ok — so any regular reader of this blog knows i appreciate snarkiness. i’m no stranger to cynicism. and even though i still consider myself an evangelical (my heritage, my current church attendance, and to reasonable degree, my theology), i’ve taken my share of blog-shots at everything from the religious right, to our obsession with christianized junk, to my 11 part (way too long, said some) ‘rant from a runt about the american church.’

and i’ve kind of been enjoying the slew of snarky books coming out these days ‘explaining’ evangelicals. ; ; ; and others. really, we have to be able to poke fun at ourselves. and most of these books carry an additional level of meaning or message.

so when i saw a few posts here and there about a new release called , i expected it would be another one of these — maybe a bit late into the foray, but along the same lines.

but today, a friend (who, i believe, would struggle to still call herself an evangelical, though it is her history, and she has a rock-solid, something-a-bit-other-than-evangelical faith these days) sent me a link to an article about the book. the article includes extensive quotes from the book. i expected to laugh at myself, and at all those silly evangelicals who are my brothers and sisters, but are still a bit wacky at times. instead, i found myself getting frustrated with the author’s unfair and inaccurate statements. i felt defensive for evangelicals. i even felt a bit defensive for fundies! and i don’t like feeling defensive for fundies. not that the book is humorless — there were a few funny lines in the bits i read (note: i have only read the pieces in this online article, not the whole book — but, that’s the risk of putting a segment online, huh?).

i was gonna copy some examples here (from the article), but i’ll let you go read ‘em yourself, if you’re so inclined. i just needed to take this shot across the bow of the book (like it’s gonna make a difference!). bring on the fair and informed cynicism, sarcasm and critique. i’ll join ya. but this one looks like one i’ll take a pass on.