The Rabbit Hole Christian and the TikTok Christian
Two ditches flank the narrow road of true discipleship in 2026. One leads into conspiracy and paranoia. The other into sentimentality and spiritual junk food. The Bereans found a third way. We need to find it again.
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You open your phone for a few minutes of quiet reflection.
The algorithm immediately offers you two options.
Option one: a thread connecting last week’s geopolitical headlines to an obscure prophecy, a forum buzzing with secret knowledge, a video assuring you that you have finally found the real story behind the story.
Option two: a fifteen-second sermon over a sunset. A worship chorus clipped to thirty seconds. A viral testimony with the context removed and the emotion doubled.
Both promise spiritual engagement. Both are traps. And most of us, if we are honest, have fallen into at least one of them.
Two Archetypes, One Common Root
I want to name two types of Christians I see regularly — in my church, in clinical practice, in my own feeds.
The Rabbit Hole Christian is usually a sincere person. They want truth. They are driven by a genuine concern that the world is not what it appears to be, and that the church has not kept up. But their discipleship is no longer primarily shaped by Scripture or the historic teachings of the church. It is shaped by a curated feed of alternative media, speculative prophetic interpretation, and a pervasive hermeneutic of suspicion. Spiritual maturity, in this framework, is measured by how deep you have gone. How many layers you have peeled back. What the mainstream does not want you to know.
The tragedy is not that they are asking hard questions. The tragedy is that in pursuing a hidden truth, they have lost the plain truth of the gospel.
The TikTok Christian has a different problem. Their faith is shaped by the algorithm’s demand for brevity, emotional resonance, and instant return. Their biblical literacy is often limited to isolated verses stripped of context. Their theology is formed by whoever can deliver a spiritual hit in under a minute. Paul’s warning in Ephesians 4:14 reads like a prophecy written for our moment: faith that is “tossed back and forth by the waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine.” A faith built on viral trends is not equipped for suffering, for doubt, or for the long obedience in the same direction.
These two archetypes look like opposites. They are not. They share a common root: both are shaped by the logic of social media, which prioritizes engagement over truth, emotion over reflection, speed over depth. Both have surrendered the formation of their faith to an algorithm that does not love them.
The Berean Model Is the Third Way
When Paul preached in Berea, the people there did something unusual. They received what he said with eagerness. And then they went home and checked.
Acts 17:11 calls them “more noble than those in Thessalonica” — not because they were more credulous, but because they were more rigorous. They examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was actually true.
Three things are worth noticing.
First, they were receptive. They came with a posture of genuine openness, not the reflexive suspicion of the rabbit hole or the passive consumption of the TikTok scroll.
Second, they were rooted in Scripture. Their final authority was not Paul’s charisma or the logic of his argument. It was the Word of God. They did not elevate the speaker. They held the speaker accountable to a standard that existed before he arrived.
Third, they were rigorous and daily. This was not a one-time fact-check. It was a practice. A rhythm. A discipline.
This is the model. And it is accessible to every Christian with a Bible and a willingness to do the slow work.
What Adventist Theology Offers Here
We have resources for this moment that we are not using as well as we should.
Our commitment to Scripture as the sole and sufficient standard for faith and practice is precisely the guardrail that keeps us out of both ditches. It means we do not elevate a YouTube prophet to the authority that belongs to God’s Word. It also means we do not let a thirty-second clip substitute for actual encounter with the text.
Our Great Controversy framework helps us name what is happening. We are in a cosmic conflict where the enemy’s primary tools are deception and distraction. The rabbit hole of conspiracy and the endless scroll of shallow content are modern expressions of a very old strategy: divert attention from Christ. We should not be surprised by this. We should be prepared for it.
And then there is the Sabbath.
The seventh-day Sabbath is a weekly, God-ordained act of resistance against the attention economy. Twenty-four hours where the algorithm does not get to set the agenda. A deliberate uncoupling from the noise of the world. A recalibration toward the Creator rather than the created content in our feeds.
We have been given this gift every week. We are not using it fully.
Information Is Not Formation
Here is the distinction that cuts through both traps.
The goal of Christian discipleship is not the accumulation of doctrinal data or secret knowledge. It is the transformation of character into the likeness of Christ. Being convinced is not the same as being converted.
The Rabbit Hole Christian accumulates information. The TikTok Christian accumulates impressions. Neither is being formed.
Formation is slower. It requires deep, reflective engagement with Scripture. It requires a community that knows you and tells you the truth about yourself. It requires time — not the time of the endless scroll, but the time of waiting, returning, sitting with a text long enough for it to sit with you.
| Discipleship Model | Primary Drive | Source of Authority | Where It Leads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rabbit Hole Christian | Secret knowledge, control | Alternative media, charismatic figures | Suspicion, anxiety, isolation |
| TikTok Christian | Emotional experience, affirmation | Viral trends, popular influencers | Superficiality, instability, biblical illiteracy |
| Berean Christian | Truth and transformation | The Word of God, studied daily | Discernment, peace, deep-rooted faith |
The Call
We cannot serve both God and the algorithm.
The rabbit hole leads to a fortress of suspicion, cut off from the body of Christ. The highlight reel leads to a faith as fleeting as a trending sound. Both leave us spiritually malnourished.
The Bereans did not have a digital strategy. They had a daily practice. They opened the Scriptures. They asked hard questions. They let the text correct them.
That is still available to us. It is less exciting than a conspiracy thread. It produces fewer dopamine hits than a worship clip that went viral. But it builds something that lasts.
Let us choose to be disciples instead of consumers of spiritual content. Let us trade the scroll for the Scriptures, the rabbit hole for the road, the fifteen-second sermon for the slow and sustaining work of knowing and being known by the God of the Word.
Chukwuma Onyeije is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine physician and elder at Atlanta North Seventh-day Adventist Church. He writes at Chukwuma Theology on Scripture, Adventist faith, and the life of the mind.