Heresy is profitable.
Making fun of heresy is also profitable.
People have been exposing prosperity preachers/liars for decades in articles and sermons, but these days there’s a whole niche built around heresy hunting as a form of entertainment, particularly on YouTube.
Channels like Fighting For The Faith and Revealing Truth are two of the most notable.
Their modus operandi is typically to highlight a sound bite or some ridiculous sermon by an Evangelical heretic (usually New Apostolic Reformation types) and explain how it’s unbiblical.
Chris Rosebrough creates “prophecy bingo” videos with other YouTubers where they mock and ridicule various Protestant heretics.
The videos are monetized on YouTube and they describe their entertainment videos as “ministries” seeking financial support.
I confess that I’m guilty of watching their videos on occasion and even finding them entertaining at times.
It is morally wrong to be entertained by this.
But isn’t making fun of heretics biblical?
You can indeed find some examples throughout the Old and New Testaments of prophets and apostles ridiculing or insulting heretics.
For example, Elijah in 1 Kings 18:25-27:
So Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose the one ox for yourselves and prepare it first, since there are many of you, and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under the ox.” Then they took the ox which was given them and they prepared it, and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped about the altar which they had made. And at noon Elijah ridiculed them and said, “Call out with a loud voice, since he is a god; undoubtedly he is attending to business, or is on the way, or is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep, and will awaken.”
Or Paul in Galatians mocking the Judaizers (Galatians 5:7-12):
But as for me, brothers and sisters, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been eliminated. I wish that those who are troubling you would even emasculate themselves.
Documents of the Church Fathers are also replete with unkind words directed at heretics.
Calling out lies is not the issue.
Making it a form of entertainment - profitable entertainment - most certainly is, however.
Heresy hunting as entertainment trivializes heresy
Heresy is serious.
Heresy destroys lives and eternally damns souls.
When you take harmful heresies and use them to create entertainment, you greatly trivialize something that should be treated as a life-or-death matter by the Church.
Kenneth Copeland, Kathryn Krick, Isaiah Saldivar or Bill Johnson fleecing the poor and the sick is not something to giggle at.
It is evil.
You should treat their content the same way you treat ISIS execution videos. They should sicken you to your core and make it hard for you to sleep at night.
While there is no doubt that they will be judged severely, those who trivialize and turn their lies into money-making infotainment for YouTube are going to have to answer for it as well.
