Baby Formula Social Experiment Exposes Christian Hypocrisy

The venerable author and former Episcopal bishop, John Shelby Spong, once said:

Whatever diminishes life is evil, and whatever enhances life is good.

Now I’m not much of a religious man, but I can find wisdom in what religious thinkers have to say.

If human life is valuable, then anything that intentionally leads to the reduction of life, even if it does so progressively, is evil. It’s a clear, straightforward statement because human life enables human flourishing.

So if you come across a starving baby and you have the means to feed it, at zero cost to your well-being, and you refuse to do so, are you evil?

Maybe you can argue that for an individual, “well-being” and “cost” are relative. It’s possible to have the means but not the capacity, and vice versa. Therefore, a case can be made that you are not evil.

But what if we are talking about institutions? The relativity of means and capacity largely disappears; would they be evil?

This was unironically a question TikToker Nikalie Monroe set out to answer by conducting a social experiment on the one place that’s staunchly pro-life, the bastion of morality, the arbiter of all that is holy: religious institutions.

And boy, were the results eye-opening. But also expected.

The experiment was stupidly simple; I’m surprised no one else has thought of this before.

All she did was call churches in the south (some of which were user-requested) and, with the sound of a crying baby blaring in the background, ask if they could help with formula for her starving baby. She made sure to add that she is broke and in dire need, and she is only looking for help, not money.

Here’s one of her many videos showing exactly how she went about it:

At the time of writing, out of the 38 institutions asked, 29 said no, and 9 said yes.

Of the 9, who said yes, this is how they break down by religious affiliations:

• Catholic = 2
• Evangelical = 2
• Islam = 1
• Hindu = 1
• Black Baptist = 1
• Christian clinic = 1
• Non-denominational = 1

It’s so fascinating that two-thirds of those who said yes were from religious groups composed predominantly of minorities, except for Catholics, of course.

What happened to giving to those in need?

So it seems, white evangelical Christians are not as moral as they like to portray themselves to be. They would let a starving baby potentially die despite shouting from the rooftops about how sacred life is. All while raking in billions in tax-free money from their followers.

But as someone who grew up within similar circles, these contradictions don’t shock me one bit.

I have always known that Christians, more specifically the Bible-thumping, prosperity gospel-preaching, values-imposing types, are some of the biggest hypocrites around. I’m sorry if this offends Christians reading this, but it’s the truth.

For them, Christianity is nothing more than a means to gain power, riches, or both. How else would you explain Christians overwhelmingly voting for Trump despite him being the antithesis of what it means to be a Christian?

And how else would you explain pastors from these churches coming out of the woodwork after the fact, pastor-spainling and defecting, doing and saying everything besides owning up to the fact that they fucked up on this one.

They couldn’t even ask a single person from their massive congregation to check up on the mother to see if she was okay.

Religion is like a knife. You can use it to cut bread, or you can stick it in someone’s back. — Desmond Tutu

I understand this little experiment is not indicative of all Christians and certainly not of all religions. Even in a sea of “nos,” people’s humanity still shines through in the few “yeses” that we saw, showing that religion can essentially function like a tool. It can amplify the goodness within you or the opposite.

To close things off, I would love to see this lady do the same experiment, but this time call corporations. I have a feeling the results would be equally fascinating.