American Christianity has never been shy about pushing the government to enforce its preferred morality. From abortion restrictions to anti-LGBTQ legislation, many churches aggressively lobby lawmakers, fund political movements, and preach entire sermon series about the evils of letting people make private decisions without divine supervision. But when it comes to poverty, hunger, racism, or the suffering of actual living children, many of those same institutions suddenly develop a theological allergy to government intervention—and often to intervention of their own.
This contradiction became painfully, publicly obvious in late 2025 when TikToker Nikalie Monroe ran a social experiment that should have been unremarkable. She called dozens of churches, pretending to be a desperate mother searching for baby formula. She even played the sound of a crying infant to emphasize urgency. The ask was simple: “My baby is hungry. Can your church help?”
Does the Pro-Life Crowd Really Want to Help?
In a nation where “pro-life” rhetoric saturates the political landscape, you might expect that nearly every church would respond with compassion. Instead, Monroe’s experiment exposed a rift between Christian rhetoric and Christian practice so wide that it demands public examination.
Out of about forty-two churches, only nine offered immediate help. The ones that stepped up included a Catholic church, a mosque, several Black churches, and Heritage Hope Church of God in Somerset, Kentucky, which not only helped but later received a surge of donations and even a visit from Monroe herself. The churches that refused included major institutions such as First Baptist Church of Dallas, Living Faith Christian Church in Baton Rouge, and Lakewood Church—Joel Osteen’s megachurch empire, which later claimed the failure to help resulted from an “error.” Apparently, feeding hungry babies is vulnerable to clerical mishaps.
Yet the most revealing reaction came not from a refusal, but from the criticism Monroe received. Some pastors declared her experiment “deceptive,” with one even calling her “a witch.” The irony is rich: a church that claims divine moral authority crumbles under a basic request for compassion and then declares the person asking for help a practitioner of witchcraft. If your theology is so fragile that accountability feels like spiritual warfare, the problem is not the person requesting help—it is your theology.
Church Hypocrisy
Monroe’s experiment illuminated a central hypocrisy: many churches want the government deeply involved in legislating morality but insist the government stay far away from addressing suffering that would require economic or structural change. They demand laws governing women’s bodies, gender expression, sexuality, curriculum, and family structure, yet they resist policies aimed at supporting children, families, or marginalized communities once those children actually exist.
This selective moralizing has roots in the history of white American evangelicalism, a tradition that has long opposed social safety nets, racial equity initiatives, civil rights legislation, and anti-poverty programs. It is a movement comfortable with moral absolutes but uncomfortable with moral responsibility. It champions governmental force when it restricts someone else’s autonomy but rejects governmental compassion when it might cost members a tax increase or a confrontation with systemic injustice.
The churches that failed Monroe’s test share a common trait: they are often large, wealthy, politically influential, and accustomed to viewing morality as external—something to be projected outward against “the world.” Internal accountability, by contrast, is rarely welcomed. These institutions preach loudly about what strangers should do with their pregnancies or marriages, yet they balk at the smallest requests for direct assistance. Compassion is treated not as a spiritual mandate but as an optional ministry program.
Meanwhile, the churches that did help—many of them smaller, less politically entangled, or part of traditions with deep communal roots—also share a trait: they practice the gospel they preach. They do not rely on culture wars for relevance. They do not measure ministry success by how aggressively they can legislate private behavior. Their compassion is not contingent on PR optics or political ideology; it is an instinct.
Deceipt or Exposure?
Monroe’s experiment did not expose churches because she deceived them. It exposed them because she believed their message. If a church claims to defend life, then a hungry child—real or staged—should not reveal anything embarrassing. If you say you feed the poor, you should not be ashamed when the poor call. If you preach compassion every Sunday, compassion should not depend on whether the request fits neatly into your administrative processes.
