The Wittenburg Door
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The Wittenburg Door, sometimes known as simply The Door, is a Christian satire and humor magazine, published bimonthly by Dallas, Texas USA based nonprofit Trinity Foundation. Self billed as "The World's Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine", it pokes fun at the pompous of all persuasions and publishes thoughtful interviews from those one would least expect to be interviewed by it - both inside and outside the church world. The magazine has sometimes been called the Mad Magazine of religion.
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[edit] Mission and editorial content
The Wittenburg Door's reason for being is - according to its own staff and writers - to bring down to size those persons, institutions, and movements of whatever perspective - any and all - who abuse religion or use it for their own personal benefit. It uses cutting edge humor and satire to achieve those ends as a magazine.
Features currently running include:
- "Which Circle?" - a comic strip featuring Bobo and Doug. It provides a lighthearted look at Christian campus ministry from a North American perspective.
- "Truth is Stranger than Fiction," where reprinted real advertisements tell over the top claims such as "Even her DOG Became a Millionaire!"
- "Not so Good News" - a compilation of recent events from around the world. One recent headline was "Night of the Living Toasters" where a tiny Italian village lost electrical appliances and electronic gadgets due to spontaneous combustion from an unknown source.
- Letters to the Editor, where readers who stumble onto the magazine at bookstores offer to freelance for The Door (Freelancing for Dummies) and other readers get confused by the editor's liking of certain websites such as Landover Baptist Church and Betty Bowers (Confused By Our Links). The editor responded to this last writer by saying he believes the groups who run these humor websites are in reality fellow committed Christ followers. Also in these letters the writers' faith, courage and tenacity are both praised and damned.
- "The Last Word" - always found on the last text page at the back of the magazine. This is always a straightforward piece about - from the periodical staff's perspective - an important spiritual issue.
One of the hallmarks of their The Wittenburg Door are interviews with newsworthy people such as Harry Shearer, Arianna Huffington, Al Sharpton, and Steve Allen. Because of the magazine's low circulation (when compared to more mainstream magazines such as Guideposts, Christianity Today and Sojourners Magazine), the interviewees sometimes feel free to say more than they do on contentious topics than they do in the mainstream American media. One example of this is its 1993 interview with Rush Limbaugh where he openly discussed his Christian faith. Nick Page, author of The Tabloid Bible has also been interviewed by its writers, discussing what some accounts in the Bible might look like from a British tabloid perspective. Lesser known people such as Kimberly Winston, formerly of The Dallas Morning News, are interviewed when it fulfills the editor's purpose - in this case, a mutual desire to expose what the magazine termed "phony faith healers" such as Robert Tilton. When this satire magazine cannot get the big names, it will settle for people might not be household names but still have a national impact, such as Jerry B. Jenkins, Tim LaHaye's co-author of the Left Behind series of apocalyptic matters or Graham Taylor Anglican priest and best-selling author of Shadowmancer and other works of fiction.
Additionally, a large part of the magazine's articles come from freelance contributing writers. One short series entitled "The Call of the Mild" featuring the misadventures of a young male American missionary is one example of what can be found in this periodical. Others are the erstwhile "Faxable 'Toon Page", and other contributions such as "Robertson's Operation Tuna Surprise" and "Emoticons for the Modern Church."
In addition, the magazine has published books over the years, which are compilations of their material. The most recent offerings of these books are [On the Eighth Day God Laughed] and [The Door Interviews: Take Two], both edited by longtime Senior Editor Robert Darden. He is a prolific author with numerous books to his credit including People Get Ready: A New History of Gospel Music and Reluctant Prophets And Clueless Disciples: Introducing the Bible by Telling Its Stories. Other books penned by Door authors include Door Senior Contributing Editor Becky Garrison's recently released book Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church, offers a satirical analysis of the current religious debates following the 2004 election.
[edit] History
The magazine began publishing in 1971 in San Diego, California as The Wittenburg Door, a misspelling of the "Wittenberg Door" Martin Luther used to nail his 95 theses on the church door. After this error was already printed on the magazine, its founders, Youth Specialties - northern California based publishers of youth group materials - decided to keep the spelling as it was. One of its original founders, Mike Yaconelli, wanted to use the magazine to open discussion within the American evangelical Christian church about its problems. Originally with a Christian youth worker audience, the magazine over the years developed a reputation for being a thorn on the side of the institutional church in general. In 1989 the "Wittenburg" was dropped from its name, and its "just typed" subversive rag look was replaced with a more professional colored cover and glossy paper. In 2005 "Wittenburg" was added back to the name.
After two decades, Yaconelli admitted he had changed focus. He set about finding who could carry on the mission and editorial production he no longer had the same passion for, and Ole Anthony of the Dallas, Texas based Trinity Foundation agreed to accept Yaconelli's sale of The Door, as it was now called, for $1 in 1996. Upon the ownership change, Trinity has broadened the scope of who and what it satirizes to include any religious movement, institution, or person. When they put Beavis and Butt-head on the cover on its September/October 1996 edition where they were satirically honored as theologians, the magazine was tossed out of many Christian bookstores. By 2004 an editorial change was announced to the magazine's readers in its pages - it would sharpen its focus on Christian and church subject matter more, while not abandoning written material about other religions. On Halloween 2007, the satirist John Irving Bloom, sometimes writing as Joe Bob Briggs, became Head Online Doorkeeper.
[edit] References
- The Door, September/October, 2004
- The Door, March/April, 2004
- The Door, January/February, 2004
- The Door, September/October, 1996
