The Church’s Online Crisis: Influence Without Discipleship

There is way too much ego online. Content creators and influencers are amassing hundreds of thousands—even millions—of followers. But at what cost?

People build personal brands around their beliefs. They become “The Christian Apologist Guy,” the “Debunking God Girl,” the “Defender of Islam Guy,” and so on. As their followings grow, so does the identity they’ve built around their positions.

But here’s the question: Are they willing to admit when they’re wrong? I’m afraid many aren’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Christian apologist with a growing platform myself. This is a warning to me just as much as it is to anyone else.

Social media allows virtually anyone to create content and build an audience. But once you reach a certain level of popularity, people begin to expect a particular kind of content from you. They follow you because you defend their beliefs, challenge their opponents, and reinforce their worldview.

When your livelihood is tied to your platform, the temptation becomes even greater.

It becomes dangerously easy to blur the line between seeking the truth and protecting the identity you’ve built around what you believe.

What happens when changing your mind threatens the very platform you’ve spent years building?

Imagine having to walk back claims you’ve made to millions of people—people who trust you, support you, buy your books, and look to you for intellectual ammunition against those who disagree with them. What happens to your reputation? Your audience? Your income? Your identity?

Admitting you’re wrong can be costly. And the more you’ve invested in a public persona, the harder it can become to separate your commitment to the truth from your commitment to maintaining that persona.

I’ve seen this pattern among both skeptic and Christian influencers. In recent debates, I’ve watched people with hundreds of thousands of followers refuse to concede points even when their arguments appear to have been decisively challenged. Instead of reconsidering their positions, they double down. And then they double down again.

And then there are the comment sections.

Rather than seriously engaging with the objections raised, followers sometimes dismiss an opponent as rude, arrogant, or condescending—even when the person is simply challenging their favorite influencer’s views. And even when an opponent really is being rude, that doesn’t automatically invalidate their argument.

Yet the pattern often seems to be this: If our preferred influencer cannot adequately answer an objection, the problem must be the person raising it. If our favorite content creator is shown to be wrong, the other person must be arrogant, dishonest, or uncharitable. The actual argument gets lost in the process.

But why must those be the only options? What if the person we admire is wrong, and the person challenging them has a point—even if they communicate it poorly? An argument doesn’t become false because its advocate is unpleasant. And an argument doesn’t become true because the person making it is someone we admire.

When we refuse to acknowledge this, we stop evaluating arguments on their merits. We start defending people because they’re our people. And that is incredibly dangerous.

So here’s the question we all need to ask ourselves: Are we still pursuing the truth after gaining a large following, or have we quietly replaced the pursuit of truth with the pursuit of popularity?

For those of us who create content, I have another question: Would you be willing to admit you were wrong?

Would you publicly tell your hundreds of thousands—or millions—of followers that you were mistaken? Would you sincerely apologize if you had led people astray? Would you risk losing followers, income, credibility, and the identity you’ve spent years cultivating because you discovered that something you once taught was false?

It’s easy to say yes. It costs us nothing to make that declaration in the abstract. But I suspect that if we’re honest with ourselves, many of us would have to answer, “I’m not sure.”

And that uncertainty should give us pause.

If we claim to care about truth, we must be willing to follow it wherever it leads—even when it takes us away from our former positions, disappoints our audiences, or requires us to admit publicly that we were wrong.

Our commitment must be to the truth, not to our brand.

And if we’re unwilling to risk our platform for the sake of truth, we should seriously question whether truth is what we’re really pursuing in the first place.

The Church Has a Discipleship Problem

But I think there is a deeper problem here, particularly among Christian influencers and those who once identified as Christians but have since become skeptics, building a public identity around their deconstruction or departure from the faith.

In many cases, I believe we need to take a hard look at the Church’s failure to adequately disciple believers.

Consider what sometimes happens in our churches. Someone responds positively to an altar call, is counted as a salvation, and then receives little meaningful follow-up. There is litle to no sustained effort to teach them how to study Scripture, understand Christian doctrine, recognize bad arguments, or navigate difficult questions about their faith. They are encouraged to make a profession of faith but are not adequately equipped to mature in it.

Eventually, they may find themselves wrestling with difficult theological questions, encountering objections to Christianity, or developing unconventional interpretations of Scripture. Without mature believers walking alongside them, they are left to figure things out largely on their own.

And in the age of social media, there is a remarkably easy next step: buy some podcast equipment, turn on a camera, and start sharing your thoughts about God, the Bible, and your personal spiritual journey. Then the audience grows.

Hundreds, thousands, and eventually hundreds of thousands of people may begin listening. The excitement of discovering or rediscovering faith can become entangled with the excitement of receiving attention. Before long, the affirmation of an audience can become difficult to distinguish from genuine spiritual growth.

What began as a desire to share one’s faith can become an identity built around being known for one’s faith or a particular contraversial view about the faith. And when that happens, the stakes change. Admitting you are wrong is no longer just an intellectual or theological exercise. It threatens the very identity and community that have come to define you.

Jesus warned us: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matt. 6:24 ESV)

Although this passage specifically addresses serving God and money, the underlying warning is relevant here: We cannot allow the pursuit of worldly gain to compete with our devotion to God. And the temptation is not limited to financial gain. Popularity, admiration, influence, and status can become competing masters, too.

