I WAS BAPTISED into a Roman Catholic family and grew up indoctrinated in the ways of that Church. As a lad I was very religious, much moved by the life and death of Jesus. I prayed to him every night and went to Mass every Sunday, and on all the feast days. When I come to think of it, it was all very beautiful. Now I’m ancient and don’t go to church any more (the conscience still twitches a bit as a result) but I’m basically a Jesus man, still. What he said and did in his short life was pure goodness. However, apart from my recognition of him and an affection for Buddha, I’m not “religious” any longer. The rot set in when I reached the age when I started to think for myself. Scrutinising the religious side of my life, I came to the conclusion that it was all a monumental bore, the whole caper. Hearing it all in a dead language (Latin) didn’t help. By this time I was plugged into jazz music and alongside that, most hymns were incredibly dull.

I still feel that way today. I remember, during this period when my faith was fading, that I wished that somehow, somewhere, I’d come across something humorous — a comment or an incident — in my prayer book or Bible. One, just one, line like “And lo, Jesus laugheth heartily”, or “Jesus sayeth ‘Come unto me and I will tell you a joke’.” But no such luck.

His followers gave us the Gospels and things like the Dead Sea Scrolls, but why do we never get to hear of anything like, say, The Secret Jokes of Jesus?

Why? Why? Why? I wonder. I suspect Christ peppered his teachings and parables with wit and repartee. He was a “whole” man. And surely the message of religion is that we find happiness in it? As a child I had holy pictures galore, all these spiritual worthies of one sort or another; and what a dreadful po-faced lot they were. All wrong.

Which brings me — Eureka! — to a tome with the wonderful title The Good God Guide and you’re wondering, maybe, what my religious ramblings have to do with it. Everything, my friends. Nothing needs more of a boost these days (and a kick up the pants with it) than religion, especially the Christian variety (witness the number of churches being deconsecrated), and lo, along comes one John Pepper, who thinks that God is ill-represented in the humour department and sets to accordingly. God has given him the gifts of wit and draughtsmanship and Blessed John the Pepper has utilised them to produce a marvellous book of cartoons.

As I immersed myself in them, laughing the while, my poor wavering Catholic soul began to revive. Until now, I thought I was somewhat alone in my desire to put laughter into the solemn mouths of the holy high and mighty, but here was Blessed John the Pepper letting fly with his talented pen at all the sacred cows and, if you’ll pardon the expression, he doesn’t in the process go off half-cock — a painful condition caused by standing too close to a bacon slicer — he blasts away at religion top to bottom, and by evoking laughter forces the reader to see that there is room for irreverence in the reverent life. And warm and loving is the irreverence in this instance, too: Blessed John the Pepper is saying “Rejoice! God (or someone or something) gave us a sense of humour. Isn’t it time we started using it as an ally and not an enemy of the Spirit?” And the answer in this fun-filled volume is yes, yes, yes.

Blessed John the Pepper finds all is worthy of satire and custard pies. Someone sells off the Virgin Mary’s knickers as a holy relic. At the Wailing Wall they admit they do, yes, get a bit of flooding sometimes. The Viking who has ravished 40 maidens in Harwich asks Thor to forgive him for failing to do so in his name. The Anti-Bloodsport League turns up at the human sacrifice at Stonehenge. My own favourite cartoons are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who want to enter the dressage at Badminton, and the Holy Mother at the ante-natal clinic insisting that she’s still a virgin. But all religions and spiritual fads and fashions come in for their share of jolly artillery.

Blessed John’s drawings are, well, pretty peppery sometimes, but it’s a sharpness softened by the higher intent. He told me once: “The world has got fed up with the gloom, doom and despondency so often associated with matters spiritual.” From the Bible itself he quotes: “Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.” That’s sad. So, basically, I suspect that the artist, like myself, has tried to hang on to religious teachings, but all the while a voice inside was crying out to make the life of the spirit a joyful affair.

Well, in The Good God Guide he’s done just that. Enjoy!

This is the foreword to The Good God Guide by John Pepper, Eagle Publishing, £6.99. Available from bookshops or direct from The Good God Guide Hotline, 01752 202301.