“In a stunning move that is making waves throughout evangelicalism, Pastor Steven Furtick has announced he has come to an agreement with Lakewood Church to preach alongside Joel Osteen, forming the core of a “superstar preaching team.”
The contract is worth $110 million over the next six years, Lakewood confirmed, making it the largest the preaching world has ever seen…”
Those were the first two paragraphs of a sarcastic article written by The Babylon Bee – a site that many people are calling ‘the Christian version of The Onion‘.
Over 4,000 people shared the post directly from Babylon Bee’s Facebook page, with thousands more sharing it on various other pages, channels, and platforms.
At least a quarter of all the people who shared the article seemed to believe it was true;
There was such an uproar from people who believed the video that the Elevation Church Pastor decided to publish his own response video about the article, telling people that it was a joke, and that it came from a satirical website.
“We have to be careful. We’re living in the age of information but we’re starving for truth. And we can’t believe everything we read and we certainly can’t treat life like a middle school cafeteria.”
His video has already been viewed over 500,000 times;
Furtick also noted that this one line alone should have been a clear tip off that the article was fake, “I wish Elevation the best of luck in the seasons to come, and hope they can find someone as ripped and godly as me.”
Did you see the satire article?
Did it fool you?