How Christian are most Christians? One of the most famous Bible verses is 1 Corinthians 13:13:
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Well, if the social experiment conducted by this TikToker is anything to go by, some American churches could use a little more time in Bible study.
Nikalie Monroe‘s “social experiment” is to call churches pretending to be a desperate mother needing baby formula. She plays a crying baby sound in the background and pleads with them to help her and her kid.
Depressingly, the vast majority say “absolutely not”. Here’s an example of how these calls tend to go down:
@nikalie.monroe Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City MO. Would not help feed a hungry baby. #fyp #church #churchtiktok #religion #faith #community #humanity #baby #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #foryou #foryoupage #viral #viralvideo #trending #duet #capcut #testingyourfaith #testingyourheart #nikaliemonroe #testingyourchurch
♬ original sound – Nikalie– Nikalie
This is a fairly typical response: “I’m afraid we don’t have anything like that”, followed by a recommendation to try another church (which will probably also say no). It should be emphasized that the people who answer these calls are almost always sympathetic, but they then explain (as this lady did), “There’s no one here that can help you.”
“You should call a mosque”
Then someone in the comments suggested she call a mosque. Monroe called the Islamic Center of Charlotte, NC, and asked them the same question:
@nikalie.monroe Islamic Center of Charlotte in Charlotte NC. Would help feed a starving baby no hesitation
♬ original sound – Nikalie#fyp #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #testingyourchurch #church #faith #religion #baby #hungrybabytest #viral #viralvideo #trending #tiktok #capcut #duet #nikaliemonroe #testingyourfaith #testingyourheart #community
Monroe: “Hi yes, I was trying to call. I have two month old baby and I ran out of formula last night. And I just wanted to see if y’all could help with a can of baby formula.”
The mosque: “We can, ma’am, where do you live? Do you live in Charlotte?”
Monroe: “Yes, I’m like ten minutes from y’all.”
Mosque: “Okay, and what kind of formula do you need?”
Monroe: “It’s the Good Start.”
Mosque: “Good Start. That’s okay ma’am. Come over here and we will help you.”
Judging by the comments, everyone’s jaw was left on the floor. As many noted, they didn’t even ask whether Monroe was Muslim or not before immediately offering to help. Many others quickly made donations to the mosque, with Muslims pointing out that charity is a pillar of Islam that’s taken very seriously (a lot more seriously than by most Christians, it seems…)
Now, to be clear, since this video was posted, Monroe has found Christian churches that have agreed to donate baby formula to her. But, as of writing, she’s 35 calls into her experiment, and 27 churches have given her a flat “no”. Read into this what you will but, as one of the top comments on her mosque video summarizes: “America is so propagandized.”
