Baby delivers emotional sermon from church stage

It doesn't matter what you say, but the way in which you say it. (via Why, That's Delightful!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Jake Bullet

That is the most terrifying thing I have seen in a long time.
error404

In other news Canada and Mexico agree upon the Trans-Continental Parallel Containment Walls.
FreakCitySF

lil’ hitler
Anonymous

that (adult) preacher was seeing his career pass before his eyes, thinking “now how am I going to top this…”
anjacara

Brian washing can be so adorable
Anonymous

heh. i was about to make the same comment as #5. I reminded me of one of hitlers speaches from the propaganda films. Somone mash that up, it’ll be great!
Anonymous

Looks like this kid has a head start on Marjo Gortner. When he actually learns to talk, look out sinners. If he learns to think’ look out church.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSdI8ag1k0A
Anonymous

If this kid pulled the same routine on the street without a microphone he’d get smacked.

The adults around this kid should be smacked, regardless. The religious indoctrination of children should be illegal.
Anonymous

Child abuse, plain and simple. Somebody call DFS.
technogeek

Ditto to most of the above comments, minus #5.

Monkey see, monkey do, especially when rewarded for doing. (Yeah, I know, this kid’s parents would probably have trouble with the concept that we’re apes, given the preaching style he’s emulating.)
Anonymous

perhaps the baby actually understands the concepts of “irony” and “idiocy.” obviously the attending audience doesn’t.
Anonymous

@#35: That’s a type of lunchmeat, innit?
El_Cid

Little did they know that the god Ashur of ancient Babylonia had chosen this day to return from obscurity and give Earthlings the one true faith, but, alas, he had forgotten much of the humans, and his words made little sense to the gathered throng, and Ashur retreated to the celestial wandering grounds after this confusing event.
takeshi

Wow, so many folks comparing the baby preacher to Hitler. Didn’t see that one coming.

On another note, this is possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. I’m sure it was the baby’s idea, too. Not like he didn’t start mimicking someone preaching (father, uncle, brother) before they trotted him out onstage.

Scary, scary world we live in where gun-toting, pro-war Christians and atheistic vegan pacifists can hurt themselves laughing at the same faith-related YouTube clip. God help us all.
Ratdog

@9

I bet he is thinking the opposite. People would come from miles around to see a preaching kid. It would actually make good business for the preacher.
MRCarter

“CHANGE MY DIAPER!!!”
“NO MORE MUSH FOR BREAKFAST!!!”
“I LOVE MY BINKIE!!!”
“CAN I GET AN AMEN FOR BREAST FEEDING?!”
kpkpkp

Speaking in tongues?
Anonymous

Sounds the same to me
Anonymous

OMG – this kid has obviously been subject to too much evangelical television and less Barney The Dinosaur or Teletubbies…….
Scary.
nosehat

I wonder what the people in the audience might have thought after they got beyond “how cute”. I have this fantasy that they realized “That’s pretty much what we get from the adult preacher!” followed quickly by “What am I doing wasting my time here?” But that probably didn’t happen.

On a different note, I’d love to see this subtitled like the Joe Cocker song that was posted here not long ago.
pixelsin

sounds like the usual garbage…
mcgringostarr

#30 William…not everything deserves to be analyzed to this degree. It’s a baby imitating grown ups…if there wasn’t a religious angle BB probably wouldn’t have veered this close to America’s Funniest Videos.

“This kid may be on a different path, but I’d be a lot more sure of that if his talent was something that produced value rather than manipulating crowds.”

Like Elvis did? Regardless of your religious views, preaching is still an art…and it’s influence cuts a pretty wide path through our culture.
Anonymous

wow, that’s some early brainwashing right there. Kid doesn’t understand a word, just parroting the mantra.
ArghMonkey

The funny thing is the crowd gets as much from a baby yelling gibberish as they do a grown man yelling about religion *L*
Anonymous

I am forking shirting myself after watching this.
Jim Terr

This has been around for a while. The frightening thing is that it was / is presented as a baby possessed by the spirit of God, rather than what it is, a baby imitating the evangelist style and the audience, dumber than he is, reading predetermined spiritual meaning into it.
CastanhasDoPara

At the end it seems that the baby is saying, “I have to poop, I HAVE TO POOOOOOOOOP!!!!”.

