The Christian side of social media spent the past week watching a feud play out between two unlikely artists: Forrest Frank and Cory Asbury.
Then the following week, artist David Crowder broke his leg. When he posted a photo of him in a huge cast, he jokingly tagged Frank that maybe they should do a song together about his injury too. And Frank replied … with another hit song.
And then the jokes started. Other Christian artists like Matthew West began riffing that maybe they needed to go through a traumatic injury if they wanted their numbers to spike. There were countless memes.
And it all culminated when singer Cory Asbury — never one to shy away from a joke — filmed a parody video and song about his vasectomy recovery in a style like Frank’s.
To many, Asbury’s post was playful satire, the kind of comic exaggeration those who follow him know he’s leaned into for years. But not everyone saw it that way. Some felt the parody crossed a line and cheapened Frank’s testimony.
That could have been the start of a long, ugly conflict. But after seeing negative comments from Frank’s fans on his video, Asbury reached out to Frank the night he posted it. He wanted to make sure Frank was okay with it.
Frank replied that it did hurt him, because he felt like it was mocking him rather than just joking around. The two artists got on the phone and worked things out, and ultimately a friendship formed. They then decided to write a song together about the situation and bring their fans into that process.
Frank posted a video letting his fans know he was hurt by Asbury’s joke. Asbury then posted an apology, essentially saying the same thing they’d said in the conversation they had a few days earlier. Frank responded to that video with grace, saying the whole thing was “water under the bridge.” The tension between them evaporated first privately, and then publicly.
But for many of Frank’s fans, the animosity they initially felt toward Asbury lingered on.
Even though the two artists resolved the conflict, a bigger question that Christians rarely stop to ask remains: what role does joking around, or satire, have in our faith?
Christians have long been uneasy with humor that isn’t safe or sentimental. The options often seem limited to two extremes: squeaky-clean jokes that never cut deeper than a church bulletin or cynical barbs dressed up as cleverness.
Author Jon Acuff, whose former Stuff Christians Like blog made him a rare voice exploring Christian satire, described the dilemma bluntly.
“If you’re a Christian and want to be funny, you have two options. One, you can be cheesy. Two, you can be hurtful,” he wrote.
Acuff argued for a third way: satire.
“Mockery is not the same thing as satire,” he said. “Mockery always has a victim. Satire doesn’t. Mockery is about wounding someone and leaving a bruise. Satire isn’t that way at all. I define satire as ‘humor with a purpose.’”
That purpose is what separates mockery that punches down from satire that exposes something deeper.
The Bible is full of examples. When Moses questioned God’s ability to provide, God shot back: “Is the Lord’s arm too short?” It’s a rhetorical jab, cutting through doubt with wit.
Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal by suggesting their god was “relieving himself.” Jesus used absurd images—camels squeezing through needles, planks sticking out of eyes—to dismantle self-righteousness. Satire isn’t foreign to Scripture; it’s built into how truth gets told.
Good satire doesn’t just entertain. It reveals. It exaggerates, twists and surprises until we can’t ignore what’s in front of us. Acuff put it this way:
“My purpose is to clear away the clutter of Christianity so we can see the beauty of Christ. I do that with satire, which is a tremendous vehicle for truth.”
The Asbury–Frank moment illustrates how tricky the line between mockery and satire can be. What felt harmless to one was hurtful to another. That’s always the risk.
But Christians don’t necessarily need less satire—they just need sharper satire. In the end, satire’s value is that it holds three truths at once: God is good, we’re all flawed and we’re allowed to laugh at ourselves. That paradox—humble, bracing, and yes, a little funny—is exactly why faith needs it.
And that’s no joke.
