Frank’s atheism ‘cure’

He’s been making us laugh for decades. But there is a serious side to comedian, Frank Skinner – one that sees him praying twice a day and seeking salvation for his atheist friends.

Now in his early 60s, Skinner, who is also the co-writer of the England football team’s most famous anthem, Three Lions, has also taken a big step into the unknown – by publishing a book all about prayer.

“I’m not cutting a new groove here,” he says in the new issue of Sorted as he reflects on the launch of The Comedians Prayer Book. “As a kid, I remember praying, at my Catholic Junior School assembly, that Mary, Mother of Mercy, might ‘enlighten the minds that are miserably enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin’. All I’m doing is putting names to this shadowy ensemble so the Blessed Virgin doesn’t have to seek them amid the near-impenetrable atheist gloom.

“So, yes, I pray for the miserably enfolded. They are much more in need of your help than the believers, be they chronically sick or violently oppressed. These latter sufferings are very much of an earthly nature. Come the glorious day, their anguish will be left behind, like when those novelty items in an amusement arcade grab-a-gift machine are lifted from their cheerless chamber of materialism by a descending claw from above.

“The atheists, in contrast, have an illness that, if untreated, renders them sufferers for all eternity. Temporal torments of a physical nature are small beer compared to a significant endangering of the soul.”

This is an excerpt from a feature appearing in the July-August 2021 edition of Sorted magazine.