Either way, this is sort of disturbing and again proves to me that most fundies are sheepish at best and brain damaged at worst.
Anonymous

To have an innocent child mimic angry-styled screaming in front of people who are egging him on and laughing is exploitation. YouTube needs to pull this. This is a form of child abuse.
hiyayaywhopee

@56

You’re right – the fact that the kid is copying the preacher’s actions is cute and harmless. Far more concerning is the kid copying the preacher’s thoughts as he grows up in much the same way.
Anonymous

Somebody please remix this with a Death Metal soundtrack….
Anonymous

“Down Jesus! Down Jesus! Hail Satan!”
mcgringostarr

I’m an agnostic, yet I fail to see “the horror” in this at all. The audience is even good humored enough to egg him on and go with the premise.
Anonymous

Child abuse
rrh

This reminds me I still need to watch Marjoe.
Robert

We replaced this congregation’s usual preacher with Folger’s Baby. Will they be able to tell the difference? Let’s find out!
Editz

Come on. If the kid were in a wrestling ring you’d be saying he was baby Hulk Hogan.
Anonymous

scarrry!
Anonymous

Compare and contrast.

Will Ferrell Landlord Skit.
Anonymous

Someone needs to call child protective services before he starts taking up collections..
slgalt

I could only make out “I’M SLEEPY!”

That is one creepy video.
max_supernova

Sounds to me like the crowd is faked, or at least partly faked.

It’s like some of the crowd noise is overdubbed like those fake guitarist videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdFJTbaFcZ0
Anonymous

Is the baby saying, “Attack, Attack!”? I’m not sure what’s more disturbing; the baby or the adults applauding it & trying to brainwash it into saying “Jesus”. Dark…
Anonymous

#18 – I think this isn’t a case of the audience “playing along” so much as an audience actually believing that this is a divinely sermon, and reacting the way they do the the adult reacher.

On another note-I can’t get over how good a mimic this baby is- down to the jumpy thing that preachers do when they wander around the stage, alternating which hand holds the mic for maximum gesticulation, the crouching fistpump, and the “I’m walking away- oh no, I’ve got one more inspirational outburst” thing at the end.

Totally crazy evangelical preacher 101 there. I just hope the kid has an equally awesome business card.
artbot

Don’t know whether to be uplifted or horrified.

#24 – The kid knows not what he speaks of, but his presumed intention is not lost on the audience of want-to-believers. That is, the audience sees him imploring them to something, and they conveniently get to plug in their own ideas and beliefs in the place of actual words or ideas. Sort of an ideal preacher if you ask me.
Bevin

I am confused and shivering now: “Oh how cute! Wait, that’s creepy… but kinda sweet… and totally terrifying.”

It’s a creepy video that is also its own unicorn chaser. I think I’m going to go back to bed for awhile.
Anonymous

In this cases:
What would Freud say?
Trnck

Just like the real thing.
Anonymous

yup this kid is gonna one aggressive little bastard when he grows older, one of them religious freaks who tries to get their point across by yelling nonsense
st vincent

Is this broadcast available with captions?
william

@McGringoStarr, #24: I see two horrors:

One, it exposes what’s actually going on. Even when you reduce the informational content to zero, the ritual is just as effective. The ritual is all about primate bonding, the equivalent of chimp grunting.

Two, there’s the horror of the child corrupted. The lessons learned the earliest go the deepest.

My aunt married a guy whose main skill was a silver tongue. As a preacher, he got his flock to build him a nice lake house, get him a luxury car, and generally give him the good life. Eventually, they discovered he had a taste for teen boys, and now he sells shoes.

This kid may be on a different path, but I’d be a lot more sure of that if his talent was something that produced value rather than manipulating crowds.
abkad

What is wrong with you people?

