Shiny Happy People, a Teenage Holy War, and the LGBT revolution

Prime Video’s 2023 documentary series Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets was a devastating salvo aimed at one of American evangelicalism’s most popular reality TV shows (if that sounds like a contradiction in terms, it should). Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar, the patriarch and matriarch of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, were justifiable targets; the series, however, used their scandals to attack traditional Christian beliefs. As I noted in my review at the time, the Duggars weren’t the primary target; they were a convenient vehicle for a broader assault.

Season 2 of Shiny Happy People, subtitled “A Teenage Holy War,” employs the precisely the same strategy: Choose an evangelical subculture—the weirder the better—and use it as pretext not merely to expose the misdeeds of that specific subculture, but to attack biblical beliefs in general. It is a potent and effective tactic, because it allows progressives to smear pro-lifers, traditional Christians, and believers in biblical truth by way of targeting a scandal-ridden “ministry.”

Prime Video’s second salvo is an exposé of the evangelical youth ministry Teen Mania founded by Ron Luce, which through the 1990s and 2000s attracted more than a million teenagers and young adults to its “Acquire the Fire” events. Luce wanted to compete with mainstream pop culture by creating a Christian imitation, and his massive concerts featured singers and bands that fused an evangelical message with performances designed to incur maximum emotion that could be parlayed into religious fervor. The effects on teens were predictable.

The events were critiqued for their use of rank emotionalism to ramp up feelings which could be dubbed “religious,” and I agree entirely with these critiques. Luce’s massive rock concerts were an attempt to baptize MTV and, in my (unpopular) view, were in key ways as much a surrender to the culture and the spirit of the age as a rebellion against it. The message of Shiny Happy People is simple: Look at this stuff. It’s so cringe. These people used rock concerts to manipulate volatile teens into thinking they were having a religious experience. And fair enough.

Teen Mania’s Honor Academy is also low-hanging fruit, with Luce’s bizarre alloy of military-style wilderness survival boot camp and Christianese language, along with the youth-fueled international “mission trips” that featured traveling troupes of teenage Bible dramatists. Plenty of kids had truly miserable experiences, and plenty of them were in the documentary series. Shiny Happy People only nods to the fact that the financial scandals that ultimately took down the ministry were exposed not by secular media, but by Christian outlets such as WORLD magazine.

But much of the sneering that characterizes the series is reserved for actual Christian beliefs. Teaching people that Hell exists is presented as abusive. Believing that evangelism is important is mocked as fanaticism. The idea of Christ’s Second Coming is presented as ridiculous. The Honor Academy’s rules forbidding porn, homosexuality, and extramarital activity are condemned as “purity culture,” a popular catchall phrase used to condemn both unbiblical legalism surrounding relationships and genuine biblical standards for sex and identity.

The message of the series isn’t just about scandal, it is about deconstruction: Look at these people. They’re so misguided and ridiculous. They actually believe what the Bible says about all kinds of stuff. Thus, the genuine emotional manipulation of Teen Mania Ministries is condemned—but genuine belief in the Bible is also condemned as cult-like and manipulative. Teen Mania is the pretext. Christianity is the target.

The climax of the series is a paranoid condemnation of Teen Mania’s engagement in the culture wars, most notably the youth protests against same-sex marriage. Here, the documentarians don’t even bother to attempt balance or historical accuracy. The narrative: Homosexuality is fine, gay marriage was on its way, and suddenly—Ron Luce wants a holy war! Well, who started that culture war? Who was overthrowing the status quo? For that matter, when then-mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom (featured in the series) began illegally issuing gay marriage licenses in 2004, who was breaking the law? In case it’s not clear: It wasn’t Ron Luce.

Those who protested the LGBT movement were responding to a movement trying to transform America, not the other way around. If Shiny Happy People is to be believed, however, Ron Luce’s attempted defense of the American status quo is, whatever its flaws, somehow revolutionary. It was Luce’s project, they claim, that contributed to the rise of “Christian Nationalism.” As one journalist put it, ominously and obviously: To Christians, “how important is democracy, anyway?”

That, frankly, is a joke—and borderline gaslighting. When Californians voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2008, the wave of LGBT civil disobedience that followed was portrayed not as a threat to democracy, but a beautiful movement for human rights. When the 2015 Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges eliminated laws enshrining natural marriage in states across the country, it was presented as a victory for democracy; when the Court overturned Roe v. Wade 7 years later, it was “Christian nationalism.” The rule is this: If you’re on our side, it’s democracy. If you’re not, it’s fascism.

Indeed, one of the final interviews is with Kieryn Darkwater, an LGBT activist who identifies as queer, transmasculine, and nonbinary. Darkwater openly advocates for the suppression of democracy when it comes to the nationwide implementation of the sexual revolution, especially on Americans who do not support the transformation of their country. “To let Alabama be Alabama,” he says solemnly, “is not in any way a United States.” That gets to the heart of it, doesn’t it? American must be united—behind the LGBT agenda. Any attempt to resist the sexual revolution, or to “go back,” is fascist. Shiny Happy People makes much of Christian ministries “capturing kids.” But what in the world do they think the LGBT movement has been doing all this time?

Shiny Happy People told the story of Teen Mania in order to tell the story of “Christian fascism” in America. Laws protecting children in the womb? Fascism. Opposition to IVF and the commodification of human life? Fascism. Opposition to LGBT indoctrination for pre-teen children? You guessed it—fascism. If Shiny Happy People is to be believed, every society before the sexual revolution was fascist. One comment in the documentary, intended to describe evangelicals, sums up this naked attempt to rewrite history: “The authoritarian people all got together and they’re plotting; everyone else is just living their lives.”

That is about as close as you’re going to get to the opposite of the truth. Millions of American Christians woke up a half-century ago and realized that everything they had taken for granted was changing. Many attempted to resist this revolution: the pro-life movement, the Religious Right, scores of ministries. Countless mistakes were made along the way, and those are worth writing about, discussing, and yes, exposing. But Shiny Happy People is not that. It is an attempt to portray counterrevolutionaries as fascists, all under the guise of holding Christians to their own standards. It deserves nothing but contempt.