In many ways, it's the least surprising story of our times: A showily Christian conservative holds themselves out to be the moral arbiter for others to follow but is soon exposed as a hypocrite and a villain, accused of violence or abuse against the vulnerable people they claimed to champion. It could be the establishment of the Catholic Church, which covered up sexual abuse by priests for years. Or the Southern Baptist Convention, which also spent decades reflexively shielding abusers. Or Jerry Falwell Jr. and Liberty University. Or the Duggar family from TLC's reality TV series and their religious leader, Bill Gothard. The drumbeat of similar stories is unrelenting. Once a person holds themselves out to be an exemplar of clean Christian living, it feels like it's just a matter of time before their closetful of dark secrets comes spilling out.
So it wasn't really a shock when another Christian right celebrity, Ruby Franke of the YouTube series "8 Passengers," was recently arrested and charged with six charges of felony child abuse. Franke was part of a new crop of Christian "influencers" who have recreated the Duggar family's reality TV success for the social media era. There seems to be an unending number of these content creators. They rake in massive views and advertisers by dishing up a fantasy of blindingly white, well-scrubbed, "wholesome" family life.