The contradiction here runs deeper than one experiment. It cuts to the core of modern Christian political engagement. Why do so many churches demand that government regulate reproductive decisions but reject government involvement in feeding the hungry or dismantling racist systems? Why must the government enforce conservative sexual ethics but avoid enforcing anti-poverty measures? Why should the state protect fetuses yet ignore the plight of actual families once those babies are born?
The answer is uncomfortable: enforcing morality is cheap. Caring for people is expensive. Regulating bodies requires political will; ending poverty requires money and structural change. Policing LGBTQ people earns applause from certain congregations; addressing racism invites backlash. Demanding that women carry pregnancies to term costs churches nothing. Supporting mothers, subsidizing childcare, or advocating for living wages would cost something. And too many churches prefer a form of Christianity that demands everything from others and little from themselves.
This inconsistency becomes obvious in budget allocations. Many megachurches spend the majority of their resources on salaries, buildings, production equipment, conferences, and branding. Benevolence budgets—the money designated for helping people in crisis—often make up a tiny fraction of expenses. And yet these same churches claim that private charity, not government programs, should support the poor. Monroe’s experiment proved what many already suspected: the church is not equipped to do what it insists the government should never do.
Critics argue that Monroe manipulated churches. But compassion does not require ideal circumstances. A hungry child should not need perfect paperwork. A distressed mother should not need to pass a theological purity test. Churches constantly proclaim that they follow a savior who fed people without background checks, healed without intake forms, and welcomed without suspicion. If a church cannot offer compassion until it has evaluated the sincerity of the request, it is not practicing Christianity—it is performing risk management.
Public Reaction
The public reaction to Monroe’s experiment revealed something deeper about America’s shifting religious landscape. People are losing patience with institutions that preach morality but practice indifference. They are questioning why the church spends more energy fighting bathroom bills than fighting hunger. They are asking why Christianity demands the government enforce religious views about sexuality but insists that poverty remain a matter of “personal responsibility.”
Crucially, Monroe’s experiment demonstrated that hypocrisy is now instantly visible. A single viral video can dismantle decades of messaging. Churches that helped her became public examples of compassion, receiving donations and community support. Churches that refused faced scrutiny and public embarrassment. Moral authority is no longer something institutions can claim; it must be demonstrated.
This matters because the church continues to lobby for political power. If Christian leaders want to control public policy, they must be held accountable for their own public practice. If they want the government to enforce their moral convictions, they must be willing to live those convictions when no cameras are present. If they want the authority to legislate morality, they must first prove they understand morality beyond cultural shaming and doctrinal battles.
At its core, Monroe’s experiment forces a simple but essential question: If the church truly cared about life, justice, and human dignity, would the government need to step in at all? If churches fully embraced their own teachings, would poverty persist at its current levels? Would families lack basic necessities? Would racism continue unchallenged? Would mothers face impossible choices between feeding their children and paying rent?
Instead, many churches prefer to outsource compassion while hoarding authority. They demand moral policing but avoid moral responsibility. They emphasize personal sin while ignoring systemic injustice. They pray loudly for unborn babies but overlook the suffering of the parents they imagine themselves protecting.
The hypocrisy is stark. If your Christianity does not feed the hungry, shelter the vulnerable, or confront injustice, it has no business governing anyone’s life. If you cannot offer a bottle of formula to a crying infant, you have forfeited the right to legislate pregnancy. If you refuse to help living families, you cannot claim to defend family values. And if you claim biblical authority while ignoring biblical mandates, your political agenda is not moral—it is performative.
Wrap-up
Nikalie Monroe did not embarrass the church. The church embarrassed itself. She simply handed it a mirror.
And if the American church wants to remain a political force, it must decide whether it is willing to look in that mirror and see the truth.
What do/did you think of this thought experiment? Was it unfair to churches or did it expose a bigger problem? Hit me up in the comments; let’s talk!
Derrick Day is the author of Deconstructing Religion, Deconstructing Religion 2, The Martial Leader, MetaSpeech, and the host of The Forward Podcast.
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