Imagine for a moment that you’re a teenager again. You are basking in the glory of the fact that it’s the weekend. You decide to do what many teenagers do. You ring up your best friend, who also happens to be your cousin, and arrange to catch up and hang out at your local fast-food restaurant.
You order fries and milkshakes.
You make yourself at home in a cozy booth.
You are happily chatting away— minding your own business.
Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you notice a middle-aged woman — let’s call her Karen — staring at you and your cousin. You brush it off, try to ignore it, but the staring doesn’t stop. In fact, it intensifies. There is no doubt about it; You are being watched.
And then it happens.
This woman who you’ve never seen before in your life walks over to your table and starts a conversation with you.
Uninvited.
It turns out that this woman is a born-again Christian, and apparently, God has told her to come over to talk to you. She has come over to investigate whether you and your friend are on a date of the… you know… same-sex variety. Because well… if you are, she has a message from God for you.
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Oh, how I wish this were fiction. But sadly, it’s not.
A TikTok user named Kaiden recently posted a cringe-worthy video of a “Christian Karen” inviting herself to interrogate Kaiden and her cousin — two teenagers — who she presumes are gay and on a date together.
“Um… you go to church anywhere?” Karen pries, as the bewildered pair of teenagers simply try to eat their meal in peace. “Do you guys know how to get to heaven?”
After a painful silence, one of the kids says what any decent human watching the video is thinking: “I don’t, um, know you at all?”
“I know, I know,” the woman chuckles measuredly, “I just see you guys; you guys aren’t like girlfriends, are you?”
After graciously informing her that they are cousins — news which Karen receives with audible relief— they add: “But if it was, it’s genuinely none of your business.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” The complete stranger retorts. “But I just want to let you guys know, because they don’t teach you young kids about God anymore, that it’s not the right way to live.”
Again, the children — who are behaving more like adults than the adult in this scenario — politely point out: “If you force it on somebody, it’s not right either.”
“Yeah yeah, no, I’m not forcing it on anyone!” She laughs. “But the truth’s gotta be out there.”
Unconvinced, the kids remind her that they have no idea who she is, and she just kind of came out of nowhere, but she corrects them — it wasn’t just a random encounter.
“God told me to come over and talk to you guys.”
Boom!
This cringe-worthy encounter has been watched on TikTok more than 20 million times at the time of writing this article. Just so you don’t think I’m making it up, here is a video of the incident, aptly titled “Bro Wht the Actual Fuck,” for your viewing pleasure:
Since this video has gone viral on TikTok, it would be remiss of me not to comment on it given that the woman in the video purports to represent Jesus and well… I write about people like that.
It’s no surprise to me that this video has gone viral because “evangelism porn” is popular at the moment: Videos of bumbling Christians interfering, uninvited in the lives of others with a supposedly superior grasp on the truth only to be schooled by their apparently spiritual inferior students. A few months ago, it was Logan Dorn, a Christian man harassing girls on a beach for supposedly leading men into sexual sin by wearing bikinis, who went viral for all the wrong reasons.
Now it’s this new video.
These videos get so many views for two reasons. Firstly, they show irreligious or unchristian people responding in more Christian ways than the Christian in the video. Secondly, people are enraged and amazed by the level of arrogance and spiritual elitism it must take for a person to think it’s okay to confront a stranger in public and tell them how sinful they are.
This video is particularly galling because, in just a few seconds of footage, this woman unwittingly manages to unveil some of the toxic thinking that you’ll typically find in evangelical Christianity.
I assume you are a sinner
Two young females sitting together at a table enjoying a meal? To the evangelical eye, that could only mean one thing. They must be gay. There is no other explanation… apparently.
The sight of two girls sitting at a table together triggers this woman’s ‘sin radar’ and she makes a wild assumption. She stares at the girls for a while, probably agonizing internally about how she should respond. Maybe her brain and heart are telling her it’s none of her business, but her Christian upbringing and indoctrination have taught her that it’s her responsibility to correct and save sinners from the bowels of hell.
With almost no tangible evidence, she decides that they are probably hopeless and immoral sinners who need some correction. With the weight of this guilt-induced responsibility for the mortal souls of these girls heavy on her shoulders, she believes that God is calling her to go and speak to them. So, she takes it upon himself to approach the girls, even though they are strangers, with the idea that she will educate them on their sinful behavior.
Except she is wrong. They are cousins. And as the cousins so graciously point out, “It’s genuinely none of your business.”
But, she insists, “God told me to talk to you.”
Image by Wirestock Creators on Shutterstock
I’m here representing God
Ah, the God ‘trump card.’
How do you argue with that?
Personally, I find it atrocious that this woman, who has made an incorrect assumption, is doubling down on her error by claiming that God told her to approach the girls. A normal person might have apologized and slinked away, but once you play the “God-told-me-to” card, you can really justify all kinds of errors in judgment.
Once you say, “I am here on behalf of God,” you are really saying to the other person, “I am qualified to say whatever I like here. Your opinion doesn’t matter or count. I’m not here for dialogue. I’m here to tell you the truth I have, which also happens to be the truth you need. They don’t teach you young kids about God anymore, so let me teach you about God instead.”
Give me a break.
Anyone brash enough to say to me, “God told me to say this” or “God told me to do this,” destroys their credibility with me because such certainty belies the reality that Christianity is a faith system. To believe in Christ is hope for something of which you cannot be certain. The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a man of faith, and I believe that it is possible for God to reveal himself in various ways to people, and I believe that God can speak to us through others. However, anyone who lacks the humility to say, “I might be wrong about this,” is intellectually and spiritually arrogant.
Get ’em while they’re young
How would you feel if you were the parent of one of these children? I know how I would feel.
I would be angry.
How dare a complete stranger approach a couple of children and question them about their sexuality. That is beyond inappropriate.
“They don’t teach you young kids about God anymore,” Karen tells the children. But, it seems to me, given the way these children respectfully replied to this woman’s unwelcome advance, their parents have done a pretty good job teaching them how to respond with grace.
I’d certainly be more worried about a parent who taught their kids that it is normal and acceptable to approach other people’s kids in the streets and try to tell them how to live.
I’m not forcing my views
Perhaps the most comical part of this Tiktok video is Karen’s response to the children when they politely point out: “If you force it on somebody, it’s not right either.”
Karen says with a laugh, “Yeah yeah, no, I’m not forcing it on anyone!”
This woman is either lying to herself or is utterly bereft of self-awareness. Walking up to a stranger uninvited, confronting them with their apparent sin (at least in your eyes), and trying to convert them to your faith is actually the definition of “forcing your beliefs on others.”
If people want to find out about Christianity, you can safely assume that they know where they can find out about it in this day and age. Let them approach you with your questions instead of ramming your version of Christianity down their throats.
If people are not asking questions about your faith, then it’s probably because your life has nothing to say.
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The final word
Do you suppose that this encounter has drawn either of these cousins closer to Christ? Do you suppose any of the 20 million people who watched the encounter on Tiktok were compelled to explore the merits of Christian faith because of Karen’s message or approach?
I doubt it.
If anything, this kind of behavior only drives people further away, making a laughing stock out of evangelical Christians who, let’s be honest, are already suffering from an image problem of the highest order.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Antonio Guillem on Shutterstock
In my experience, Christians like that tend to believe that God is all-knowing. I would have asked her that, and if she responded in the affirmative, I would have pointed out that God would have already known that the two girls were cousins and not dating, and thus wouldn’t have sent her over.