Home Christian News News Headlines You Might Wish Were April Fools’ Jokes

News Headlines You Might Wish Were April Fools’ Jokes

April Fools'
Photo by Roman Kraft (via Unsplash)

Today is April 1, or as many know it, April Fools’ Day—a day were people often plan practical jokes, harmless pranks, or hoaxes on each other for laughs.

Even ChurchLeaders got in on the action some years ago with some The Babylon Bee type stories before their was a Bee, regarding well-known pastors. The titles “Rick Warren Challenges Mark Driscoll to Celebrity Boxing Match” and “John MacArthur Selfie Goes Viral” genuinely shocked some readers, until staff reminded them that it’s important to laugh at times.

The Babylon Bee is a popular Christian satire site and was founded a month before April Fools’ Day in 2016. The site currently boasts over 20 million page views per month and writes satirical articles relating to religion, current events, public figures, and, politics.

No one is safe from The Babylon Bee’s satirical sniper lens. The largest church in America, Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas pastored by Joel Osteen, has been the brunt of many headlines produced by The Babylon Bee, including its most recent take on the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars debacle.

The headline reads “John MacArthur Charges Lakewood Church Stage To Slap Joel Osteen,” as the article joked that pastor MacArthur, who was visiting Lakewood Church, walked up on stage and slapped pastor Osteen after he said, “God wants you to be happy, healthy, and wealthy.”

The Babylon Bee has been flagged by social media sites multiple times for “misleading news,” although they are forthright in describing themselves as the “world’s best satire site.”

Recently The Babylon Bee was locked out of their Twitter account which has over 1.3 million followers by Twitter administration for “hateful content” after releasing an article joking about U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine who is transgender.

The headline read “The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year Is Rachel Levine” and the tweet linked to a satirical article calling Levine a “boss” while repeatedly referring to Levine as a man and using the pronoun “he” multiple times. The article even calls Levine a “dude.”

Soon after, The Babylon Bee’s founder, Adam Ford, who currently runs Not The Bee, was also locked out of his personal account for reposting the article that got The Babylon Bee flagged. Twitter asked them to delete their posts regarding Levine to regain access to their accounts. Both refused to do so.

Unfortunately These Headlines ARE REAL

The phrase “we need Jesus” is an understatement in so many different ways as we take a look around the world today. Wars, famine, human trafficking, sexual abuse, child endangerment, murders, senseless shootings, churches collapsing due to moral failures, political corruption—unfortunately one could go on and on.