The Responsibility Revolution
Exploring how the Church can learn from the culture of online influencers.
Truth and wisdom are attained two ways. The first is through direct revelation; an opportunity afforded to many, but rarely recognized. The second comes through trial and error after refusing the first. The process that begins with parents telling their children not to touch the hot stove continues throughout life, as the wisdom to trust gradually overcomes our instincts to rebel.
The Church is the recipient of wisdom in both kinds, but its myopic focus on the superiority of revelation has atrophied its ability to perceive wisdom learned the hard way. Any survey of Christian social media quickly reveals that the vast majority of Christians fail to recognize just how poorly what they have to offer stacks up against the alternatives. The steady decline of the Christian cultural relevancy is closely tied to this failure.
Insiders are quick to blame skeptics for rejecting obvious truths, failing to recognize that words carry far more meaning when they are tied to subjective, internal experiences of love and forgiveness. Everything from strong claims about inerrancy and infallibility, to syrupy Sunday school lessons in which Jesus is the answer to every question can find a profound resonance with people who know, but they sound like arbitrary assertions and meaningless platitudes to those who don’t.
Of course, anyone with a bit of maturity can recognize the foolishness of pursuing hedonism or get-rich-quick schemes. But these are not the alternatives keeping young skeptics from embracing Christianity. Nor is skepticism the driving force of culture, but a ubiquitous attitude of a cynical generation. It’s a justified attitude held against a plethora of failed institutions, of which Christianity is just one more. Young people, and especially young men, are drowning in hopelessness and resignation.
In 2025, some pastors are still wringing their hands over atheist apologetics, or even criticizing Jordan Peterson, whose influence with young people evaporated before the majority of Gen Z graduated high school. In hindsight, a few have come to recognize that Dr. Peterson’s influence was vastly preferable to characters like Andrew Tate, but they are still lagging far behind the curve.
This highlights another aspect of the difference between revealed truth, and wisdom earned: In contrast to the timeless quality of special revelation, experience adapts from its mistakes, and often quickly. The messages of online influencers are not static; but ever evolving, and sometimes rapidly.
Many of them are quite forthright about this fact; they are not experts, but experiencers, learners on a journey, just a few steps ahead of their followers. This is an important aspect of their appeal, a posture Christians could learn from. If a pastor is fortunate enough to have a young person discuss something they are learning from online influencers, they would be wise to listen and take note, suppressing the urge to point out that someone isn’t a Christian.
The ability for these influencers to suddenly pop up out of nowhere can also feed concerns about the nature of social media algorithms. These mysterious forces seemingly hold the keys to who and what will drive the culture forward. While platforms certainly have the ability to suppress certain messages, they are largely indiscriminate towards the taste of viewers. Whatever keeps them engaged will generate more ad revenue. For those seeking real answers to real problems, the algorithms work surprisingly well at promoting the good over the bad.
The public display of processing and learning from mistakes provides an easy test for followers to evaluate the advice being given. If it doesn’t work, they stop listening. Those who succeed in unlocking the path forward gain momentum, while the charlatans and grifters (eventually) fall by the wayside. Of course, people can still grab attention through provocative and sensational content, but the shelf life of such content is decreasing over time.
Younger generations seem to recognize and reject the futility of engaging with such content far more quickly than the earlier adopters of digital media. They see engagement with pornography as a dead end, but rather than trying to stay off their devices cold turkey, like many men of my generation were advised to do, the algorithm leads them to influencers who have learned the best methods to kick the habit, or address its underlying causes.
This is another blind spot of many Christians, who more or less discourage people from engaging with the internet because it contains pornography (a hidden sin of many Christian leaders), wary of any advice not clothed in the garb of Christian teaching. But this fear keeps them from recognizing the most interesting things about the rise of influencer culture; the convergence of wisdom that resonates deeply with the revealed truth of scripture.
The influencers who endure almost always begin exploring a niche aspect of culture. It might be dating, fitness, or finance and cryptocurrency. Or they might cover politics and current events, arts, technology, or fringe topics like ghosts and aliens. But inevitably, the journey of exploration leads these content creators into other areas of discovery, like history, psychology, philosophy, and religion. Their quest to solve a single problem (how do I get a girlfriend?), marked by both successes and failures, leads them to uncover deeper issues, and deeper solutions.
