The Gospel Coalition is a hive of hypocrisy, a point exceedingly everpresent in their ongoing quest to police Christian social media. Joe Carter, one of the regular writers over there best known for ChatGPT explainers, ventured to take on online edgelords in the article, “Edgelords Won’t Inherit the Earth.”
Somewhere right now, a young man is watching a 30-second clip of a Christian influencer calling a fellow pastor a coward on a live stream. The clip has 40,000 views. What he didn’t see is that his own pastor posted a thoughtful, Christ-centered reflection that same day. It got 14 likes.
This is the world we’ve built. And a particular kind of man is thriving in it.
The Gospel Coalition invents a problem. Pastors giving edifying messages on social media should not expect the same success online that the same message would get on a Sunday morning. And this isn’t a problem. Social media is a place for discourse, news, and offensive memes. Different media operate differently. It’s a non-issue, until the people at The Gospel Coalition complain that the believers they would never let write for them or appear on their podcasts can thrive in the free marketplace of ideas, and they cannot.
You’ll find him on podcasts and in pulpits, but everything he does is for social media. He’s the man who has confused being provocative with being profound, who mistakes the ability to offend for the courage to lead. He is the edgelord. And he’s becoming the dominant model of masculinity for an entire generation of young men.
The term “edgelord” emerged from internet culture in the early 2010s, combining “edgy” (intentionally provocative or transgressive content) with the suffix “-lord,” mocking someone who fancies himself a master of the craft. Originally, it described anonymous users on message boards like 4chan who competed to post the most shocking content. The edgelord’s currency is transgression, and his goal isn’t truth but reaction.
The edgelord’s defining trait is performative transgression. He pretends to speak hard truths that need to be heard, yet all he ever says are outrageous claims intended to generate attention. He isn’t leading anyone anywhere meaningful. He’s just seeing how close he can get to the line—or how flagrantly he can cross it—while his audience cheers him on.
This would be troubling enough if it were confined to the fringes of the internet. But social media has mainstreamed the edgelord aesthetic. Platforms that optimize for engagement have discovered that provocation performs exceedingly well, and they’ve trained a generation of content creators accordingly. The anonymous forum-poster and the pastor with a podcast are now playing the same game by the same rules. And the church has become one of the latest audiences for this behavior.
The “edge” denoted in “edgelord” refers to the edges of the Overton Window, not the fringes of the internet. The Overton Window represents the acceptable boundaries of discourse and positions one can take. Edgelords serve a valuable purpose in social media by shifting the window to the right. Contrary to The Gospel Coalition’s beliefs, this is a tactic in a fight for truth.
However, The Gospel Coalition’s critiques of edgelording are embodied by their most famous and documented work. This is where the hypocrisy shines. The Gospel Coalition has often published edgy content for the sake of clicks and squeezed faith applications into cultural flashpoints to garner attention.
But what is the edge that The Gospel Coalition is pushing? The historic Christian perspectives and discourses.
Consider Joe Carter, the author of this article in question. In 2022, Joe Carter wrote Simple Solution to Same-Sex Civil ‘Marriage.’ In it he provocatively, and I would add sacriligiously, applied Naomi and Ruth as a civil union in arguing for a societal compromise on gay marriage.
Our model for such civil unions comes from a most unlikely source: the Book of Ruth.
In that narrative, Ruth displays an amazing dedication to her mother-in-law Naomi. Recently widowed and trying to survive during a time of famine, Ruth chooses to stay with Naomi even though it meant she would almost assuredly live the rest of her life in poverty and eventually die alone. Such love and compassion is so remarkable that many modern readers assume the relationship must have been sexual (it’s a sad commentary on our times that all filial relationships are assumed to have an underlying sexual motivation).
But what if Ruth and Naomi lived in modern-day America? Would they be able to keep this commitment to each other without hindrance from laws that recognize only dependents, guardians, and spouses—including same-sex “spouses”? The law may very well provide them equal protection under certain circumstances, but with the labyrinth of rules and regulations, how would they know what applied?
Now that’s edgy. But at The Gospel Coalition, there’s more. Russell Moore in 2009 wrote an article titled, “Jesus Has AIDS” which even begins with an admission of being intentionally provocative only to argue an extremely gay and irreverent point.
Who could forget the time The Gospel Coalition went to horny jail because their overly erotic article by Joshua Butler angered the feminists?
Or how about when The Gospel Coalition labeled Kyle Rittenhouse as a mass shooter alongside Dylan Roof? That was edgy rhetoric made to convince White Christians that Black people had a legitimate grievance over police brutality in 2020.
In the grand scheme of Christian history, celebrating replacement immigration as a means to revitalize religion in your homeland is considerably wicked and unthinkable prior to 1945. Nevertheless, The Gospel Coalition persisted.
And of course, I would be remiss if I did not include the Taylor Swift fiascos. In a now deleted article, 7 Things Christians Can Learn from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, they promoted the anti-Christian singer’s tour as a source of learning for profound Christian truth. They followed that up in Australia by using Taylor Swift lyrics to give a bad version of the gospel. That same author also leaned into Mr. Beast.
Nowhere does The Gospel Coalition’s desperation for clicks shine quite like pop culture. Owen Strachan once wrote about faith lessons in Jersey Shore. They talked about Bruno and compared the effeminate Disney character to Christ. They also chimed in on Barbie. They’ll even do this to crappy Netflix movies.
Consistently, The Gospel Coalition is a source of slop, often with irreverent pop culture ties to Christianity. However, in general, this behemoth online ministry has pushed the Overton Window in the church to accept and promote decadence and decay. The Gospel Coalition is made up of hypocrites, ones that pen edgier content than I ever could.
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