Renowned Christian satire site The Babylon Bee has dropped a gem of a video featuring the chancellor of The Masters Seminary, John MacArthur. Here, MacArthur strings together a sentence he’s never uttered before in his 84 years on earth as he participates in the skewering of woke culture.
The video takes you on a comedic journey with progressive parents visiting the university with their daughter. The duo grapples with topics such as the linguistic nuances of ‘folks’ vs ‘folx’, the absence of indigenous land acknowledgements in the brochures, the search for safe spaces on campus, and the racial implications of 2+2=4. But the real kicker comes when they meet the university’s chancellor.
This is where John MacArthur, in an unexpected twist, drops some slang that’s quite…uncharacteristic. He tells the daughter, after the parents leave in a huff, “Your squad straight up ghosted me. Big yikes”. This single line will be clipped and serve as meme fodder for years.
But it’s not all laughs. The video cleverly incorporates a genuine ad for the university towards the end, making it a perfect blend of humor and promotional content.
Editor’s note. Feel free to download the video below. 😀
There is no denying that the nominally Christian satirical website the Babylon Bee has been effective in fighting the culture war at times. Satire is a useful tool in reaching some who may not otherwise be interested in hearing the truth from more straightforward sources. When one engages in Christian satire, however, that person can run the risk of not only mocking the culture, but mocking God as well.
This is the case with a recent Babylon Bee article titled, God Confirms Man Crushes on Henry Cavill Not Gay. The headline alone should be enough to send a chill down the spine of every born again Christian – satire or not. The brief article goes on to imagine some sort of modern-day ecumenical council that declares, “man crushes on former Man of Steel actor Henry Cavil do not disqualify the soul from its heavenly reward and are decidedly ‘not gay.”
The piece goes on to joke that, “the claim was reportedly made after hours of prayer and fasting in which church leaders across the globe attempted to discern the will of God.” Some of the church leaders jokingly mentioned in the article are Steven Furtick and John MacArthur.
It is actually quite believable that Furtick would approve of Christians having latent homosexual desire for man in Hollywood, but this would hardly be the case for John Macarthur. We can hear the critics now, “Oh it’s just satire, get a sense of humor.” A sense of humor is just fine, but we are not to have a sense of humor about our God, especially not when He is being mocked.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians wrote, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7). Perhaps even more disheartening than the article were the comments on the Babylon Bee’s Facebook post for the piece. There were hundreds of comments from Christian men joking (or maybe not joking) that they were relieved that they no longer had to feel guilty about their homosexual attraction to the actor.
Any man who commented that the post was not giving God the reverence He deserved was shouted down by men and women alike telling us to “lighten up.” The Christian view of God is not something we should ever “lighten up” on. Hebrews 12:28 tells us, “Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
I would caution the folks at the Babylon Bee and all those that follow them to take that verse to heart. It’s fine to mock the culture, but you are on dangerous ground when you attribute something sinful to God, even if it is under the guise of satire.
This op-ed was written by Reverend J.W. Baker, as a guest post for Protestia.
With Elon Musk now squarely at the helm of Twitter after completing his $44 billion acquisition of the social media giant, the self-described “Free Speech Absolutist” has already signaled his intention to unban many previously banned pages, including the Babylon Bee, which Musk has seemingly singled out.
In two brief missives Musk, who frequently retweeted the satire site before their suspension, wrote “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail” and “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.”- likely referencing the banning of the Babylon Bee for this post, which many see as an inflection point for the whole debate and the straw that broke the camel’s back. Consequently, #babylonbee was trending Friday night
Having already fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head lawyer and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, Musk has pledged to clean house and is expected to lay off up to 75% of the workforce to purge the company of anti-free speech sentiment.
In response to the news, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon has been ebullient, and it’s only a matter of time until they are sharing the special brand of satire again.
Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, Christendom’s premiere satire website, has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture and arrest of the man or woman who called in a bomb threat to Boston’s Children’s Hospital. The hospital has been under fire recently after a series of tweets by @LibsofTikTok revealed that they were performing sex-reassignment surgery on children, including giving hysterectomies supposedly to 16-year-olds.
Following the cash reward offer, Dillon took some potshots at reporters who wrote stories suggesting he was partly to blame for threat, writing:
“I don’t see any Leftists getting the word out that I’ve put up a reward. That’s weird. Why no interest in catching the person they claim we incited?…None of the journalists who wrote hit pieces claiming we incited the bomb threat have updated their stories to mention the fact that we’ve put out a cash reward for information leading to an arrest. What does that tell you?”
