NEW YORK (RNS) In their day, “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell” attracted controversy for putting the tenets of Christian faith on the musical stage, but leave it to the creators of “South Park” to raise the bar (or lower it, depending upon your point of view) with a high-spirited look at religion in “The Book of Mormon.”

Opening Thursday (March 24) at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, the show is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s often-obscene appreciation of earnestness in the service of God — and its limits.

Given their history of persecution, many Mormons can be, well, a little defensive about their church. Throw in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ distinct theology and practices and you’ve got ready-made material that is ripe for parody.

Parker and Stone take the parody and run with it — often to places they shouldn’t.

To be sure, the duo have been open about their own backgrounds: growing up in Colorado, they’ve said they knew Mormons but wondered how such nice people could believe in a faith that says its scriptures were revealed on golden plates by an angel named Moroni to church founder Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1830s.

Many people’s initial encounter with Mormons is a pair of clean-cut missionaries who go door to door to spread the church’s doctrine. Parker and Stone’s play opens the same way, with 10 handsome men in characteristic white shirts and ties and black name badges enthusiastically ringing imaginary doorbells and declaring, “I would like to share with you my book of Jesus Christ.”

As the eager missionaries pair off for their two-year assignments in Norway, France or elsewhere, one decidedly odd couple is sent to Uganda. Elder Price (played by Andrew Rannells) is handsome and self-centered. Elder Cunningham (Josh Gad) is short, pudgy and desperately wants to be liked.

Although the boys are sure that “the Book of Mormon will do those Africans a lot of good,” the village they visit is terrorized by a paramilitary militia that is practicing female circumcision, and a local man sings “80 percent of us have AIDS.” The villagers greet the missionaries with a rousing African-style chant and dance, but the boys are shocked to realize that the locals’ rather reasonable response to their hard lives is “F*** you, God.”

Parker and Stone’s Uganda, while a lively comic construction, bears only a passing resemblance to the real thing, where progress has been made against AIDS and people don’t walk around with manual typewriters thinking they are “texting machines.”

Price deserts his companion, who learns to rely on himself and “Man Up,” like Jesus did when “he crawled up on that cross and stuck it out.” Cunningham’s version of Mormon preaching innocently and amusingly incorporates alternative forms of modern religion: “Star Wars,” “Star Trek” and “Lord of the Rings.”

Cunningham’s desire to help the villagers find hope in their lives and stand against oppression is so engaging that a local girl, Nabulungi (the delightful Nikki M. James) expresses a desire to be baptized and packs for a trip to “Salt Lake-y City.” When no such trip materializes, she accuses the missionaries of traveling “from your sparkling paradise in Utah to tell us ridiculous stories.”

The show cleverly satirizes the LDS church’s prohibition against homosexuality by having half a dozen male missionaries sing (and tap dance!) about how they “turn off” uncomfortable feelings. A plaintive song sung by Cunningham (“I Believe”) captures the endearing emotions of a believer, and Price’s guilt-ridden dream of hell features dancing Starbucks coffee cups (the church shuns caffeine). The missionaries’ good intentions are sent up in a number called “I Am Africa,” in which the whiter-than-white team sing that they are “the tears of Nelson Mandela.”

Some song-and-dance numbers go on a bit too long, the constant stream of four-letter words and frat-boy humor can get tiresome — one African character declares several times that he has maggots in his scrotum — and the villagers perform a sensationally pornographic version of the founding of Mormonism. One wonders if the subject of female genital mutilation — much less numerous mentions of the female sex organ — really should be Broadway show material.

“The Book of Mormon” often treats its Mormon characters with surprising kindness, its Africans less so, and will appeal to those who share Parker and Stone’s “South Park”-style appetite for satire wrapped in endless vulgarity.

“The Book of Mormon” is co-directed by Parker and choreographer Casey Nicholaw. Robert Lopez co-wrote the book, music and lyrics with Parker and Stone.

(Solange De Santis is a New York-based correspondent for Religion News Service and covers the arts, with a special interest in theater, for a variety of publications.)