For those unfamiliar with The Babylon Bee, the website bills itself as “the trusted news source for Christian satire.” During my twelve-year tenure with The Wittenburg Door, a now-defunct national religious satire magazine, I learned from my editor, Robert Darden, that the role of a religious satirist is to hold a mirror to the institutional church. As Darden noted in an op-ed he posted in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders, “The use of printed (and now digital) satire is an old and honorable response to the excesses of government and religion. When the people have no other voice, when the main media outlets are controlled by the state (or too fearful to challenge the state), satire flourishes.”

In particular, Darden taught me the importance of punching up not down by reminding me that I must always target those in the pulpit who wield power and privilege. Attacks on those in the pews is not satire but bullying.

Armed with this awareness, I question why The Babylon Bee is listed as a top partner site for those individuals signing up for Parler, a conservative alternative to Twitter that has a significant base of Trump supporters. When I emailed The Babylon Bee about their connection to Parler, I received this response: “There’s not really a partnership … we simply have an account and post our articles there.” (Note: Emails sent to Parler have not been answered as of this writing.)

Still, the question remains for me as to why any satirical outlet would affiliate in any way with such a hyper-partisan site. The answer appears to lie in The Babylon Bee’s evolution from an equal-opportunity offender into what Fox News describes as a “conservative satirical website.”¹ As reported by Rolling Stone, over the past four years The Babylon Bee morphed into an anti-life, pro-Trump publication with Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz and President Donald Trump retweeting its postings. Rolling Stone quoted the site’s chief executive, Seth Dillion, on the reason for this shift: “The things we see as most absurd, the bad ideas most deserving of ridicule tend to be ideas on the left.”²

By choosing to focus solely on the left, The Babylon Bee abandoned another key lesson I learned from Darden: a satirist must be an equal-opportunity offender. We must be willing to critique both progressive and conservative leaders who choose to utilize religion for their own self-serving interests, even if we happen to agree with this particular person’s beliefs. If one leans too far to the left or right, then one’s aim will be off, and one’s satirical attempts will end up misfiring.

A true religious satire site should be prophetic not partisan. In this regard, The Babylon Bee has clearly missed its mark.

 

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