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon appeared on one of the world’s most popular podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience, to talk censorship, humor, the transgender lobby, grooming behavior, Libs of TikTok, the purpose of satire, and a lengthy segment on abortion where a visibly irate Rogan pushes back on Dillon’s insistence that life begins at conception and that all abortion is murder.
Over a three-hour conversation, Dillon and Rogan appeared to have broad agreement on various topics, including most of the subjects above. When the conversation turns to Christian charity and abortion, things get heated. Rogan begins suggests that socially and economically speaking, there needs to be a more ‘level playing field.’
Rogan: “And I think if you wanted to really give people the best chance in life, don’t give them a f***** up childhood. Figure out a way to, somehow or another, revive communities and give them a sustainable future, where you don’t have a long history of gang violence and crime and drug sales and violence.
… And there’s some people that just got a s*** roll the dice. And a lot of conservative people don’t want to recognize that. They don’t want to talk about that. They always- there’s this narrative, this pull yourself up by your bootstraps. There’s people that don’t have f****** shoes….”
Dillon: But should that be done by the government or privately? I would think that, you know, with a lot of conservatives who are often criticized for that mentality, that ‘oh, yeah, we know that equality is just, you know, making sure everybody has the same opportunity. Nobody needs a leg up. These people should pull them up by their bootstraps.’ I do think that people, generally speaking, Christian conservatives are very compassionate and do a lot of charity work.
Rogan: “Yes, they do, yes”
Dillon: A ton of charity work. And so they are willing to put their own time volunteering and donating money towards causes that help with those things. You know, you look at, like Crisis Pregnancy Centers, for example, which Elizabeth Warren wants to shut down for some reason. I mean, these are helping women in need, and she wants to shut them down. And these are people who are volunteering their time, their resources, their money, to help people who are in a tough spot. And it’s it’s completely charity, it’s kindness. It’s love and compassion.
But it’s always, you know, always painted with a brush of ‘Oh, yeah, you know, you’re on your own. We only care about children before they’re born, not after they’re born,’ you know.? But I do think I honestly, an argument can be made that conservative Christians are the most charitable people there are.”
Rogan: They’re very charitable people.
As the conversation progresses to the subject of abortion, Rogan says he’s “pretty absolute” when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, using the case of a 14-year old who has been raped as someone who “should not have to f***** carry some rapist baby” and insists repeatedly that everyone has to agree on that. Thankfully, Dillon jumps in and pushes back on this notion and they have a real skirmish about it. While Dillon seemed to hesitate with laying it all out early on that all abortion is wrong, they ultimately get there.
Dillon: “I would say, I would lay it out like this, I would say: it is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human life. Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human life. Therefore abortion is wrong. And I don’t think any of the, I don’t think any of the examples of like, oh, well how developed is it? You know, can it think, is it conscious, can it dream, can it feel pain-
Rogan: “So for you, it’s the moment of conception”
Dillon: “If it’s a human life, a distinct human life, then I think it’s wrong to to end its life.”
The discussion ultimately concludes with Rogan acknowledging:
Rogan: “…When you talk about like (aborting) someone who’s at six months or nine months; that gets crazy. That’s like, you’re literally killing a baby, you’re killing a baby that could exist outside the world if-“
Dillon: “What if rape produced it, and it’s eight months old in the womb?”
Rogan: “That’s a good question. That’s also what makes it a very, very messy conversation.”
The censorious social media giant Twitter continues to do their part in muddying up the social order by suspending The Babylon Bee, the #1 Christian satire site on the internet, over a post they made awarding Rachel Levine, the transgendered U.S. assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, man of the year. The post was shared 132,000 times on Facebook and 30,700 times on Twitter before they got the community strike for being in violation of Twitter’s guidelines against hate speech, which forbids users from calling a man a woman, and vice versa.
The threat from Twitter comes just one month after Facebook removed another Babylon Bee post, declaring that the article violated their community standards on hate speech and that further account restrictions could result in them being deplatformed.
Twitter says that the Bee will be allowed to post again only if they delete the post, which CEO of the Babylon Bee says is not going to happen, explaining:
We’re told our account will be restored in 12 hours, but the countdown won’t begin until we delete the tweet that violates the Twitter Rules. We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.
I just received this notice that we’ve been locked out of our account for “hateful conduct.” pic.twitter.com/udMriKcDr6
Yes @TheBabylonBee has been suspended from Twitter for hate speech for calling Rachel (née Richard) Levine a man. Which is objectively true. The price of getting our account back is deleting the tweet. This is real life.
