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Please click on the comic to see both panels.
Special to United Methodist Insight | Oct. 30, 2025
Welcome back to Camp Crystal Lakewood, where our poor youth group is surrounded by classic slasher villains portraying our greatest Mainline Protestant fears! If you’re just now joining the series, start back with part one and catch up!
This week, as Tommy and Laurie are rescued from the clutches of the maniacal masked Christian nationalist, it looks like the rest of the group has discovered a new threat! Fast asleep from their snack binge, the youth group faces their most unstoppable foe yet – Frida Krueger, the Dream Master!
Since the Nightmare on Elm Street series features such a creepy and iconic villain, I thought it might be something to have an overly filtered gorgeous Krueger instead. Plus, it’s not a far cry from Freddy manipulating teenagers in their dreams to today’s TikTok influencers manipulating teens on their smart phones. Perhaps your algorithms have protected you from Christian influencer culture on social media. But it’s wild how much it feels like infomercial meets televangelist meets Gen Z. Typically, you’ll find very young and beautiful people showing off perfect lives, perfect families, perfect bodies, and alongside all of the sponsorships they’d like you to buy, they want you to know how you too can have the right kind of success when you hustle and grind for God. It’s a little hard to separate a lot of these influencers from Christian nationalism, but they’re big enough to get their own super slasher villain in my series.
We cannot control the theological messaging our youth receive. That is the whole point of this series. If you start listening to any worship music, or follow any Christian speaker or pastor online, algorithms are likely to start funneling Christian influencer content your way. The consumer culture side of American Christianity is on full display when your podcaster or vlogger promotes the hair care product that they use right alongside their views on secular music and true Christianity. Learning how to discern real from fake is hard enough as Artificial Intelligence and filters can create personas that don’t actually exist in the real world. When a young people are comparing themselves to what they see all over social media, they need tools and reminders to help them hold on to what is true. Christ does not promise a European Beauty Standard reward for good Christians. Nor does Christ give us a simple path to financial success and marital bliss. Helping our kids, and ourselves, discern what the gospel is, what Jesus really stands for, will help all of us recognize when the gospel is being used as a prop for ulterior motives and self promotion.
Next week, our story will start to culminate towards its grand conclusion! And I will be announcing the new Liturgical Calendars for sale with my next post to you! Until then, have a blessed All Saints!