This weekend, Saturday Night Live will celebrate 50 years of guest hosts, iconic cast members and memorable sketches. The sketch comedy show is famous for its ability to make fun of, well, just about everybody in the world — some more than others (looking at you, politicians).
And while the show usually tip-toes around religion cautiously, it has taken a few occasions to come after church. Sometimes, these depictions have veered into the prickly or even offensive. But often, SNL takes a more loving approach, riffing church culture without coming after actual beliefs. Here are a few of their best church-centric skits.
Zoom Church
During one of SNL‘s early pandemic episodes, where everything was filmed from cast member’s homes, “Zoom Church” worked by nailing America’s Zoom learning curve, relying on a perfectly calibrated Kenan Thompson to slowly dial up his pastoral frustration with an online congregation that just couldn’t figure out how to mute. It’s certainly not Thompson’s last appearance on this list, who is both SNL‘s longest and one of its most reliable players.
Church on Vacation
SNL skillfully tackled one of the more awkward experiences you can have on vacation: visiting a new church. An Ohio-native family comprised of host Shane Gillis, Heidi Garder, Molly Kearney and Andrew Dismukes had a rather enlightening experience attending a church in Jamaica led by Father Lawrence (Ego Nwodim). Despite Gillis’ insistence that “church is church” regardless of where you are, this skit proves that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Jesus Visits Tim Tebow and The Denver Broncos
At Tebow-mania’s peak, SNL unleashed Ted Lasso as Jesus Christ, come down from Heaven to give the Denver Broncos a light talking to about depending too much on divine interference to pull them out of fourth quarter nail biters. Taran Killem is terrific as Tebow, exuding hyper earnestness even as Jason Sudeikis tries to get him to dial it down a little. The lesson here: Prayer is good, but maybe there are other things to pray for besides football?
Let’s Say Grace
We never thought we’d see a “prayer off” on SNL, but here we are. Before a good old Christian potluck, Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Heidi Gardner and Andrew Dismukes put their best prayers forward, but it’s no match for the powerhouse prayers of Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Punkie Johnson and host Regé-Jean Page. After all, “if the food isn’t properly blessed, that’s how people get sick.”
Three Wise Men
SNL has had a few Christmas skit’s over the years, but by far one of the most stand-out skits was this one featuring Tracy Morgan, Thompson and the Rev. Al Sharpton as the three Wisemen who get pulled over by racist first century cop Jimmy Fallon. This isn’t strictly a church sketch but SNL gets extra points for threading the needle between an important issue and a Bible story. As a police officer, Fallon is skeptical of the wisemen’s claims (Fallon: “You’re going to meet someone? Yeah, right. What’s his name?” Morgan: “I don’t know his name!” Fallon: “You don’t know your friends’ name?”) while the magi get increasingly irritated even as they’re grudgingly aware of how the interaction is bound to go.
Gospel Brunch
Another Thompson winner, this time with Leslie Jone as the co-hosts of some sort of public access TV show that combines cooking with church. It’s a little bit exclusive (Cecily Strong is quickly swept off when they realize she doesn’t believe in God) but Amy Schumer comes through with a “healthy recipe” that appears to be a pecan pie blended with milk. The fun of the sketch is how quickly it goes off-script, as Thompson and Jones fight back chuckles in an attempt to keep Schumer’s act together, but the music rings true.
Church Chat – Satan
The reason this list was made possible in the first place. The iconic “Church Lady.” Carvey’s “Church Lady” is about as legendary as SNL characters get, but Carvey was never better than when skewering a motley dup of televangelists played by Robert Smigel and Phil Hartman. Smigel was brought on as then-presidential candidate Pat Robertson while Hartman was a performatively contrite Jimmy Swaggart, then on the heels of being caught with a sex worker. Carvey’s usual smiley, passive-aggressive judgementalism was here deployed to righteous ends, going after the two guests with some buttoned-up intensity that actual Christians really could have used at the time. Isn’t that special?
