Legendary comedian Jeff Foxworthy stopped by the program today to talk about the upcoming season of his runaway hit show The American Bible Challenge and some of the hilarious new segments added this year. One of the most promising is ‘Christ or Klingon,’ in which contestants must determine if something is from the Bible or from the Star Trek ‘Klingon’ language. Surprisingly, it’s actually harder than you might think.
“The one and only Jeff Foxworthy is with us now, host of the American Bible Challenge,” Glenn said. “My family and I watched this… And we love it. We really love it. [It’s] something the whole family can watch together and enjoy.”
The American Bible Challenge has been a huge success for GSN, which is a non faith-based network. The game show is the highest rated original series in the history of the network and proves that there is a strong and devoted audience for family-friendly programming.
The third season is set to kick off Thursday, May 22, and with a new season comes a new set of categories. Perhaps the most intriguing is ‘Christ or Klingon,’ which asks competitors to identify a something as being from the Bible or from Star Trek.
“I love this new category,” Glenn said. “Christ or Klingon.”
“You know what, we try to keep these things fun. And so one of the writers came up with this thing,” Jeff said. “Of course, I’ve got this accent. And if you ever saw my note cards, it's just phonetic pronunciations of these Old Testament names. So I'm always butchering them. One of the new categories is ‘Christ or Klingon,’ and they have to tell us if it's from the Bible or the Star Trek movies… My first thought was ‘Well, that's not going to work.’ But it's so much harder than you think it is. You hear this name and you have no idea whether that it is somebody's name in the Book of Ruth or if it's from Star Trek.”
Part of what makes the show so fun is the contestants that partake. Jeff explained that finding great participants who differ from some of the preconceived notions of religious people was really important.
“That was a real deliberate thing. I wanted it to be from day one, if you were on the outside and you had this preconceived notion what people of faith look like, we wanted to blow that out of the water,” he explained. “And so on this show, you'll have nuns playing next to tattoo artists playing next to rodeo cowboys and women from the roller derby. We've had Jewish priests on. We have had a team of Mormon moms. And yeah, we just wanted to blow up all those stereotypes.”
The success of The American Bible Challenge has really proven how mainstream well-produced faith-based programming can be. Glenn believes that speaks to a larger movement in this country, in which values and principles are once again in vogue and people from all sides of the political spectrum are coming together.
“I think you're right. One of the things I always told my kids is: I don't know anybody that's self-focused that's a happy person. And the people that get the fullness out of life are people who are other-focused. I think that's coming around… And I do think in the end, goodness always wins,” Jeff said. “And I think that's why this show works. You know, it shows people, who aren't getting anything out of it themselves, just people that kind of realize, ‘Hey, I am deeply loved and because of that – the outpouring of that is: I'm going to turn around and love others.’ That is a full life. And I think that's what Christ was talking about when he said, ‘I come so that they may have life.’ It's not just talking about Heaven after you die. It's talking about now, getting the most out of life.”