Conservative Christianity is largely performative in nature, and it must be. Conservative Christian leaders ache for their flocks to be transformed by a powerful, consuming faith, but almost nobody in their flocks actually has that, much less gets transformed by it. And they’ve known this for years, although they do not know why their followers remain untransformed. (Someone on Reddit recently nailed why though: It’s likely evangelicals’ relentless focus on conversion.) Very obviously, Jesus isn’t changing anyone for the better. Whatever flaws and faults someone has before conversion, they retain after it.
That’s a serious problem for a tribe that really thinks that Jesus does something to them through conversion. They want others to see them as, I dunno, different somehow. Today, let me show you why this dream is impossible.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 1/27/2026. They’re both available now!)
SITUATION REPORT: Oh noes, alt-right Zoomers might not be sincerely converting to our high-control, authoritarian groups!
Last time we met up, we discussed why alt-right Zoomer men are getting into very conservative flavors of Christianity: what they call traditional Catholicism, hardline Calvinist evangelicalism, Orthodox Christianity, and others like that. Moreover, we examined the reactions of the leaders of these organizations. For the most part, these leaders were pleased to see young adults in their churches at all. That’s got to be a nice change, even if Gen Z is still generally disengaged from Christianity.
But they fretted that these young men were joining for the wrong reasons. Maybe their conversions weren’t sincere.
Just this past December, a youth pastor worried about this exact problem for the hardline Calvinist evangelical site The Gospel Coalition (TGC). The headline of his post asked: “Are young men being drawn to Christ or Christian culture?”
Another evangelical leader, John Stonestreet, concedes briefly in a similar post that “it’s also possible that some young men are returning to church for the wrong reasons.” His solution is, of course, making sure they learn about TRUE CHRISTIANITY™ so churches don’t make “just cultural converts.”
What these leaders aren’t doing is pondering whether or not alt-right Zoomer men’s liking for their flavors indicates some big huge moral failing in these flavors themselves. No no, their flavor is perfect. No matter what it might be, it is always exactly what Jesus wants for his big-C Church in the 21st century. It requires—and allows—no examination or questioning.
The Big Problem Here, to these leaders, is making sure that if a young man joins for cultural and aesthetics reasons, then he gets properly indoctrinated. That way, he’ll catch the Jesus bug and light up with the glow of a true believer. Once that happens, he’ll experience an appropriately transformed life, and everything will be fine.
Performative Christians ain’t new by any stretch
It’s like none of these conservative Christian leaders are aware of how many insincere, untransformed believers fill their pews—and even lead their churches. They may sneer at “cultural Christians,” but those are likely three-quarters or more of their flocks and leaders at this point.
Anyone who has ever tangled with conservative Christians and their groups almost certainly knows very well how few of them are truly transformed by their faith, much less bother living like transformed believers. They put on an act when they’re around other Christians, but they drop the act as soon as they’re not.
Here’s the important part: Those other Christians are none the wiser.
It’s so, so easy for hypocrites to pretend to be the real deal. It always has been.
A case study in performative Christianity
I became Pentecostal in the mid-1980s. At the time, I dated the man who’d become my first husband, a fellow we’ll call “Biff.”
To each of our two Pentecostal churches in turn, my Evil Ex Biff was a golden boy. People perceived him as a gifted evangelist and preacher, a dedicated Christian, a bold and brave proclaimer of the truth. But to me, in private, he was a narcissistic demon in human flesh: entitled, cruel, manipulative, and categorically dishonest.
I alone knew that the Satanic Panic testimony he peddled to our peers was nothing but top-to-bottom lies. And I alone knew that his reputation as a “prayer warrior” existed in reality only in front of them. At home, he never prayed, cracked open his Bible, or did anything else that was even vaguely devotional.
I’m not picking on my Evil Ex in particular. I just knew him best. In every single conservative Christian church, I guarantee you this: there are dozens of men just like him. His spiritual twins fill pews, stand at pulpits, lead small groups, and jockey for power in their cliques just like Biff did.
In modern days, their scandals reach public awareness more often. But even when they don’t become public, those scandals still function as a missing stair in such churches: a known danger that nobody dares speak aloud, but must navigate around somehow to exist in the group. For every pew-warmer in a church shocked about a major scandal, there is likely another breathing a sigh of relief that the dangerous beast in their midst has been captured at last.
And yes, there definitely are people who are genuinely shocked by a scandal in their church. They had no idea. We saw that when Matt Queen’s scandal hit the headlines. His peers acted like they had zero clue he was capable of covering up a sex assault or lying to the feds about it. He just seemed so very Jesusy. He radiated a beautiful glow, which they took for a mark of true faith, was such a great evangelist, and was so kind and gentle to everyone.
