It’s a typical day, and I am scrolling Instagram reels on my phone. My algorithm feeds me a mixture of dogs doing dog things, and home decor. And then, suddenly, a woman named Kathy fills my screen. Kathy is praying fervently against the “spirit of baldness”.
I’m not sure what the spirit of baldness is, or if hair loss is truly a symptom of spiritual oppression, but I send it to one of my friends. We have a thing going. We trade Cringey Christian ContentTM back and forth like Pokémon cards. Our DMs are full of questionable theology peddled by beautiful Christian women and men in beautiful homes with beautiful things surrounding them. There’s one video of a conventionally attractive couple, for example. She’s clad in a soft and flowy dress, swaying in front of the camera. Her husband enters the shot. He grabs her by the hand and twirls her around, and then they fall on the bed, lips locked. Above all this is a scripture:
“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Luke 1:45
(I’m only going to briefly mention that this verse is referring to Mary and the promise of the conception of Jesus literally Christ and it is now the slogan atop a couple making out in bed, an encouragement that you, too, can be a snog-worthy wife one day. I’m sure this what Luke is referring to in his gospel).
There’s another one of a girl sitting in front of her bible, tears streaming down her face. Her hands are raised in worship as she prays. It’s a beautiful sentiment, sure. But it starts to feel less beautiful when I imagine her propping her phone up on the table and getting the right angle for her video. I wonder when she pressed record. Was it at the beginning? Or was it when she noticed she felt emotional? Does she always record her times of prayer in case there’s content?
The more I see videos like this, the more tired I grow of Christianfluencing1.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Christian influencing is inherently bad. It makes sense for people to build brands off of the things they are passionate about, and many Christians are passionate about their faith. What’s more, Christian culture naturally lends itself towards the influencing sphere. We’ve been building platforms and following people for centuries. We just now do it with aesthetic posts, affiliate links, and catchy music.
And hey, maybe God prompted that girl to film herself praying that day or that couple to twirl around under a scripture from Luke. I’m not the divine creator of the universe. I do not know God’s ways.
I do, however, think Christian influencing is untrustworthy. There’s something about it that feels inauthentic to me. Perhaps it is the lack of nuance many of these creators employ in their content. There is a lot of certainty, a lot of black-and-white thinking (which, by the way, is a hallmark of immaturity but we’ll file that away for a future essay). Maybe it’s the unclear intentions of the creator. It is hard to disentangle what might be an authentic desire to encourage others, from the dopamine hit of more views, more likes, more followers, and more fodder for someone’s podcast. Or, perhaps, it’s the unclear credentials of the creator. Is this person equipped to speak on this topic? Or are they just charismatic, or pretty, or thin?
But, ultimately, I think it is the lack of connection the creator has to the audience that irks me. It becomes a discipleship of hot-takes, a one-sided parasocial relationship where a person provides blanket advice, wisdom, and insight to people in a diverse range of contexts. I’m not sure content creators are aware of the unbalanced power dynamic here, either. Someone with thousands of followers has more social power than the person with four hundred. This makes the relationship between creator and viewer incredibly skewed. Not to mention, follower count is seen as an offering of credibility. Someone could be seen as credible simply because they have many followers, and not because the information they have to offer is correct or sound.
All that being said, this arrangement lacks one of the key aspects of Christian discipleship: relationship. It is hard to love up close, to live out the nitty-gritty friendship and mentorship we are called to. It’s a lot more fun to serve a spicy, divisive take on a communion platter and watch the fire emojis come in hot. It’s much less fun to engage in humble and honest discourse, the sort that leaves you changed and impacted. It is hard to create online discourse that honours the nuance of theology and psychology and what it means to be human.
There are people who do this well, mind you. Of course there are.
I’m just saying… it feels weird sometimes. That’s all.
I am very proud of this portmanteau, thank you.