When Your Messenger is Shooting Your Efforts in the Foot

A couple of weeks ago, a reader sent me a private message that tickled my ego. “Kaeley,” she said, “I can tell by the way you communicate that you must have a really high IQ like me.”

Internally I laughed at the audacity of such a statement before thanking this woman for her vote of confidence and setting the record straight. “No,” I told her. “I hate to disappoint you, but I can assure you that I’m remarkably average in the intelligence department.”

The results of the online IQ test I took to satisfy my curiosity underscored my conclusion: my score was ever so slightly above average—nothing impressive. I scored below average in two mathematical categories but redeemed myself by scoring as “gifted” in two others.

One of the areas in which I received the highest score was in pattern recognition and big picture thinking—the ability to take a bird’s eye view on a situation and see where all the pieces fit and what the logical outcome of any given scenario will be depending on the variables. It’s like being a situational chess master. “If you do x, y will happen.” The skillset is anticipatory in nature, and I’ve often wondered how much of it is hardwiring vs how much of it is rooted in trauma and learned hypervigilance— an involuntary constant need to identify the next shoe that’s about to drop.

Regardless of how I became this way, it’s a useful skill in both writing and activism. It helps me anticipate what needs to be said, how to say it, and where it will land.

In communication and message crafting, there are series of questions that guide a skillful writer: “What is my objective? Who is my audience? What do I need them to understand? What are the barriers to this understanding? How can I mitigate these obstructions? Whose voice and perspective are they most inclined to hear?”

For example, early on in my fight against transanity, I realized that success would require an ability to get our message to penetrate into the minds and hearts of liberals. The right already agreed with me that men did not belong in women’s locker rooms, so while getting my voice into articles in Breitbart might help me rally a few extra people to action, it would never land a strike or a death blow at the very heart of the issue. For that, I would need to cede my voice and my platform to people whose voices leftists might be more inclined to hear. It’s easy to dismiss a right wing pro-life Christian when she speaks out against LGBT ideology. The left isn’t going to listen to me. But when a lifelong leftist lesbian activist forfeits her title as the Grand Marshall of her city’s annual pride parade in order to take a stand? Well, that becomes a lot more interesting. It’s a lot harder to ignore. It turns out liberals are generally more willing to consider the perspective of other liberals. Rocket surgery, I know.

So much of effective communication requires choosing the right speaker.

If I want to start an important conversation with feminists, I’m not choosing Andrew Tate as the spokesperson.

If I want to rally a bunch of old white Republican men to action, I won’t be sending Greta Thunberg to elicit their support.

If I’m trying to make inroads with BLM, I’m not sending Kyle Rittenhouse as the diplomat.

And if I want to get pro-lifers on board with my mission, you had best believe I am not sending Cecile Richards to get the job done.

Each one of us can immediately think of at least one controversial voice we immediately tune out upon hearing the name. For some that name is Donald Trump. For others it’s Kamala Harris. For some it’s Jerry Falwell. For others it’s Joel Osteen. We carry our own reasons for the disdain and the distrust, but whether or not our reasons are valid, the point remains that certain messages will never penetrate our protective walls if they’re communicated by people we implicitly distrust.

I’ve often said that Donald Trump could read the Emancipation Proclamation, and some people would find a way to frame it as bigotry, and I suppose the same is true about Hillary Clinton.

Well the evangelical world has these polarizing characters, too—voices they immediately and thoroughly distrust right out the gate. Russell Moore is one of them. Kristin Kobes du Mez in another. There are a ton of reasons for this, some of them more valid than others, which is worthy of its own discussion for another day.

(I could personally hop on board with Moore’s warnings about Trump, but I think his constant deference to an evil man like Francis Collins during the Covid pandemic was especially problematic. And I’ve already blogged about du Mez, who is constantly disparaging evangelicals and bucking orthodox views, so she’s obviously not going to be warmly received by them.)