This isn’t scary, it’s not satire, and it doesn’t reflect poorly on anyone involved.

This is a child imitating the adults around him as small children are known to do. The crowd things it’s cute and funny, so they cheer him on. In return, the child enjoys the attention and continues on. I’m sorry, but is this first time you people have seen a child?

And if these adults really were swept up in what they thought was a baby actually speaking for God, they’re not exactly showing a lot of reverence. You can hear laughter throughout and it’s clear that the “preach on”s that we hear throughout are meant as a joke as well. This isn’t a crowd responding to a child’s shouted “Jesus” like Pavlov’s dogs. This is a crowd enjoying a show.

Stop reading so much into this and enjoy it. Recognize that children have done and will do this same sort of imitation of adults as long as there are children in the world, and that the adults around them will continue to egg them on in the same way.

Cripes, people. It’s YouTube, not Frontline.
Jack Daniel

Monkey see, Monkey do.
alphagirl

Yeah, no brainwashing here, at least not with religious doctrine.

The little guy’s mimicry is uncanny though… it’s like a distillation of the form with the content removed reveals the real source of the crowd’s response. See also: Steve Martin’s theories on humor and the way a crowd will laugh at the right time based on your intonation, regardless of whether it’s funny.

Do you think the baby in the video was doing his performance out of conscious desire for the crowd response/attention?
kitcatcher

re: FreakCitySF: lil’ Hitler

That’s what immediately occurred to me as well: Hitler. It’s the tone of voice, the cadence and the pumping fist, innit?
Anonymous

the babies oratory style reminds me more of Hitler than a preacher.
Anonymous

Didnt understand a word but the body language was scary enough!
apoxia

Kids got the moves down, just needs to learn the words. I wonder if he’s been pegged as a chosen one and will now be raised to be a preacher. Probably had a good chance of that even before this little display.
Mazoola

As someone who evidently pulled this same stunt (albeit at a slightly older age, and in a slightly more sedate variant, imitating my mother teaching Biblical history at a Methodist [i.e., no hellfire-and-brimstone] church retreat), I can assure you the kid is not yet lost to the dark side.

Of course, 5 minutes after getting offstage, I was chased down and bitten by a pony, so who knows *what* message that might have sent.
Anonymous

Okay. Where’s the inevitable remix?
Dapremonster

@El_Cid

Heh. You said “Babylonia”.
Anonymous

I like the fact you can hear people in the audience saying “Jesus this..” and “Jesus that…” and “…say Jesus you little bastard!” trying to prompt the kid – but if he/she actually HAD then mimicked them and said “Jesus”, you’d have had pandemonium. The sencond coming for SURE!
Anonymous

What is the text on the center of the screen? Just curious.
Anonymous

They’re so cute when they’re young.
Anonymous

Is this some kinda baby-preacher CGI?
Ned613

TESTIFY!
extrafancy

“preach on brother, preach on”

amazing
Anonymous

animal charm did a mash up of this some time ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHTritOmII
dagfooyo

Reminds me of the Public Speaking episode of the office. If it worked for Dwight, it can sure work for a baby!
airshowfan

Maybe this baby will replace the Downfall clip as the video of choice for adding funny subtitles.
jackie31337

@22 Somebody please remix this with a Death Metal soundtrack….

Yes! I knew I wasn’t the only one hearing that baby shouting “hard rock!”
Avram / Moderator

And you can infer what daddy’s sermons are like from watching the kid’s mimicry.
Anonymous

Akpta! Akpta!
Ia Ia Shub Niggurat!!
ill lich

Halleluwahhhhhhhhhhhhh-waahhhhhhh!
hug h

Watch the documentary “Jesus Camp” and then consider the potential parallels between this American phenomenon and radical Islamic schools in Pakistan (and elsewhere) where young boys “study” and memorize the entire Koran before age 12. I work with intelligent, successful, decent people who vehemently deny the foundation of modern biology and vote single party or single issue in every election. This is most often attributable to childhood indoctrination in Christian fundamentalism. I’m not opposed to faith, nor do I deny the positive role that religion can and has played in the world at large and in individual lives- nonetheless fundamentalism of any kind is a scourge upon humanity.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”- VOLTAIRE
Anonymous

Whatever floats your boat man.

