{"id":74537,"date":"2026-06-04T17:04:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=74537"},"modified":"2026-06-04T17:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:04:37","slug":"where-exactly-this-is-all-heading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Where, exactly, this is all heading’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2022 \u201cWhere, exactly, this is all heading remains to be seen,\u201d this Religion News profile of 22-year-old online \u201cevangelist\u201d Bryce Crawford<\/a> says. But, frankly, \u201cwhere, exactly, this is all heading\u201d seems obvious and inevitable:<\/p>\n

Crawford has become one of the most popular evangelical voices of his generation. He has a combined total of 7 million followers on TikTok and Instagram and a hefty YouTube catalog of sermons and street-preaching videos. His podcast, which sits at third on Spotify\u2019s Religion and Spirituality charts, has hosted influential and contentious figures, including far-right pundit Tucker Carlson and 89-year-old prosperity gospel televangelist Kenneth Copeland. Crawford has also, of late, aligned himself with MAGA platforms such as Turning Point USA. \u2026<\/p>\n

At a moment when Generation Z\u2019s religiosity is hotly debated, Crawford is clearly resonating. But whether his virality is driving a real movement \u2014 and where, exactly, this is all heading \u2014 remains to be seen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Crawford is an evangelist in the same way that Mr. Beast is a philanthropist.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Famous Gen-Z influencer Billy Sunday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The high-profile interviews mentioned here tell us \u201cwhere this is heading\u201d \u2014 toward some cross between Tucker Carlson and Kenneth Copeland. Picture Nick Fuentes with a fleet of Jesus jets. That ain\u2019t \u201crevival.\u201d That is not compatible with any credible meaning of \u201crevival.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, like, the Second Klan was a nominally Christian organization that swelled to some 5 million members in the 1920s (back when the total population of the country was only about 120 million or so). That was \u201cviral\u201d and it had the sign of the cross, but I wouldn\u2019t describe it as \u201crevival.\u201d<\/p>\n

And also too, I realize that I am about to turn 58 and I am therefore irremediably out-of-touch with Kids These Days, but are Tucker Carlson (57) and Kenneth Copeland (89) really Gen-Z icons?<\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t the whole confrontational man-on-the-street shove-a-mic-in-a-stranger\u2019s-face style of \u201cstreet preaching\u201d a little past it\u2019s sell-by date at this point? If this kid is trying to bring that 2010s shtick back into vogue, I suppose that\u2019d be a \u201crevival,\u201d but in a different sense of the word.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I am not deeply familiar with this YouTuber\/street-preacher\u2019s body of work, but YouTubers and street-preachers should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Two American teenagers attacked a mosque in San Diego last month, killing three people. The two men were white-supremacists and Neo-Nazis who attacked an Islamic house of worship because they hated Jewish people<\/a> and because they hated women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some people think \u201cintersectionality\u201d is a new idea that has only existed since they personally first heard the term \u201cwoke.\u201d But tyrants and Nazis and white-supremacists have always<\/em> been intersectional. \u201cThat train is never late.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Doktor Zoom<\/a> points us to this 2023 AP story on the sleazy, always-be-grifting corruption of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>:<\/p>\n

David Maxwell, the attorney general\u2019s former head of law enforcement and one of eight deputies who reported him to the FBI, told investigators that Paxton once bought a $600 sports coat from a hotel store while at a conference and billed it to the event\u2019s organizer. According to transcripts, Maxwell also said Paxton asked for specialty license plates available to state officials but never paid the nominal fee to pick them up.<\/p>\n

\u201dHe was all about money,\u201d said Maxwell, who is also a former Texas Ranger, the state\u2019s elite law enforcement division. \u201cHe always had his hand out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other former staff point to an even smaller gift.<\/p>\n

Around Christmas for years, Texas grocery giant H-E-B sent a coconut-dusted cake to the attorney general\u2019s office, which staff shared.<\/p>\n

That changed after Paxton was elected, according to three former employees of his executive office who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n

One said Paxton once told staff not to touch the cake because it was for his birthday, which is on Dec. 23. Another said Paxton once had the cake brought to a Tex-Mex restaurant for a staff lunch but never served it. The third recalled watching Paxton and an aide walk out of the office carrying the cake box.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a lot of corrupt politicians, but Paxton really takes the cake.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Philip Jenkins looks at \u201clost Gospel\u201d forgeries in pop culture<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cIn no way would I recommend The Word<\/em>,\u201d he writes of Irving Wallace\u2019s 1972 best-seller, \u201cexcept to those with an archaeological interest in 1970s pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I read that book. I found it in on the $1 table of a used-book store years ago, back when my bookstore friends were lamenting the popularity of The Da Vinci Code,<\/em> so I read it to see how an earlier generation of hack handled similar material. I suppose I enjoyed it more than Jenkins did. It succeeded for a bit in making me want to know what would happen next and then ultimately disappointed when I found out what happened next.<\/p>\n

It seems like this premise \u2014 a forgery of \u201clost scriptures\u201d intended to destroy or to revive religion \u2014 should be fodder for an entertaining, and potentially thoughtful, thriller. But alas, none of the pop-culture works Jenkins finds lives up to the promise of that premise. Umberto Eco probably could\u2019ve pulled it off, but Irving Wallace sure didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wherein we are told about the latest hot new trend among Gen-Z Christians: interviewing Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":74549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n'Where, exactly, this is all heading'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wherein we are told about the latest hot new trend among Gen-Z Christians: interviewing Tucker Carlson.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Where, exactly, this is all heading'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wherein we are told about the latest hot new trend among Gen-Z Christians: interviewing Tucker Carlson.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-04T21:04:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2026\/06\/BillySundaPreaching.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"738\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"989\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/\",\"name\":\"'Where, exactly, this is all heading'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-04T21:04:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-04T21:04:37+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Wherein we are told about the latest hot new trend among Gen-Z Christians: interviewing Tucker Carlson.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/04\/where-exactly-this-is-all-heading\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"‘Where, exactly, this is all heading’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}