opened me to enjoy comedians like Jeff Foxworthy, Brian Regan and Jim Gaffigan. I was pretty sure they weren’t “real Christians” who understood penal substitutionary atonement. But they were clean and Christian adjacent, which felt like leaving the front yard while not venturing past the stop sign.

When I entered into TheoBroLand, I became more comfortable with cussing and enjoyed comedy that played on gender roles and stereotypes. So I started liking comedians like Bill Burr, especially when he made fun of his wife. Of course, I didn’t make fun of my wife like that. And I’ve never really embodied that toxic, bombastic manhood that Burr likes to play up. But it made me laugh. My deconstruction journey was healing me enough to listen beyond the stop sign, while being entertained with humor that played into our patriarchal prejudices.

Hannah Gadsby

Eventually, my faith deconstruction opened me to valuing everyone, which led me out of evangelicalism entirely. Today, I resonate more with comedians like Hannah Gadsby, Pete Holmes, Tig Notaro, Mike Birbiglia and Taylor Tomlinson, who include critiques of the patriarchal Christianity that wounded us and observations about religion and spirituality that still intrigue us.

And in the age of social media, you can always count on a good, healing laugh from people like Kevin James Thornton sharing his purity culture, worship team and speaking in tongues stories from his “super fundamentalist church when it was the nineties.”

Being honest

As I consider how my deconstruction journey paralleled my shift in comedians, it’s notable how each comedian helped me laugh while being more honest about what I observed and felt about the world.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.