Pastor Pillow Talks! The "Christian Right Weekly Round-Up" 2013-2014 Anthology

Every Sunday, readers from Malta to Madison laugh their way through brunch thanks to the brass-knuckle, comically irreverent musings of the “Christian Right Weekly Round-Up” as presented by Arik Bjorn and his Prosperity Gospel megachurch huckster alter ego, Pastor Pillow. And just who is Pastor Pillow? Well, imagine the theological love child of Russell Brand and Stephen Colbert—then throw in a dash of Umberto Eco just for good measure.

"Pastor Pillow Talks!" is an anthology of the first year of the “Christian Right Weekly Round-Up,” a weekly Sunday morning column that appears on the political website Forward Progressives. There’s nothing quite like the “CRWRU” in all of progressive media. In fact, there probably hasn’t been anything like it since St. Thomas More and Martin Luther tossed invective poo at one another across the English Channel in the 16th century.

If Pastor Pillow and his vast Cubic Zirconia Cathedral Ministries Empire seem oddly familiar, there’s a reason. American Christendom teems with biblical charlatans who mislead communities week in and out from diamond-studded pulpits. And Pastor Pillow Talks! unapologetically pins the tail on every Balaam’s Ass hypocrite and the Christian Right Media in general.

"Pastor Pillow Talks!" covers the year in religious zaniness, from floating fundies who sail the Pacific in order to flee God’s wrath, to the great Ham on Nye Battle for Causality & Reality—not to mention faulty End Times predictions brought to you by knuckleheaded eschatologists still living in their parents’ basements. The anthology also answers that age-old question: How should Christians choke their chickens?

Arik Bjorn graduated from Evangelical Ground Zero, Wheaton College, where he wore a fedora and studied archaeology and ancient languages. His writing explores such themes as the problem of evil and how to understand the Bible. His articles are featured regularly at Patheos and Forward Progressives. He is the author of several other books, including "Waiting for Civilization" and "Why Bad Things Happen to Good Parrots." He has also published a debut short story anthology, "Birds of a Feather."

If "Pastor Pillow Talks!" has any enlightenment to offer civilization, it is the following. Just ask yourself: “What Would Pastor Pillow Do?” Then do the opposite. Also, sometimes the only way to survive religious insanity is to laugh your way through it.