In 'Youth Group' comic, evangelical kids sing silly songs about Jesus, fight demons

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(RNS) — When he was a teenager in the 1990s, Jordan Morris was always up for a bit of mischief — as long as it didn't involve sex or drugs, two things he was sure would kill him.
So he went to a megachurch youth group, which promised teenage shenanigans without much danger. The 'sanitized mischief,' as he describes it, was perfect for Morris, who grew up as a nerdy, nervous kid.
'Youth group was great for me,' Morris said. 'We can put on a show, we can sing little songs, we can do little skits. We can toilet paper the pastor's house and clean it up later. And I just don't have to worry that someone is going to try and pressure me into something that I'm scared of.'
Now a Los Angeles-based comedy writer and podcaster, Morris has fond memories of his time in youth group. Those memories — and his love for horror movies like 'The Exorcist' — inspired him to write 'Youth Group,' a graphic novel about church teens who fight demons while singing silly songs about Jesus.
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Think 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' — the 1990s hit movie and later television series — goes to church.
'I thought it would be a fun challenge,' Morris, whose previous graphic novel, 'Bubble,' was nominated for an Eisner Award, told Religion News Service in an interview earlier this year. 'Can we do one of those religious horror stories, but make it kind of funny?'
Morris also said he'd rarely seen stories set in the kind of youth group he'd grown up in.
'I've just never seen that little world written about in a way that I thought was like, accurate or, like, that got what it was about,' he said.
Published last year by New York-based First Second Books, 'Youth Group' tells the story of Kay Radford, a theater kid who winds up joining the Stone Mission megachurch youth group after her parents split up. Her mom is a true believer but lonely. Kay is more skeptical but lonely as well and angry at her dad.
'Church might help with all this,' Kay's mom tells her early on. 'I think we both could use some community.'
At the youth group, Kay is met by youth leader Meg Parks, a kind but sometimes over-the-top youth leader in pink; a bearded, hippy pastor who turns the 'Pina Colada song' — the Rupert Holmes hit 'Escape' — into a metaphor for spiritual seeking; and a band that churns out parodies like 'I Saw the Christ' sung to the melody of Ace of Base's 'The Sign.'
Though fictional, the songs fit the kind of pop culture reference — sometimes known as a 'Jesus juke' — that youth groups can be known for.
'I always think there's something funny about that move, where you take a secular piece of entertainment, like a song that's in the zeitgeist, or a popular movie and try and give the hidden religious message,' Morris said.
Kay eventually discovers the youth pastor and some of the older Stone Mission kids also fight demons. That fight becomes personal after one of the demons goes after her dad, and Kay decides to join the battle. Along the way, the Stone Mission kids team up with youth groups from other faiths — Temple Beth Israel, Immaculate Heart parish and the Polaris Coven — to fight off a demon invasion with the help of some training by an order of nuns.
Morris said he and illustrator Bowen McCurdy wanted to tell a story that was more than just satire. And while he no longer embraces the faith of his youth, Morris still sees value in the lessons he learned, like the importance of loving your neighbor.
'We wanted to tell a story of people from a lot of different religions coming together with a common goal,' he said.
Matthew Cressler, a religion scholar and creator of the webcomic series 'Bad Catholics, Good Trouble,' said comics with evangelical or denominational settings like 'Youth Group' are uncommon. Religion in comics, he said, is often seen as 'a marker of difference': for example, Kamala Khan, the Muslim-American hero known as Ms. Marvel, or Matt Murdock, better known as Daredevil, who is Irish-Catholic. In the 1960s, when Daredevil was created, Catholics were still seen as outsiders to the American mainstream, and many of the most popular heroes, like Batman, were seen as Mainline Protestants.
While there were comics for evangelicals, they were often evangelistic, like the controversial Jack Chick tracts or the Christianized adventures of Archie and his friends, published by Spire Comics starting in the 1970s. And evangelicals have often downplayed the kind of sacramental imagery and architecture found in mainline or Catholic settings and try to avoid the kind of visuals needed for comics, said Cressler.
Matthew Brake, founder and editor of online publication Pop Culture and Theology, said non-denominational churches often have a 'let's go to the mall aesthetic' and lack the visual clout of Catholicism.
'Nondenominational churches are sort of a cultural underdog,' he said.
That may change, Brake said, as creators like Morris, who grew up in non-denominational settings, come of age. And those settings often contain surprises. Although they are most known for things like worship music and purity culture, megachurches also provide space to talk about things like social justice.
Still, he wonders if many nondenominational Christians would be the kinds of fans that would enjoy a book like 'Youth Group' or 'Preacher,' a late-1990s comic about an evangelical pastor who ends up possessed by a supernatural being.
David Canham, who reviews comics for the secular pop-culture website AIPT — short for 'Adventures in Poor Taste' — had mixed feelings about 'Youth Group.'
'First off, there's plenty of '90s nostalgia — a good-natured tongue-in-cheek look back at many of the silly and absurd things about '90s culture, with a focus on evangelical Christian culture,' he wrote when the book came out. ''Youth Group' delivers on this point.'
But the book's take on pluralism — the idea that all religion is on the same side — turned him off as an evangelical Christian. 'I don't want to recommend a book that promotes a worldview that so strongly disagrees with my own beliefs,' he wrote.
At first, Morris said he was worried the book might offend Christians and atheists alike. Some evangelicals might feel the book mocks their faith, while atheists might think the book overlooks the shortcomings of religious groups.
Both those criticisms would be fair, he said. Religious groups get a lot of things wrong, and yet churches and other faith groups remain important to their members. Morris said he tried to walk a fine line of gently poking fun at faith while showing why it still has an impact on people's lives, and how the friendships made in youth groups may long endure.
'I didn't want the humor to be like, church is stupid, or say, 'look at this dumb church stuff,'' he said. 'I wanted it to be funny and familiar.'
Morris said he wanted to capture the mixed feelings people have about the faiths in which they grew up. While he appreciated Bible teachings like caring for the needy, some of the politics and social messages, especially about LGBTQ+ folks, were a turnoff, he said.
Religion, he said, is complicated.
'There are a lot of wonderful memories, and there's a lot of stuff that gives me the ick,' he said. 'I hope that's in the book. I hope you can see how a religious upbringing can be upsetting and wonderful — comforting but also makes you mad.'