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Christian stand-up comedian Richard Praytor found a way to be just as controversial as his non-Christian contemporaries.

He does this by making keen observations from a Christian perspective and delivering them with a bit of sarcasm.

For instance, take Praytor's bit where he riffs against people who want to take the words "One nation under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Praytor tells audiences he's fine with the words being removed from the pledge, but if they are going to be taken out, the word "God" must be replaced with something else.

He then offers the following alternative: "One nation under a blue sky, formed by chance through a random process of organization against uncalculatable odds, and in complete opposition to the laws of physics, probability and entropy, and paying no attention to our forefathers who founded this country on biblical principles."

The joke ---- which took Praytor four months to write and fine tune and two weeks to memorize ---- was posted on YouTube, where it was received with a flurry of responses.

Praytor estimates that about half the people who watched the video online hate the joke and the other half love it.

"It was just one of those things where I was frustrated with some atheists," Praytor says. "And I just worked from there."

A protestant Christian since he converted from Catholicism at the age of 16, Praytor is part of a new wave of Christian comedians who not only cut their teeth on the church circuit, but in comedy clubs, too.

"Christian comedy is progressing a lot faster than it did before," Praytor says. "When it first started, everyone was talking about church jokes. And if you weren't a Christian, you have no idea what they were talking about.

"Maybe you would find some of that funny, but for the most part it was kind of boring."

Praytor will be joining fellow Christian stand-up comedians Kenn Kington and Mike Williams on Saturday in High Point as part of the Comedy Bus tour.

Praytor grew up listening to the words of legendary comedians Bill Cosby and George Carlin, and first tried stand-up for himself in college.

After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles, where he honed his material and comedic timing for eight years in such world famous comedy clubs as the Comedy Store and the Hollywood Improv.

He says the experience was a vital one, since he felt it was important to be funny to both Christians and non-Christians alike.

"The thing is that in the club -- you got to be funny -- so it was a great platform to be able to work on jokes and make sure they were funny," Praytor says. "I knew if they were funny in a club, they were going to be funny in a church, too."

These days, Praytor lives in Colorado Springs with his wife. He still performs at clubs on occasion, but prefers the churches where he does most of his work.

He says this has less to do with the audience than the work schedule.

"With churches you can go out there for one night and come back home," Praytor says. "But with clubs, you have to be out there for the whole week."

But even then, telling jokes to a Christian audience isn't an easy thing to do either.

"There's a joke among some of us comedians," Praytor says, "that when we perform at church, we wish there was a two-drink minimum to just kinda get them to loosen up a bit."

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com