"Agony and hilarity," said Norman MacLean, "are both necessary for salvation." We Christians seem to know a lot about the agony part, but what about hilarity? Why do we have to remind ourselves so often that the Bible is full of funny and ridiculous stories and situations? Why do so few of the pictures we've drawn of Jesus show him laughing? Because we've forgotten the redemptive power of humor, that's why. In Jesus Laughed, Robert Darden-senior editor of The Wittenburg Door, the world's oldest, largest, and pretty much only religious satire magazine-draws on his years of...