Comparative religion
The Church's teachings have been perceived as satirizing Christianity and Scientology, earning the Church a reputation as a parody religion. Church leaders have said that Dobbs met L. Ron Hubbard, and SubGenius narratives echo extraterrestrial themes found in Scientology. Cusack notes Jehovah 1 bears similarities to Xenu, a powerful alien found in some Scientologist writings. The Church's rhetoric text has also been described as a satirical imitation of the televangelism of the 1980s. Cusack sees the Church's faux commercialism as culture jamming targeting prosperity theology, calling the faux commercialism "a strikingly original innovation in contemporary religion". Religious scholar Thomas Alberts of the University of London views the Church as attempting to "subvert the idea of authenticity in religion" by mirroring other religions to create a sense of both similarity and alterity.
Cusack compares the Church of the SubGenius to the Ranters, a radical 17th-century pantheist movement in England that made statements that shocked many hearers, attacking traditional notions of religious orthodoxy and political authority. In her view, this demonstrates that the Church of the SubGenius has "legitimate pedigree in the history of Western religion". The American journalist Michael Muhammad Knight likens the Church to the Moorish Orthodox Church of America, a 20th-century American syncretic religious movement, citing their shared emphasis on freedom.
There are a number of similarities between the Church of the SubGenius and Discordianism. Eris, the goddess of chaos worshiped by adherents of the latter, is believed by members of the Church of the SubGenius to be Jehovah 1's wife and an ally to humans. Like Discordianism, the Church of the SubGenius rejects absolute truth and embraces contradictions and paradoxes. Religious scholar David Chidester of the University of Cape Town views the Church as a "Discordian offshoot", and Kirby sees it as "a child of the Discordians". Both groups were heavily influenced by the writings of Robert Anton Wilson, whom SubGenius members call "Pope Bob". Kirby states that the two groups have elements of bricolage and absurdity in common, but the Church of the SubGenius more explicitly remixes pop culture.
Categorization
According to Carole M. Cusack, scholars often have difficulty defining the Church. Commentators generally place the Church in the category of "joke religions", which is often seen as pejorative. Kirby sees this categorization as partially accurate because irony is an essential aspect of the faith. Other terms used to describe the Church include "faux cult", "[postmodern] cult", "satirical pseudoreligion", "sophisticated joke religion", "anti-religion religion", and "high parody of cultdom". Members of the Church, however, have consistently maintained that they practice a religion. Stang described the group as both "satire and a real stupid religion", and contends that it is more honest about its nature than are other religions.
Cusack states that the Church "must be accorded the status of a functional equivalent of religion, at the very least, if not 'authentic' religion". She sees it as "arguably a legitimate path to liberation", citing its culture jamming and activism against commercialism. Kirby posits that the Church is a religion masquerading as a joke, rather than the reverse: in her view, it is a spiritual manifestation of a cultural shift toward irony. Alberts believes there is broad agreement that the Church is fundamentally a different type of group than religions that date to antiquity; he prefers to use the term "fake religion" to describe it. He sees it, along with Discordianism, as part of a group of "popular movements that look and feel like religion, but whose apparent excess, irreverence, and arbitrariness seem to mock religion". Knight characterizes the Church as "at once a postmodern spoof of religion and a viable system in its own right".
Appraisal
Kirby argues that the Church forms a counterpart to Jean Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality, arguing, "they create, rather than consume, popular culture in the practice of their spirituality". She calls their remixing of popular culture sources an "explicitly creative process", maintaining that it prompts the reader to adopt some of the group's views by forcing "the individual to reconsider normative methods of approaching the content". She states that the group attempts to "strip references of their original meaning without necessarily losing their status as icons".
Kirby also sees the Church's goal as deconstructing "normative modes of thought and behavior" in American culture; she believes that it attempts to fight culturally ingrained thought patterns by shocking people. She argues that traditional approaches to religion cast seriousness as a measure of devotion, an approach she believes has failed in contemporary society. She feels that irony is a commonplace value that most religions have ignored. By embracing the quality of irony, she maintains, the Church of the SubGenius offers a more accessible worldview than many groups.
Literature scholar Paul Mann of Pomona College is critical of the Church of the SubGenius. He notes that the Church purports to present the truth through absurdity and faults it for insufficiently examining the concept of truth itself. In addition, he believes that the group responds to criticism in a "hysterical, literal, fantastic" way.
Anarchist writer Bob Black, a former member, criticized the Church, alleging that it has become conformist and submissive to authority. He believes that although it initially served to satirize cults, it later took on some of their aspects. In 1992, allegations of cult-like behavior also appeared in the newspaper Bedfordshire on Sunday after a spate of SubGenius-themed vandalism struck the English town of Bedford.
