A Place Where Very Little Is Held Sacred

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the Door is a funny religious magazine or a funny anti-religious magazine. And the editors seem to enjoy sowing that confusion.

Take the January-February issue. The cover story is a delightfully scathing piece on Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan--or as the Door calls him, “Brother From Another Planet.”

It skewers Farrakhan by quoting his own wackiest words--not just the infamous anti-Semitic slurs but his goofy numerology and his account of being carried by a UFO to visit the Nation’s deceased founder, Elijah Muhammad, on a giant spaceship Farrakhan calls “a great mother wheel.”

After that, the Door reveals what the old hymn “I Believe” would sound like if rewritten for Unitarians, who are renowned for not believing much: “Everything in this world worth thinking about, Carl Sagan knows, or will find out. So there’s no doubt, I believe.”

Perusing those pieces, a reader might reasonably conclude that the Door is some kind of agnostic Mad magazine or an atheistic Spy. But keep reading and you find a serious interview with author Andrew Ferguson on his religious and political beliefs, an attack on Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s anti-religious remarks, and a column in which publisher Ole Anthony compares his religious epiphany to the moment he watched the testing of an atomic bomb: “When God found me that day, the same kind of explosion occurred, totally vaporizing my previous value system. With nothing left, he rushed in to fill the vacuum with joy.”

So what is the Door? Reverent? Irreverent? Both? Neither?

Realizing that many readers are confused, the editors run occasional helpful hints about what they’re trying to do. In the current issue, they define the mag as “the world’s oldest and largest (and . . . uh . . . only) religious humor and satire magazine.” And then there is this little note, run under the heading “Corrections and Clarifications”: “The Door is neither liberal nor conservative, neither right nor left. Labels are for soup cans. We’re an objective, equal-opportunity offender. But extremism in the pursuit of humor is no vice.”

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The magazine was born 25 years ago as a newsletter for Christian youth workers and soon evolved into a satirical magazine called the Wittenburg Door, named after the spot where Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses. In that incarnation it flourished, then floundered. Last year it was born again under the tutelage of an irreverent Dallas-based Christian group called the Trinity Foundation.

Since then, the bimonthly has satirized some of the world’s most revered religious figures, including Mother Teresa, Pat Robertson and James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family Ministries. When Dobson’s disciples rose to the bait and barraged the Door with irate epistles, the magazine responded, “We will not apologize to James Dobson and his legions for lampooning his tacky, bloated ministry.”

Obviously, the Door is a feisty magazine. It’s also playful enough to lampoon itself. Its masthead is a parody of mastheads; its subscription card carries a hilarious attack on subscription cards. And when the publisher bragged in print that a survey showed that his mag had 8.4 readers per copy, the staff felt compelled to add this: “And 3.6 of them fall asleep after Page 4.”

They’re kidding, of course. The Door is anything but boring. Readers laugh at the funny stuff, groan at the sophomoric stuff and swear at the attacks on whatever cows they may hold sacred. But they don’t fall asleep.

* The Door is available at newsstands and bookstores for $4.50 a copy. Subscriptions cost $22.95 for six issues a year and can be ordered by calling (800) 597-3667.