1980s. Cusack sees the Church's faux commercialism as culture jamming targeting prosperity theology, calling it "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 Scholars often have difficulty defining the Church. Most commentators have placed the Church in the category of "joke religions", which is usually 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 has 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