It’s so very, very easy to act like a truly transformed Christian.
Why it’s so easy to perform huge transformations
Imagine Christmas done splendidly: wreaths, decorated evergreen trees scenting the entire house, their pine scent mixing with the smell of a turkey feast on a well-set table, gifts in bright paper, the crackle of a fire in the fireplace while it snows outside, gazing in wonder at a fancy neighborhood’s outdoor decorations, caroling, tracking Santa’s progression around the world on NORAD, and whatever else you imagine must be part of a fairytale holiday season.
Now add a Christmas Eve church service to the mix, extra-fervent prayers before the meal, a cringetastic birthday cake for Baby Jesus, and whatever else you think conservative Christians would demand to make the holiday appropriately Jesusy.
Combine those two images. Sit with them.
Now, remove the Jesusy stuff from the vision. If you do that, you’ve still got a recognizable Christmas.
But if you remove the fairytale holiday stuff from the vision, the result is not recognizably Christmas at all. (Indeed, the Christians who eschew all “pagan” Christmas practices would be very proud that we noticed!)
What I’m describing works for Christianity itself.
Imagine some decent human beings. They follow the law, are kind to others, give meaningfully to charity, maintain a calm and gentle demeanor, try to minimize the harm they do to others and the environment, and play fairly in their relationships even when it won’t benefit themselves.
Just as we did with Christmas, now add Christian practices to this mix. These folks pray, faithfully attend church, volunteer in church groups (some maybe even that perform charitable deeds!), use Christianese, adorn themselves and their homes with Jesus swag, study the Bible, and read religious commentary.
If you take away the human decency stuff, you still get people who can pass very easily for TRUE CHRISTIANS™ —especially around other Christians. But take away the Christian practices, and you still have decent human beings.
Christian faith has never been required to be a decent human being. In fact, it focuses on outward devotions at the expense of cultivating actual good traits. That focus allows followers to be hypocrites in private. And I’m hardly the only one who’s noticed.
Christians want to look markedly different from normies, but they simply aren’t
Conservative Christian leaders face a difficult problem here.
They want people who Jesus 24/7 to look significantly better than heathens. They want TRUE CHRISTIANS™ to radiate a Jesus Aura that immediately makes dazzled heathens want to join up. Most of all, they want alt-right Zoomer men to become transformed by faith.
Yes yes, but what exactly does that look like in lived reality?
Does it look like a squeaky-clean person who follows society’s rules and abstains from a host of available mood-altering substances? Like a person who doesn’t have unapproved sex? Or someone who dresses a certain way?
Because whatever the earthly definition is of a proper Christian who Jesuses 24/7, untold numbers of heathens do that too nowadays. So behavioral cues are no longer enough.
This ain’t new, either. Back when I was still Christian, someone asked a very Jesusy friend of mine if he was vegetarian. And I suspect that my old denomination, the United Pentecostal Church, International (UPCI), stopped being so strict about women’s clothes and haircuts because fashion trends lapped them hard. When the literal only difference between boho and Pentecostal is maybe a higher collar on the blouse and a hairstyle, those so-called holiness standards don’t stand out quite so much.
The results of performative cues are predictable
So the only cues that indicate Christian faith are very specifically Christian. They’re behaviors like carrying a Bible around, inserting Christianese into one’s speech, evangelizing, praying ostentatiously over meals in restaurants, etc. They’re performative Christianity because they must be. No other behaviors can be specifically and uniquely identified as Christian except those—especially evangelism, which seeks to persuade others to join Christian churches.
When the focus is on performative displays of faith, other displays go out the window. In that context, being a decent human being isn’t important. In fact, the values and behaviors of a decent human being often run counter to conservative Christian ideals.
Since there’s no Jesus actually transforming anyone, even Christians who want to be decent human beings must find other ways to cultivate those traits. But they won’t find those ways taught in conservative Christian churches. Like other shortcomings in that end of Christianity, that’s not a bug in the system. It’s a feature.
That’s why alt-right Gen Z men are joining these hardline conservative churches and not mainline ones. They wouldn’t get what they crave from anything else. Nor would they be able to continue being unfettered hypocrites anywhere else—at least without being known for who and what they truly are. Mean people always want a mean god, after all.
NEXT UP: A big scandal over at Bethel church erupts into public view, but Bethel’s response indicates exactly why nobody should trust them. See you soon! <3
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