The threat of binary language: The church and red pill culture
Photograph by Solen Feyissa via Unsplash
Eric J. Sias
Imagine a young person scrolling TikTok and landing on an influencer who casts their opponents as enemies of God. That afternoon the same young person hears a similar line in their congregation, with the same fervor, but from the mouth of their trusted pastor; the sermon, though sincere, leans in the same direction as the TikTok video. This overlap is not a curiosity. When discipleship adopts the grammar of “us versus them,” the red-pill culture becomes an easy sequel.
The tactic of satanic labeling is not new. In her book “The Origin of Satan,” Elaine Pagels traces how ancient communities learned to consolidate identity by naming rivals as agents of Satan.[i] When early Christians clashed with resisting individuals, the figure of Satan became a weapon in those conflicts. Pagels shows how political and religious rivalry created a space where calling the other “satanic” both justified opposition and drew the line of belonging. Mark Juergensmeyer, in “Terror in the Mind of God,” observes the same logic among contemporary extremists. He calls it the “satanization” of enemies[ii] — a move that is simple, insidious, and extremely tempting. If my opponent is demonic, then my hostility becomes divinely justified.
Jesus offers a different outlook: “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47). The gospel’s resounding lesson is to love the enemy we would rather label. The evangelists did not always keep this teaching, and neither did the churches that followed. Yet the call still stands. Love for our enemy interrupts our impulse to cast rivals as demonic. It loosens the grip of warfare language that now leaks into our politics, media, and even pulpits. To learn Christ’s message is to refuse satanizing speech and to practice a love that tells the truth without making an enemy first.
I am not necessarily denying spiritual evil. I am cautioning us about a well-known social phenomenon. Identity often forms against the other. We categorize the chaotic universe by accentuating differences between outsiders and minimizing differences between insiders. In that frame, “we” stays pure and coherent only if “they” stay impure and threatening. Anthropologist Mary Douglas underscored this dynamic in her study of purity codes. Communities draw boundaries of clean and unclean, inside and outside, because boundaries feel like safety.[iii] Othering offers identity. Yet this dichotomization is not abstract. This duality is what those who “doom scroll” on their smartphones hear continuously and consistently, especially the youth.
Young people live in an attention economy that rewards emotional responses like grievance and contempt. A significant portion of young adults get news from social media influencers. Studies of digital manosphere spaces show how algorithms privilege a rhythm of threat and rage, all while highlighting easy binaries. The content varies, yet the cadence is consistent. Belonging is offered up through sharp distinction, while this digital community bloats with rage. If the church (un)knowingly mirrors that tone, we train our congregations to hear the gospel as one more contribution to the culture war.
The church does not need to become the echo of a viral clip. The church can be the place where people learn to belong without creating an enemy first, or at all.
The temptation is strongest when we feel we are placed in a corner. Congregations see declining affiliation and conclude that anything less than a full battle posture is compromise. However, the data are more nuanced. Christian identification has declined in the United States since 2007, but recent indicators suggest stabilization rather than free fall. Attendance looks different across measures, yet the story is not collapse, but rather reidentification. Among the young, we see congregational disaffiliation, but deep spiritual curiosity. If our congregational language sounds like the internet’s most combative corners, we are telling our youth where to finish the sentence — and it’s not at church, but with red pill influencers.
Here is where the church can take a different path.
Adopt a congregation-wide discipline of slow speech and shared discernment, and make it intergenerational. Youth and elders can sit at the same tables, name the harm that war talk does, and learn how social media feeds shape what we see, what we think, and how we feel. Read hard biblical texts in their historical context, then practice pastoral rewrites that tell the truth without making an enemy. For truth told in love has a joyous sound, lest we forget that love “rejoices in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). The goal is to slow down and to discern together. Confront false teaching, but do not invent demons to carry the baggage of our fear. Reserve the word enemy for the spiritual forces that Christ names, not for the neighbors we are sent to love.
If you have worked with students, you have seen the difference tone makes. Hand a teenager a war metaphor, and the world becomes a battlefield. Give that same teenager a formation metaphor and the world becomes a workshop. The first creates enemies. The second creates the future.
Paul calls us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), so that we are fashioned in the gospel’s message. Not a gospel as a set of slogans and of culture wars, but the good news that God in Christ reconciles all enemies. That is the work in front of us. Resist the tempting power of satanic othering. Retire the thrill of binary purity that exists mainly to keep our side “clean” and our enemies “demonic.” Preach and practice a precision that names harm and pursues restoration. Let’s teach our youth and ourselves how the internet can distort identity and how the message of love towards one’s enemy can heal identity. The church does not need to become the echo of a viral clip. The church can be the place where people learn to belong without creating an enemy first, or at all.
Eric J. Sias is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Director of Latina/o programs at Berkeley School of Theology. His research explores liminality and sacred/profane boundaries in Leviticus, tracing how Paul reworks purity, blood, and atonement language within Second Temple Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. He also examines the use of the Bible in popular culture, especially conspiracy theories that weaponize Scripture, to model culturally aware interpretations that resist harm and lower the social and political temperature.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Pagels, Elaine. The Origin of Satan. New York: Vintage, 1995.
[ii] Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. 3rd ed.. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2003, pp. 185–189.
[iii] Douglas, Mary. Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Get early access to the newest stories from Christian Citizen writers, receive contextual stories which support Christian Citizen content from the world’s top publications and join a community sharing the latest in justice, mercy and faith.