The point is that if I want to get evangelicals to consider an important message, I am not going to try advancing that message by using these two individuals as my spokespeople. It’s a surefire way to lose half my audience before I even pass “go.”

So when the long awaited “Sons of Patriarchy” podcast series (designed to expose Doug Wilson and the Moscow cult) debuted their teaser video yesterday, my heart sank. I’ve been praying for this takedown for years. I so badly want to see it succeed. I think Doug Wilson and his brand of authoritarian misogyny framed as orthodoxy is a stench within the Christian community, and I think he’s a vicious, wicked man who needs to be taken down post haste. This is not a surprise to you. His name appears in at least a dozen of my blog entries. I have been vexed by awareness of his rapidly increasing power for years, and I deeply, passionately want justice for the many walking wounded in his wake.

But within 10 seconds of the teaser, it became abundantly clear that the two preeminent names behind this work were Russell Moore and Kristin Kobes du Mez. They were followed by a series of diverse names, a few orthodox voices among many other people who claim to be Christians while aggressively advocating for abortion and the rainbow brigade.

My big picture lens tells me this is a terrible mistake. The project will resonate with people who already agree that Doug Wilson is evil. It will resonate with leftists who are eager to dismantle conservative evangelical culture. It may even pass through the filters of a discerning few with eyes to see the truth about Wilson regardless of the source. But the audience that most desperately needs to contend with the message? They’re not going to hear it. They’re going to shut down the minute they see who’s in the driver’s seat. They’re going to assume it’s a political hack job, led by people hellbent on subverting conservative ideals and turning the church into a Marxist training center complete with a kumbaya Jesus who weaves daisy chains and lets the world run amok in the name of love.

The important warnings of the survivors who’ve found the courage to speak will get lost in the shuffle. No one ever listens to survivor stories when there’s political power in the balance of a guilty verdict. Just think of the past few election seasons. My concern about this particular strategy is that the broader conversation will be interpreted as a power struggle, not a genuine cry for justice.

And that’s a crying shame.

We don’t need to change the liberal mind about Doug Wilson. We need to get evangelicals to care enough to expel the immoral brother. Evangelicals are the target audience. Evangelicals are the one who need to be invited to act.

I’m not without empathy for the project managers. One of them directly told me that he tried long and hard to recruit orthodox conservative leaders to contribute to the podcast, and nobody would. This is to our shame. It is appalling when progressives do a better job of rooting out the sin in our camp than we do.

To a certain extent, I get it. When the left wouldn’t listen to radical feminists about their concerns with the trans lobby, these women were so desperate to get their voices out there that they ultimately turned to rightwing think tanks to sound the alarm. This was not their ideal or their first choice. It was merely the only option available to them, so they took it. Similarly, if the voices inside the church won’t sound the alarm about Wilson, then I can’t entirely fault them for turning to people who are, in fact, willing, to give enough of a damn to do something about it.

But I’m worried. I’m worried this will blow up in their faces and actually serve to bolster Wilson’s position. I’m worried conservatives who haven’t even heard of Doug Wilson before will see the faces behind the expose and immediately conclude, “Hey, if these two progressives are denouncing it, it must be over the target.”

And that doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help evangelicals. It doesn’t help the world and large, and it certainly doesn’t help abuse survivors.

I got my head bitten off for saying this yesterday. Apparently people think my well-intended critique means I care more about political purity than I do about survivors, which is a laughable and, quite frankly, gaslighty, assertion. The project’s social media director expressly told me that feedback like mine is why she doesn’t like working with Christians. Tell me, please, how anyone expects to make inroads with Christians if they’re leveraging the voices of people who openly despise us.

BECAUSE I care about survivors, I want to see them experience justice. I want to see the idols that have crushed them tumble. I want to see them pick up a stone and chuck it directly into the center of this Goliath’s forehead.

This work is so fraught. Pray for godly discernment for the giant slayers today.

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