The censorious social media giant Facebook has removed another Babylon Bee post, declaring that the satiric article violated their community standards on hate speech and that further account restrictions could result in them being deplatformed.
“As a biological male, Schneider is once again proving the vast superiority of the male intellect,” said MIT researcher Dr. Yamblo Figlenstrogg. “For better or for worse, this will be a huge boost for sexists and transphobes everywhere!”
Audience members were reportedly in awe to find that Schneider’s dress and pretty hair did not negatively affect the functioning of her brilliant male brain.”
and
“Unfortunately, Schnieder’s Jeopardy streak was tragically cut short after being completely stumped by tonight’s “3rd Grade Biology” category.”
In response to the infraction, Babylon Bee Ceo Seth Dillon told Not the Bee:
“We’re going to appeal this.
Remember how Facebook recently rolled out new rules stipulating that “real satire” cannot “punch down”? Are they really willing to say that defending women against a male takeover of their records is “punching down” and – even worse – “hate speech”? We’re going to find out.”
During a recent segment, the crew addressed the controversy, responding to a clip of a critic who took them to task and chastised them by saying:
“Number one is you cannot ‘do me a quick solid by accepting Jesus.’ That’s just not how it works. Number two is the emotional music does nothing for the video. Because there’s no substance to the gospel presentation or what they like to call it. If the gospel does not have the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, that He saved you from your sins, and all it takes is belief in Him, then it’s not the gospel.
In response to the critique, the Babylon Bee crew starts laughing uproariously, revealing:
“Pwnd. Wow, I don’t think we could ever do that again though.”
Kyle Mann: “I’ve seen some criticisms of that, like one guy released a video of that, and then everybody else dogpiled on it like ‘Oh, yeah, I hated that too.’ Yeah, the interview’s been up for a month and no one said anything.
But I actually hadn’t seen – some of them were a little more in-depth, where they’re just like, ‘oh, I wasn’t comfortable with joking around with the guy who’s actually not a believer.’ And, and making the gospel kind of a joke, even though they understood that it was satire and we were just being silly. But I hadn’t seen that. He’s like, ‘You guys did a terrible job at presenting the gospel.”
They conclude by talking about the emotional music that was overlayed at the end, revealing that it was on purpose, “It’s almost like that was the joke. That’s exactly what we were trying to parody.”
In short, The Babylon Bee and Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann continue to treat the whole thing as a joke, sharing that they never intended the presentation to be taken seriously and never truly intended to present the gospel to Musk because after all, they were “just being silly” and parodying a real gospel presentation.
What a waste.
[Editor’s note: I wonder what Paul would have said, and if he would have seen the “parody” of the gospel as “another gospel” like he did in Galatia.]
Several days ago, the Babylon Bee, Christendom’s premiere satire website, managed to snag a two-hour interview with Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of Tesla, Space-X. Musk is well-known for his love of memes and has occasionally retweeted the Bee.
At the end of the show, after guests are invited to give rapid-fire answers to 10 questions, one of the hosts asks Musk to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Here is his answer*:
Bee: “To make this church, we’re wondering if you could do us a quick solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.”
Musk: “I mean, let’s just say like, I agree with the principles that Jesus advocated. There’s great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus. And I agree with those teachings. And things like turn the other cheek, are very important because, as opposed to an eye for an eye, an eye for an eye leads everyone blind. So forgiveness, you know, it’s important and treating people as you would wish to be treated. Love thy neighbour as thyself. Very important.”
Bee: “So that’s like a 60 70% ‘yes’?”
Musk: “I would say I believe in the God of Spinoza. (Editor’s Note. Baruch Spinoza was a famous Philosopher during the 17th century who basically argued that God and nature were one, and ferociously rejected the God of the bible. So hey, if Jesus is saving people, I mean, I wouldn’t stand in his way. You know, like, “sure I’ll be saved, why not?”
Bee, clapping with crosstalk: “Sweet. We did it!. I think he just said yes. We got him! Do you want to get baptized or anything real quick?”
Musk: “I was baptized. Yeah, they dunked me in the water when I was just a baby. I even had, like, you know, whatever, the blood and water of Christ. That was kind of weird, you know? As a little kid, let’s give him some weird-tasing wine You know like ‘what the hell is this?’ I’m like ‘isn’t this kind of weird?”
Bee, looking at camera: “just cut it off when he said ‘yes.'”
