Steve Wicks questions whether Christians should poke fun at one another
As someone who is part of a sports team and finds himself around non-Christians who regularly tease and mock each other, a ques-tion I often have is: ‘As a Christian can I join in with this kind of banter as a sign of our mutual friendship?’ (I recognise that there are many different definitions of banter, but it was this area of put-downs and humorous insults that especially puzzled me).
For example, why do we expect the best man to have his speech full of ribbing and to be minimal on the mushy stuff? Kate Fox, author of Watching the English, believes this is because banter ‘specifically excludes all the things [the English] don’t like and that makes us uncomfortable: emotion, soppiness, earnestness and clarity.’
