The Mantra of Jabez: Break on Though to the Other Side
by Douglas M. Jones
Category: Humor

Bruce Wilkinson's best-selling book, 'The Prayer of Jabez, ' is so popular with Evangelicals it just had to be bad. Wilkinson told us to be "gimpers" for God; Jones shows us how to be kippers for God. In this parody the conservative Christian author allows humor to reveal the more ridiculous assumptions driving the original book. Each chapter of the original is turned inside out so that we can really see what's being said. Though the parody is rather ruthless in its humor, it is not hopelessly cynical just for the sake of mockery. It points to a more constructive vision, a vision of Christianity's inherent riches of truth, beauty, and goodness that the original Jabez book passively trivializes. Get this parody for the laughs; get it for something greater.