One Virginia Religion Professor's Journey of Creation

John Morreall, an author and a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, explains how he created his popular course "Comedy, Tragedy and Religion":

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When I switched from a philosophy department to a religious studies department in 1994, I wanted to create a new course that explored the value of humor in the world's religions. . . . There's a lot written in literary circles about "The Tragic Vision" of life, and I had long thought that there's also a "Comic Vision" found not just in literature but in religions.

Zen Buddhism, for example, uses iconoclastic humor to keep students from getting attached to material things, to teachings, and even to the Buddha himself. . . .

Medieval Christianity had similarly rambunctious humor in the Feast of Fools and the Feast of Asses after Christmas. . . . [But] the Protestant Reformation replaced all this playfulness with the Protestant Work Ethic. When the Puritans got political power over England in the 17th century under [Oliver] Cromwell, they outlawed comedy.

Once I began sketching what this course on humor and religion would include, I quickly saw that a good way to explain humor was to contrast it with tragedy. Just as there are comic religious leaders -- Zen masters, St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi -- there are leaders who embody the Tragic Vision of life. The most striking example was John Calvin, the inspiration for the Puritans.

. . . As I wrote up hundreds of cards on comic aspects of religion and tragic aspects, I came up with twenty points of contrast. The overarching difference is that the Comic Vision is mentally flexible and the Tragic Vision mentally rigid. Comedy encourages us to be emotionally disengaged from our troubles and to think our way out of tight spots; tragedy encourages us to get emotionally wrapped up in problems and to feel deeply about them. "Woe is me" is the tragic motto. Comedy's is "Get over yourself. . . . "