The Babylon Bee is Helping Win the War on Woke

Seth Dillon, CEO of the Christian satire site, The Babylon Bee, likes to quote G.K. Chesterton, the famed English writer and apologist.

“Humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle,” the popular 20^th century author once observed.

Since purchasing the Bee in 2018, Dillon and his colleagues have used satire to help tell the truth and get people’s attention. This approach brings to mind radio legend Rush Limbaugh’s mantra and penchant for “Demonstrating absurdity by being absurd.”

In doing so, Dillon and the Bee are doing more than most to combat the ridiculousness that radicals have been increasingly trying to pass off as normal.

The Bee CEO was a fan of the site before he contracted to buy it. A friend alerted him to the fledgling project. The first story he ever read was headlined, “Holy Spirit Unable to Move Through Congregation as Fog Machine Breaks.”

“It was a funny inside joke that you get if you know the church world, which I did because my dad is a pastor,” he said. “They were inside jokes that were funny and witty, and it wasn’t cheesy comedy.”

Humor has long been an effective rhetorical device in culture. Politicians, pastors, teachers and everyday people have used it since the beginning of time to both engage, communicate – and persuade.

The Bee’s style of satire will often exaggerate a story to make a point – a tactic that has infuriated groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. The antagonistic left-wing group accused the site of “amplifying far-right rhetoric and disinformation.”

Snopes, the so-called fact-checking website, actually took the time and effort to label over 30 of the Bee’s stories as “False.”

Only 30? It’s satire after all.

Critics like to claim the satirical site has a habit of sowing confusion, that people regularly mistake their fiction for fact. Yet even that charge should cause some measure of self-reflection. If the absurd is believed possible, what does that say about the group’s state? To be fair, the real pain point for radicals stems from just how often Babylon Bee stories wind up coming true.

In fact, the satirical site has catalogued many of their “fulfilled prophecies” over the years. These include a story suggesting Merriam Webster was updating the definition of “fascism” to be “Anything one agrees with.” Three years later the publication did just that.

In June of 2020, Bee writers claimed, “New, Less Problematic History Books Will Only Include What Happened in the Current Year.” By August, community leaders in Illinois expressed a desire to abolish history lessons in schools.”

In this age of trying to normalize the abnormal, Seth Dillon and his team of writers are providing a critical service. It’s been said that one of the most effective weapons against dictators isn’t bombs or other traditional tools of warfare, but mockery.

Christians may be uncomfortable with the idea of mockery, but it’s important to point out that the Bee is often mocking bad ideas or irrational beliefs. When USA Today named Dr. Rachel Levine, a man who is pretending to be a woman and who was Assistant Secretary for Health, as “Woman of the Year,” the Bee responded by naming Levine “Man of the Year.”

Seth Dillon pointed out they weren’t mocking Levine but rather USA Today.

In an insightful video for PragerU, Dillon asks:

“How did we get to the point where it’s considered hateful to tell the truth, even in jest? The answer is simple. We took ideas too seriously. The absurd has become sacred because it hasn’t been sufficiently mocked.”

According to Dillon, mockery should be used as “A tool to expose foolishness for what it is so that it isn’t taken seriously. Mockery of this kind is not only cleansing, it’s a moral imperative. Why? Because bad ideas have catastrophic consequences.”

Dillon concludes, saying, “People think we’re improved morally because we make fun of fewer things. The truth is we’re more confused than ever because we’ve affirmed and accepted what should have been ridiculed and rejected.”

This regular drumbeat of pointing out the absurd is having an impact. The New York Post, the popular tabloid, runs a weekly Best of the Babylon Bee in the paper and online. Bee web traffic has skyrocketed. Social media sites that once banned their posts are allowing more people to see their stories.

In the end, Chesterton was right once again.

“A man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because it is true,” he observed.

Radicals, take note.