Humor is a prelude to faith and
Laughter is the beginning of prayer.

Niebuhr links humor and laughter to religious life by treating them as spiritual “threshold” experiences. Humor, in his sense, is not mere entertainment but a capacity for self-distance: it punctures pride, exposes human pretensions, and makes room for humility. That humility can become a “prelude to faith,” because faith begins when the self stops imagining it is self-sufficient. Likewise, “laughter” as the “beginning of prayer” suggests that honest prayer starts with recognizing one’s limits and contradictions—often with a kind of relieved, chastened joy. The line implies that a mature spirituality can include comedy as a form of truth-telling and a safeguard against fanatic seriousness.