Coat your red pill with Christian ethics

If you’re anything like me, the last five years may have deepened your already existent conservatism. There’s terminology for this you may have seen online; it’s called getting “red-pilled.” Taken from the movie The Matrix, the red pill allows those who take it to see reality for what it truly is, stripped of all its superficial and established narratives. The red pill means embracing the fact that so much of what passes for “normal” is fake, contrived, and geared to make society obedient and unquestioning supplicants to the narratives of elite gatekeepers. Many Christians who “red pill” are simply awakening to the fact that the cultural establishment—legacy media, academia, and entertainment—has not been telling the truth.

Over the last five years, many people have taken the red pill. I should know—I’m one of them. The same is true for a growing chorus of my friends, whose own awakenings fall into the same broad categories: pandemic hypocrisy, media deception, progressive dogma, and political double standards.

Consider the contradictions: cities allowed to burn in the name of combating “systemic racism” while Americans were locked in their homes. Casinos and abortion clinics were deemed “essential,” while churches were shuttered. CNN’s infamous chyron declaring protests “fiery but mostly peaceful” as a building burned amid a riot behind the reporter. Or the many social justice narratives later revealed to be incomplete or false, such as “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.”

Or take the pandemic itself. We were constantly fed “science” that turned out to be made up. Anthony Fauci admitted that many protocols were improvised. Public teachers’ unions used their power to keep children away from schools for as long as possible. Add to that the enforced unreality of transgender ideology, the breathless reports of Trump-Russia “collusion” that never materialized, and the ongoing lawfare designed to destroy him.

The double standards extend further: Democrats proclaim themselves guardians of democracy and constitutional norms while rigging an improvised system to hand the nomination to Kamala Harris. I distinctly recall the media-generated enthusiasm around Kamala Harris’s campaign being about “joy,” knowing it was all fake. Public schools, under the guise of “neutrality,” smuggle in progressive social dogmas. The southern border remains wide open while blame is conveniently shifted to Republicans. And through it all, the national media skew facts, ignore inconvenient truths, and peddle fear about how “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

So, as you can see, there is more than enough evidence to consider the red pill, given what official narratives have told us.

Speaking for myself, I know my skepticism toward Official Narratives is at an all-time high. I no longer accept what I read or watch from national outlets or national figures at face value. That is not necessarily a good thing, though, and left to fester, it can naturally lead to the darker corners of paranoia, suspicion, and contempt. We should desire for our leaders and media to tell the truth. But living in a low-trust society as we do, it is now too easy to adopt a posture of mistrust. When trust is lost, institutions and figures must re-earn it.

But here’s my challenge to my fellow, red-pilled Christians: We need to be sure to coat the red pill with Christian ethics. It is fine to embrace the red pill, but not at the expense of forfeiting a genuine Christian perspective toward cultural rot and hypocrisy. With so much evidence of cultural rot, it is tempting to think skepticism itself is a sufficient virtue. But that is not the Christian way.

My concern at present is that a growing chorus of red-pilled Christians is veering toward additional internet slang, the “black pill,” which is tantamount to an attitude of cynicism and despair. It is sustained by a growing chorus of edgelord YouTubers and online personalities who thrive on performative transgressiveness for its own sake, sparking controversy to drive traffic and monetizing the allure of online celebrity. And anyone who does not “notice” what the fringier elements of the red pill notice is obviously captured, so the sentiment goes.

The Bible warns against such quarrelling, vanity, and the stoking of foolish controversy. It’s easy to move from rejecting elite lies to embracing an alternative and non-Christian worldview that is just as distorted—one, for example, that believes unseen forces are always out to get “us” (whoever that is). If one closely follows the discourse on social media among the darker corners of the far right who proudly boast of their red pill, one can find the spirit of antichrist that traffics in genuine racism against Jews and blacks. I am not accusing the red-pilled of being racist. What I am concerned about is what follows in the wake of the red pill. If we discard what Christianity teaches about the dignity of all human beings, the legitimate red-pilled rejection of left-wing identitarianism can easily embrace a right-wing form of the same. Anything that denigrates the dignity of an entire people group is not of Christ. Among others, there is an active effort underway to be inflammatory and provocative by jettisoning or explaining away New Testament standards for speech, truth, love, reasonableness, and gentleness.

At worst, red pilling allows for a doubling-down effect—entrenching bitterness, refusing correction, and considering conspiracy theories that not only challenge official narratives but also veer off into wild-eyed and unfalsifiable speculation. It can also lead to embracing the anti-Christian “No Enemies to the Right” concept that refuses to name problems on one’s own side for fear of lacking allegiance to the cause of opposing progressivism.

Let me suggest that Christians are called to live “sober-minded” and “wise as serpents, innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Christian truth does not merely unmask lies—it provides hope, joy, and order in a disordered age. That’s a healthier approach to the lies and half-truths of our society than swallowing whole the milieu of red pill culture.

The response to knee-jerk red pilling is not to turn first to the latest podcast or internet personality. It is, as always, to seek discernment and maintain commitment to truth. Christians must distinguish between genuine truth-telling (seeing through cultural lies about sex, family, power) and corrosive suspicion that erodes faith, hope, and love. Red pilling can expose lies, but without Christ, it leaves us bitter, paranoid, and hopeless.