AI Is A Gateway To The Welfare State
October 6, 2026 |
Keith Giles
Once upon a time, salvation was about the soul. Now it’s about the skin.
Welcome to the era of the “Jesus Glow,” the hottest new holiness trend sweeping TikTok—where conversion comes with contour, sanctification with soft lighting, and redemption conveniently available in a before-and-after format. Forget baptism by water. This is baptism by beauty filter.
In these viral videos, repentant influencers showcase their journey from goth, grunge, or “girl in car crying” to sun-drenched, beige-toned, biblically-blonde Barbie. Their message? Jesus saves—and He apparently also color-corrects.
The format’s always the same: a split-screen salvation. On the left, pre-Jesus you—sad, dark, maybe a little too expressive. On the right, post-conversion you—glowing like you swallowed a ring light and got baptized in dry shampoo. The text overlay often sets up a fictional antagonist: “The Jesus Glow isn’t real,” followed by a rebuttal like “Wrong. It is.” Who said it isn’t real? Nobody. But that’s beside the point. You don’t need a real enemy when a made-up one boosts engagement.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t faith. It’s aesthetic warfare dressed in righteousness. The glow-up isn’t about spiritual renewal—it’s about conformity. A very specific conformity: thin, white(ish), soft-spoken, and painfully heteronormative. The Jesus Glow isn’t proof of grace. It’s proof of a good filter and a deep need to belong to a very narrow definition of “blessed.”
There’s a reason Jesus saved His most blistering sermons for the religious elites of His day—the ones obsessed with appearances and allergic to self-awareness. He called them whitewashed tombs: beautiful on the outside, dead on the inside. If He were on TikTok today, I imagine He’d stitch one of these Jesus Glow videos and say something similar—maybe with a tasteful vintage filter and a little side-eye.
These creators aren’t evangelists. They’re spiritual sales reps, pushing a self-help gospel with a cross-shaped logo. Salvation, in their theology, is less about loving your neighbor and more about becoming someone others will envy. Compassion? Meh. Community? Optional. Content? Absolutely essential.
It’s the logical next step in MAGA Christianity’s descent into narcissism. The Jesus Glow isn’t about the Sermon on the Mount—it’s about turning faith into a marketing funnel. These aren’t testimonies. They’re infomercials.
And while they may not mention politics, the glow is unmistakably red. This is the soft-focus version of Christian nationalism—pretty, palatable, and quietly reinforcing purity culture, patriarchy, and a theology where God is your personal life coach and Trump is apparently on the prayer team.
There’s a dark undercurrent here that shouldn’t be ignored. These videos don’t just sell beauty—they imply that suffering, sadness, and even certain aesthetics are the result of spiritual failure. Didn’t get the glow? Must be sin. Still wearing black? Probably a witch. Not smiling in a wheat field? Sounds like someone doesn’t know Jesus.
It’s a toxic little lie, but it sells. And in influencer culture, selling is the gospel.
But if your theology tells you that God loves the beautiful, the successful, the curated—congrats. You’ve invented Instagram, not Christianity. The Jesus of the Gospels didn’t glow. He wept. He bled. He touched lepers and broke Sabbath laws. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, according to Isaiah. No filters. No brand deals. Just inconvenient truth.
That Jesus? You won’t find Him trending.