A platform can become an idol when preserving it becomes more important than pursuing the truth.

This is particularly concerning when someone has a large audience but lacks the theological grounding, accountability, and mature Christian relationships necessary to handle that influence responsibly. A person may be sincere, passionate, and intelligent yet still be poorly equipped to teach others.

Sincerity is not a substitute for sound doctrine. Passion is not a substitute for wisdom. And a large following is certainly not evidence of spiritual maturity.

Nor is a personal spiritual experience, however powerful, a substitute for carefully interpreting Scripture and testing our conclusions against God’s Word. Experiences can be meaningful, but our interpretations of those experiences are not infallible. This is one of the dangers that the doctrine Sola Scriptura protects Christians from (you can read more about this in my recent article on Sola Scriptura HERE).

Without proper grounding and accountability, a person can become increasingly confident in their own interpretations while becoming increasingly resistant to correction. Anyone who challenges them may then be dismissed as spiritually compromised rather than engaged as someone who might have a legitimate objection. And sometimes, the consequences are alarming.

Consider recent examples circulating on social media. TikTok influencer Kay Podgee has drawn attention for claiming that Paul was a false prophet and describing people who made rebuttal videos as having “parasitic demonic manifestations.”[1] Another influencer, Hannah (Smashed Crockett, which is her username), has publicly disputed the deity of Christ while continuing to identify as a Christian. She debated my friend Michael Pagano, and watching the exchange was, to put it mildly, difficult. Following the debate, she published videos accusing Michael of “bearing false witness” against her.[2]

These examples raise serious questions about how theological disagreements are handled online. Rather than treating criticism as an opportunity to examine one’s interpretations, the response can become an attempt to discredit the critic altogether.

Of course, not every theological error stems from poor discipleship, and not every person who resists correction is motivated by fame. We should be careful not to presume we know another person’s heart. But when these patterns emerge alongside growing platforms and increasingly rigid public identities, we have good reason to ask whether something has gone wrong.

When our identity depends on being right, we become resistant to correction. When our identity depends on our audience’s approval, we become reluctant to challenge that audience. And when our identity depends on a platform, we may begin sacrificing truth to preserve it. Solomon warned against this behavior many years ago (Prov. 12:1; 13:18; 15:2; 15:10; 15:32; 29:1).

The Church must do better.

We Need to Disciple, Not Just Platform

A big reason for this erorr, in my opinion, seems to be lack of adequate discileship. We need to take discipleship seriously, especially for new believers. A profession of faith should not be treated as the finish line. It is the beginning of a lifelong process of learning to follow Christ.

That means walking alongside new believers, teaching them how to interpret Scripture responsibly (and in community), grounding them in sound doctrine, helping them wrestle with difficult questions, and cultivating the humility to recognize their own fallibility.

It also means teaching them that Christian maturity is not measured by how confidently they can win an argument, how many people agree with them, or how large their audience becomes. It is demonstrated by their willingness to submit to God’s Word, receive correction, and grow in wisdom.

And we must not confuse the ability to produce compelling content with the ability to teach faithfully. Social media rewards confidence, controversy, attention-grabbing claims, and of course, compelling editing. The Church must cultivate something deeper: faithfulness, humility, discernment, and a willingness to be corrected.

We should also be more intentional about how we platform people. A compelling testimony, charismatic personality, or rapidly growing audience may make someone effective at attracting attention, but none of these guarantees that a person is equipped to teach others. Influence should be accompanied by accountability, theological formation, and a demonstrated commitment to truth.

Paul’s relationship with Timothy provides a much better model of how Christian teaching and influence ought to work. Paul did not simply tell Timothy to build an audience and share his opinions. He invested in him, instructed him, and charged him to pass on what he had learned to others who would be equipped to teach faithfully. Paul writes:

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim. 2:1–2 ESV)

Notice the pattern: Paul teaches Timothy, Timothy entrusts that teaching to faithful people, and those people equip others in turn. This is a model of intentional discipleship, sound teaching, and faithful multiplication.

The goal is not simply to produce more Christian content creators. It is to form faithful Christians who are equipped to teach others without becoming enslaved to the approval of those who listen. And this begins with us.

Whether we have a hundred followers or a million, we must continually examine our motives.

Are we sharing content because we want people to know the truth, or because we want people to know us? Are we willing to correct our mistakes publicly? Can we receive criticism without immediately questioning the character or motives of the person offering it? Are we more concerned with being faithful to Christ than with protecting the audience we have built?

These are not questions we should ask only of the influencers we dislike. They are questions we must ask of ourselves. The answer cannot simply be to build bigger platforms, produce better content, or win more debates. We need deeper roots, stronger accountability, and a renewed commitment to discipleship.

The Church does not merely need more voices speaking about Christ. It needs more disciples who are willing to be corrected by His Word.

Because, at the end of the day, our calling is not to build our own kingdoms, protect our reputations, or accumulate followers. It is to be faithful to Christ. And that faithfulness must matter more to us than our platforms ever could.

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTfYxfNvm/

[2] Hannah's clip making this acquisition can be seen here https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTfYQMLsQ/. You can see a clip of the discussion between her and Michael here where the doubling down on Hannah's part is evident despite being shown to be wrong: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTfYQngGv/.