Welcome back, everybody, to you have permission, the show that aims to take both Christianity

and the modern world of science and culture very seriously. My name's Dan Koch. I'm a licensed

therapist and liberal Christian. And they say that the easiest way to make God laugh is to make a plan,

well, I have a plan for

today's episode and episodes like this, and that is to talk all things, religion, and spirituality

with comedians, in part because my favorite comedy ends up dealing with pretty much the

deepest human questions and realities. There are Spencer Bland, you are today's comic on the other

line. Do you agree that comedy gets at that deep stuff? I do, man. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.

I mean, a lot of my comedy is just telling stories from me growing up. Much to some audiences

chagrin, I am a long-winded comedian, and I just tell stories about

the absolutely insane experiences I had. And I've probably tried every single denomination of church

and even some that would not even be considered church. So yeah, there's just stories from that.

I have to tailor those jokes, depending on the audience. I'm a comedian. I wouldn't

say the Deep South, but I'm a comedian in the South. So, you know, you kind of read the room when you get out there. I used to have a way, it's funny that you said laugh with God because I used to, you know, I have a section just that's all, all about my religious upbringing. And I used to have a part of that where I would literally, as a joke, I would kind of like lean into the

mic and be like, are you guys ready to laugh at God?

And that would make people so uncomfortable. I bet. I bet. I actually stopped doing it for that

very reason. Because I definitely don't, you know, religion can be a very polarizing thing and I don't want to,

I try to, I, and I'll even say this in the middle of my set sometimes, I try very much to

say that like, these are about my experiences.

Yeah.

I'm not trying to talk in generalities about Christianity or Christians in general.

I make jokes about everything.

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