Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Home
About
My Book
Archives
More
- Theology
- Culture
- Politics
- Sermons
- Bible
- Devotions
- Daily Office
- Podcast

Home
Progressive Christian
Toxic Christianity, hate porn, and internet heroism

Toxic Christianity, hate porn, and internet heroism

Last updated on: July 2, 2016 at 12:45 pm by Morgan Guyton

Toxic Christianity, hate porn, and internet heroism 2016-07-02T12:45:31-05:00 Morgan Guyton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jennifer Mayer’s twitter profile

Thursday morning, I discovered Jennifer Mayers, an infamous internet troll sensation who blogs about her love for Jesus and her hatred of racial mixing, homosexuals, rape victims, mongoloid fetuses, and being in the same room as poor people. After a week of dismal traffic on my blog, fifteen minutes of cutting and pasting excerpts of Mayers’ material on my blog resulted in my first 20K day in at least a year. And honestly, it feels pretty disgusting.

There’s an internet phenomenon called Poe’s Law which describes situations in which parodies of fundamentalism are indistinguishable from fundamentalism itself. It’s been hard to tell whether or not Mayers is trolling everyone. The thing that’s hilariously horrifying or tragic is the way that thousands of internet heroes have poured their earnest hearts out into her comments section. Mayers should be compensated for providing a cathartic release for not-explicitly-racist white people.

A very dark satirist named John Waters made low-budget films in the 1970’s that were legendary for their incredible filth. One particularly awful film was Pink Flamingos that my wife made the mistake of watching with me. There were sex scenes involving birds that tore human flesh, a flasher who had a string of sausages under his trench coat, a talking anus puppet show, and other marvels way too horrible to share on a Christian blog.

Jennifer Mayers’ comment section was like a John Waters film. It was a pornography of hate rather than a pornography of naked bodies. We live in a world that has almost eroticized hate. I think looking for things to hate on the internet is at least as popular as looking at dirty pictures. The most common comment I saw was people who just called Mayers a f__ng c___. Every time I see that insult, I have trouble believing that people really talk that way outside of junior high school.

Many expressed their wish for Mayers to be tortured eternally in a variety of ways. Some people asked her calmly to provide chapter verse citations from the Bible to support her argument that racial mixing is against God’s will. Others pointed out the hypocrisy of her condemnation of racial mixing since she claims to be a Guatemalan who married a white man. Most of the comments were at least four paragraphs long. Some of them were longer than a blog post. It was all so freaking heroic.

This is what we do to fight evil in the information age. Rhetoric has become the entirety of our universe. We’ve been reduced to avatars who live inside our phones. Our version of building barricades and storming the Bastille is spending 45 minutes on a comment on the evil villain blog because “reshaping the conversation” is everything. I don’t know how to be a writer in a world where words don’t pay anything but they’re also the all-encompassing existential battlefield at the same time.

So how can I live in a world that loves hate porn way more than thoughtful spiritual reflection? I’m trying to decide whether or not to feel sorry for cashing in on toxic Christian hate porn that gave me a viral blog post. The way I’m rationalizing it to myself is that maybe it was a way to put my book in front of some people who need to read it. When it started to viralize, I scrambled back to put multiple links to my book in the first two sentences. Maybe somebody who came for the hate porn stumbled into something spiritually edifying. But this is how bloggers like me lose our souls. It’s like shooting up heroin for the first time. What a powerful demonic force.

So to all the internet heroes out there (including myself), why don’t we try an experiment? Instead of investing our passion in 45-minute comments on evil villain blogs, why don’t we look for lonely people in our real life physical environments to treat with love? Like that person in the cubicle around the corner with the huge “Make America Great Again” sign. They probably just need someone to smile at them and talk to them in live human conversation. Our social fragmentation is the source of our toxicity. People who feel loved don’t write stupid things on the internet, and when they do, it’s not really who they are. We can do better than hate porn.

Jennifer Mayers

Previous Post

July 1, 2016

Is there a Christianity that isn't toxic?

Next Post

July 2, 2016 What makes America great are Americans who don't think it is

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Beauty Will Save the World Bible Big Picture: Ephesians Bloggers Book Christian salvation and the Beautitudes Culture Daily Office Danceable Homiletics Deadly Sins Deep Roots: Genesis Devotions Dominican Republic May 2011 El Principio Misericordia (The Mercy Principle) Five verses God tattooed on my heart Fundraising FutureGospel Good Biblical Words Henri Nouwen Interview Jennings' Christian Imagination Jesus inside the beltway Jesus Is My Candidate Jesus vs the Pharisees Jesus vs. Plato Journey to Eternity Looking Back on 2012 Love Actually Monday Merton Monday Merton Music Occupy the manger On Earth As It Is In Heaven Original Sin Podcast Poetry Politics Prayer Psalm 119 Radical Jesus 101 Reviews Sermon on the Mount Sermons Spanish Bible study Special Series Spiritual but not religious Synchroblog Theology Things that made me think Thomas a Kempis Ugliness Into Beauty Uncategorized Viaje Dominicano 2013 Walking in the Valley (Lent) Welcome: It's More than a Mat Wild Goose 2013 Wrestling

Select a Month March 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 April 2021 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011

Follow Us!

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter Joshua Abraham Paul

Related posts from Mercy Not Sacrifice

Progressive Christian

When God's A Cop, Every Cop Is God

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Progressive Christian

The Clown (A Poem About God)

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Progressive Christian

"All People Are Holy": The Theology Of Alexandria...

Mercy Not Sacrifice

Progressive Christian

Epimenides And The Plague Of Athens

Mercy Not Sacrifice

TRENDING AT PATHEOS Progressive Christian

What Being a Modern-Day Apostle Means to Me

In my last column, I discussed the ins and outs of modern-day...

Did Ancient China Once Worship the God of...

Across human history, a common thread weaves through the origins of the...

Love Your Neighbor – Including Earth-Kin: Lev. 19,...

God’s command to love your neighbor means acting in an ethical and...

Lead a Church Study of “Jesus and Lao...

Guest writer Jack Thomas (The Irreverent Reverend) reflects on leading his church...

Pastoral Wisdom for Responding to Sermon Pushback

Getting sermon pushback on your social justice sermon? Learn practical, Proverbs-based strategies...

Principles for Understanding the Apostolic Ministry Today

Whenever people discover that my formal ministry title is "apostle," as in...

view all Progressive Christian blogs

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Copyright 2008-2026, Patheos. All rights reserved.

Subscription Support Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In

Follow Patheos