Likewise, audiences do not follow these creators like static gurus, but hedge their bets, balancing the views and opinions of one influencer with several others, voices that are rarely in direct opposition, but approach the same topic from a variety of starting places. This not only brings clarity to the issue at hand, but increases the speed at which a viewer can discover “the thing behind the thing.”
Inevitably, when the dating guy begins to understand the impact and effects of economic and political policy, he doesn’t start from scratch - these content creators exist within the culture they are shaping - so he reaches out to the bitcoin guy, who has become very knowledgeable about the problems with fiat currency, who introduces him to the history guy, who knows the philosophy guy, etc, etc.
Some influencers, like Joe Rogan, play the more traditional role as interviewers, exposing their audience to a variety of experts, including PhDs within mainstream academia. But the credentials are merely incidental, it is always the academics who maintain their curiosity and wonder that capture the attention of the audience. Thinkers like Andrew Huberman, Brett Weinstein, and John Vervaeke.
Regardless of their starting point, these creators and thinkers begin to develop a worldview; a holistic understanding of reality that accounts for the importance of each and every domain they explore. By interacting with the informed audiences of other influencers, they must accurately account for the knowledge gained in other fields, keeping their theories in check with reality.
These worldviews aren’t perfect; they are often reductionistic towards some aspect of culture, including religion, where they see Christianity, Buddhism, or generic meditation practices as interchangeable pieces that fill the “religion hole” in a person’s life. But this is still a massive improvement over secularity; acknowledging the necessity of something is a prerequisite of finding the right thing.
As an example, I recently listened to a podcast featuring Hoe_Math, a “dating” influencer who grew his channel by critiquing complaint videos made by women about men. He was being hosted on a psychology podcast dedicated to the exploration and implementation of attachment theory. In the course of conversation, they talked about economics, religion, and career paths, how young men can benefit by achieving competence in any domain, while touching on global politics and citing examples from Shakespeare and the Bible.
He has transcended the advice to get in shape and make money to hook up, recognizing that health and wealth are meant to serve a higher purpose in a man’s life than instant gratification. He even suggests men should resist opportunities for casual sex with women, because the cumulative effect on women’s attitudes towards men makes it harder for both sexes to pursue marriage and family.
The questions of “How do I get rich” “How do I get in shape?” “How do I get famous” and “How do I get laid” have somehow transformed into the question “How do I have a meaningful life?” And the influencers are all converging on similar answers - work hard, embrace effort and ongoing learning. Take care of your body, mind, and spirit. Seek meaningful relationships and commit to them. Purse marriage and parenthood. Share your wisdom and help others.
The selfishness and the sexual revolution is being overturned by a revolution in responsibility.
There are two critical lessons I think churches should learn from the influencer culture. The first is to recognize how desperate young people are for wisdom, and work to understand how the transparency of the influencer model establishes trust. Instead of focusing on whatever issue these learners are getting wrong, churches should highlight and affirm what they get right, while presenting Biblical wisdom as something that surpasses and enhances the wisdom of online influencers.
The second lesson comes from recognizing the value of the interactions that occur between various influencers and their audiences. This has already begun to happen in the Christian podcast space, where good faith dialogues between different denominations and traditions have surged in popularity over polemic apologetics and debates. Churches on the ground remain a bit more reticent to engage with their neighbors, for fear of losing members. But with each church attempting to do it all, they remain stuck in the past.
Many evangelical pastors are voicing concern about the rising interest in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy among young men. The fear of those within their own flock being lured away blinds them from recognizing the two best options at their disposal. The first would be to engage the curiosity of these men, with enough of an open mind to consider implementing changes. The second would be to allow them to explore freely, an act of faith that builds trust, and signals that the spiritual health of individuals is more important than filling the pews.
If there are Churches and Pastors willing to exhibit that kind of faith and humility, the influx from the influencer crowd will feel right at home.