Musk: “Is this kind of like, some weird metaphor for cannibalism or something. I don’t get it. Like what the hell? I remember thinking that was just crazy when I was a kid. And like ‘whoa’ you know? Even as a metaphor it’s kind of odd, you know? So it’s like, should we giving alcohol to minors?”
Bee: “We do grape juice, we’re Baptists. But I think it’s unusual to even be thinking about that as a kid. As a kid you just go through the motions, and it’s later on that you think, ‘wait a minute, what does this actually represent? What am I doing?”
Musk: “No, when I was a kid, I was like, ‘is this actually the blood and body? What? I’m not for eating somebody…this is just pretty odd’. You know, I remember thinking that even at age five. So I was definitely in Sunday school, when they were telling me all the stories and I was like, asking questions and like, they really were upset that I was asking questions. I was like ‘how did Jesus feed the crowd with five loaves of bread and three fish, like, how big was the crowd? And like, where did the fish and bread come from? From his cloak or something?
Because I was reading books, and I was like, did they materialize? Where do they come from, you know? Would you take a bite of the bread and the bread would just come back to being a full bread? They left out the details”
Bee: “Where did the universe come from?”
Musk: “Well, I’m not saying I know all the answers here. It’s just, Jesus was obviously very pro-alcohol, you know? Because one of his miracles was turning water into wine. Yeah, that was like they were having a party. They ran out of wine, and they’re like “let’s keep this bender going” Who can solve this problem? Friggin stores closed. Jesus like “I got you: water, now wine.” And they’re like “party on!” So pro-partying with alcohol was literally one of the miracles. So it’s definitely- you’re the savior, you keep the party going with lots of wine. That’s great. “
We’re grateful the Bee broached the subject, but ultimately, the whole thing was awkward given that they assumed that Musk knew the gospel or anything about Christianity, which he did not.
It would have been far more profitable to say something like “because we’re a bunch of Christians here, we’d regret it if we didn’t at the very least explain to you what the gospel is that we believe, because it’s one of those things that frequently gets twisted and lost and misrepresented” and give him a clear presentation, rather than making a joke out of it an having the whole thing be a non-starter.
To be blunt, if anything, the attitude and tone they took about it could very well be viewed as blasphemous. It was not good at all and came across as if they really didn’t care that he be given a serious, biblical view of the gospel- because whatever that was, it wasn’t the gospel. Joking is all well and good, but this is not something you joke about.
It’s a missed opportunity, but we hope they get another chance at it one day.
*Editor’s Note. Because Musk has a bit of a speech impediment and an occasionally jilted way of talking, we lightly edited the interview for clarity.
Editor’s Note 2. Our initial article didn’t go into our displeasure with the presentation, and we added a few lines to highlight the problems. Original post can be seen here.
The Babylon Bee, the #1 Christian satire site on the internet, has been embroiled in a series of conflicts this week that has seen them secure a few wins and suffer a few losses as they fight back against social media censors.
In a post by CEO Seth Dillon, the Bee explains that they’ve had a few new developments that have forced them to look elsewhere email marketing after Mailchimp suspended their account “They cited ‘harmful information’ as the reason for the suspension” said Dillon “but said it was a mistake and quickly reinstated our account. We have no interest in staying on a platform that’s looking for excuses to censor us by literally scanning the content of our emails. The reversal, in this case, gives us no confidence that it won’t happen again, and perhaps the suspension will be permanent next time. So we’re moving on to an email service provider that actually values free expression.”
Furthermore, they face an existential threat from Facebook, which has been working on refreshing their new social media policies to restrict what can and cannot be considered satire, with their oversight board explaining last week, as they work on crafting a framework for moderating satire:
…humor and satire are highly subjective across people and cultures, underscoring the importance of human review by individuals with cultural context. Stakeholders also told us that “intent is key,” though it can be tough to assess. Further, true satire does not “punch down”: the target of humorous or satirical content is often an indicator of intent. And if content is simply derogatory, not layered, complex, or subversive, it is not satire. Indeed, humor can be an effective mode of communicating hateful ideas.
It doesn’t take much to surmise who those targets that cannot be “punched down” on are, or how easily they could use that as a pretext to shut the site down.
Lastly, in a bit of positive news, they secured a victory against the New York Times, noting:
“We had a big win against The New York Times. In response to our demand letter, they removed their defamatory statements about us and updated the offending article with a correction. The significance of this can’t be overstated. If those statements had stayed in print, the social networks (and other vendors we work with) could have used them against us, citing them as cause for terminating our accounts. Instead, there’s now a ton of media coverage highlighting the fact that it was The New York Times—not us—that had been trafficking in misinformation.”
