(RNS) — The image of the televangelist, often remembered as a man in a pastel suit preaching about God through a television screen, has become a relic of the past. Fewer people watch broadcast television than ever before. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an audience for religious programming.
If you type “Christianity” into YouTube’s search engine, hundreds of thousands of results appear in seconds. Among them, and not too far from the top, is a video titled “All Christian denominations explained in 12 minutes.” The explainer, posted by a user called “Redeemed Zoomer,” features colorful moving text, hand-drawn figures, clip art, compelling photos and clear audio. It has been viewed 10 million times.
Richard Ackerman is the 22-year-old behind the channel, which has 436,000 subscribers. He is on a mission to convert his generation and advocate for conservative reforms within Protestantism, which he believes has become too liberal.
“Leftists have been very intentional in hijacking the most culturally important churches in every Western nation and replacing them with their own ideology,” Ackerman wrote for the conservative evangelical journal “American Reformer.” “The only hope for American culture in the foreseeable future is if these extremely culturally significant churches see a true spiritual revival, and return to the gospel.”
Unlike the thunderous televangelists of the 1980s, Ackerman is a bookish Christian convert from a humble suburb of New York City. His family is of Jewish heritage, and he grew up unaffiliated with religion, but after traveling to the Midwest to attend a Christian music camp in middle school, he decided to convert.
“I saw that these traditional Christians welcomed me more than anyone back home in New York ever had,” Ackerman said. “It gave me this beautiful image of Christianity that I’ve never seen before.”
Ackerman returned to New York and became a Presbyterian at 14 years old, joining the Presbyterian Church (USA).Prior to his conversion, Ackerman said he was an angry and depressed teenager who struggled to connect with others. He said his faith was transformative for his mental health and social life.
“For the first time ever, I was able to empathize with other people and I actually cared about them like I didn’t before,” Ackerman said. He tried enthusiastically to share the gospel with his peers, but “it didn’t work at all,” he said.
So, he turned to social media.
He first started making videos of himself gaming with sermons playing in the background, but they didn’t get many views. It took three YouTube channels and one Instagram account before the Redeemed Zoomer maintained viral popularity in 2022, first on Instagram, for his short educational videos breaking down basic Christian theology. One of his most popular videos explains the duality of Jesus as both God and man using a Venn diagram.
Some of his most recent videos on YouTube include “Can You Lose Salvation?” and “Why Modern Protestantism SUCKS.” Other videos aim to help young men cope with loneliness and finding meaning in their lives. Ackerman also provides maps, viewed by millions, of “good churches.”
Ackerman defines a “good” church as one that affirms the Nicene Creed, which is the defining statement of belief for mainstream Christianity, and one that teaches marriage is only between a man and a woman and that there are only two genders.
Ackerman’s denomination, PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. known for its leadership’s liberal stances on ordaining women and members of the LGBTQ+ community and performing same-sex marriages. But some conservative congregations that haven’t left the PCUSA have attempted to reform it.
After becoming popular online, Ackerman started a nonprofit called Presbyterians for the Kingdom to advocate for conservatism in the PCUSA. The nonprofit emerged from an activist movement Ackerman started with his YouTube audience called Operation Reconquista. Last year on Reformation Day, Ackerman posted a video titled “We sent our own 95 Theses to EVERY Mainline Church on Reformation Day” about how Reconquista members demanded a return to more conservative values. The action created a buzz in the Protestant YouTuber community.
YouTube hosts a sizable community of conservative Christian influencers like Ackerman. Some of the most popular of these mostly male creators are The Counsel of Trent, Capturing Christianity and NeedGod.net. Their videos feature debates on topics like homosexuality, gender norms and abstinence before marriage.
“I suspect that most people who are consuming Christian content on YouTube probably skew conservative,” said Gordon Tubbs, a former youth minister and PCUSA pastor from South Carolina.
Ackerman said Reconquista is not meant to be associated with the violence of the Spanish Inquisition in early modern Europe. The name is simply translated from the Spanish word “to retake,” he said.
Richard Ackerman at the Presbyterian church he attends in New York. (Photo courtesy Richard Ackerman)
“Theological liberalism has completely taken over most of our denomination,” Ackerman said. “Which basically means you take the beliefs of your religion less seriously. I like social justice, too, but the core of what we believe needs to be about Jesus.”
On the Operation Reconquista website, the group expresses support for the “natural gender binary” and condemns abortion, among other things. A group associated with the movement on Discord, the gaming and social media platform, has around 2,000 members.
Tubbs believes Presbyterians of the Kingdom, which sent representatives to the PCUSA General Assembly earlier this summer, represents a narrow voice in the denomination — people “getting disenchanted with the hard-left narratives.” Tubbs admits that he has considered leaving the denomination after some recent changes in the PCUSA. Last month during the denomination’s General Assembly, Presbyterian delegates approved a resolution, known as the “Olympia Overture,” that would require pastors to commit to including members of the LGBTQ+ community to “guarantee full participation and representation in the life of the church,” which Tubbs believes is a bridge too far.
Benjamin Perry, an ordained Presbyterian minister and author of the book “Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter,” appeared on Ackerman’s channel earlier this year to speak about affirming LGBTQ+ identities as a Christian. Perry, who identifies as a queer person, says he was contacted by Ackerman and saw speaking on his channel as an opportunity to reach young people.
“That audience probably was not going to hear a voice like mine otherwise,” Perry said. “He (Ackerman) represents part of a much wider movement of particularly young men who have been radicalized in one form or another by the internet.”
Perry believes that there is a loneliness epidemic among men from Generation Z, and insular online spaces with popular figures like the podcast host Joe Rogan and the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate threaten to normalize anti-woman and anti-LGBTQ+ ideology.
“I think folks are attracted to people like Richard because they are providing a theological justification for some of the cultural attitudes that they have likely gained from the army of adult men who are creating paid media ecosystems to prey on the natural vulnerabilities of teenage boys,” Perry said. “He is not this rabid manosphere commentator, and yet, in his theology in the ways that he views gender, I can see the fingerprints of this wider movement.”
A variety of recent videos on the Redeemed Zoomer YouTube channel. (Screen grab)
After appearing on Ackerman’s channel, Perry received dozens of messages from young people from Ackerman’s audience who expressed appreciation for his perspective.
“Even if it only reached two people, those are two folks who I care deeply about who hopefully are thinking about the livelihood of queer people,” Perry said.
Aware of the negativity, Ackerman said he tries to distance himself from the “manosphere” of online communities of young men that promote far-right values. He mostly receives antisemitic messages from those communities and believes their ideology is anti-Christian, he said.
“Reconquista is a subset of this move towards tradition, but it’s also distinct from the far right or manosphere,” Ackerman said. “I think young people, particularly but not exclusively young men, are disillusioned with the moral anarchy and ugliness of the modern world.”
Ackerman believes young people are drawn to his videos as a reaction to the culture at large.
“They (young people) want a church that is counter-cultural, so liberal churches that simply echo the mainstream cultural narrative don’t give them anything they can’t get elsewhere,” he said.
As fewer Americans identify as Protestants, and congregations continue to dwindle, Ackerman’s plan for the future and for his channel is clear: “I am dedicated to staying (PCUSA) and trying to help my church.”