People go to church to be entertained as much as anything else. If speaking in tongues or handling snakes makes you feel good then fine. Give the baby a mic and let him babble incoherently for a while. Hallelujah!

Its certainly not any more self destructive than the things I do for kicks.

Just don’t push your lifestyle on me and we’ll get along fine.
Anonymous

Now THAT’S born again.
Anonymous

I don’t see anything cute here at all. My first impression was that the child seems to be mimicking Hitler, and it has never occurred to me how similar Hitler’s gestures were to those used by some of these preachers. I feel really sorry for this child.
Jay Acker

where are the mashups already!!!!

I fully expect to log back on here tomorrow and see no less than three mashups, or I will have lost a little faith in BB.

Come on people lets make this happen!
Takuan

I’m sure der Untergang is working on it.
Kyle Armbruster

I’d just like to chime in as a survivor of churches like this.

Those people are definitely into it. This kid is preaching in the language that Jesus gave him, like the apostles at Pentecost.

The fact that this is just a kid who is very good at mimicking (and is hilarious to boot) is totally lost on them. This kid will grow up being told he was preaching the Word before he could talk. Hopefully he’ll get out of that world eventually (it’s an awful place) and he’ll put that intensity to good use.

I learned everything I know about public speaking from those years of my life. You can use any power for good or evil (I definitely put preaching in the latter column).
Richard Metzger

@antinous #88 Major props for that line.

Is this kid the “new” Marjoe Gortner or the next Rich Little?

Or is the wee lad speaking in tongues?

We’ll have to wait a few years to ask him. By then it might be too late.

Cue Jerry Goldsmith theme music…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OkFLdPaoZQ
Anonymous

Sweet mother of christ, deliver us from evil.

Shall we be orderin’ an exorcism?

———————
Just shows how children are conditioned to parrot the behaviour of their parents.
Anonymous

root of all evil
dbarak

#10 posted by anjacara

Brian washing, as in Life of Brian? : )

#18 posted by nosehat

I have a feeling just the opposite would be the case. I think the adults wouldn’t see the infantile aspects of an adult preacher – I think they’d believe the child was actually preaching the word of god.
Lucifer

Advantage: me.
lilbacon3

I’m not seeing anything that comes off as odd to me. What the big deal? Just another guy on stage spittin BS with a bunch of brainwashed people with money cheering him on as he bends the scriptures how he pleases. So many are about the show. What’s the message? Can I getta WITNASSSSSS!!!!!
garrito

Halle-goo-goo!
overunger

Hey, this kid needs to front a death metal band! He’s got the demonic gutteral scream down!
ZippySpincycle

Waiting for someone to “expose” what he’s saying by running it backwards.

My money’s on “let me express.”
Stephen

Even IF you look at it as a kid imitating the adults around him and the audience playing along for fun; it’s not so cute that what the kid is pantomiming is guttural rage.
Anonymous

Is it just me or at :37 he says a word that sounds like Allah, just pointing it out.
dbarak

#43 posted by ZippySpincycle

I tried playing it backwards, and the kid is reciting the lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven.”
Antinous / Moderator

Leni Riefenstahl had really lost her gift for composition by this point.
Anonymous

I’ve been saved!
Anonymous

sweet baby jeebus
McLuhanesque

I was thinking, “Your business card is CRAP! It even holds a crease! My business cards cost me $4!…”
Anonymous

What I hear:

“Hot dog! Hot dog! Hot dog! HOT DOOG!”
Anonymous

And little Jimmy Swaggert went on to…
Cpt. Tim

babys gonna make mom and dad so proud when the words prop 8 and intelligent design come out of his mouth.
wizardofplum

That sounded more like a exorcism was the devil doomed?
enolagray

Can someone please point me to a how-to for adding captions to this, like in the Hitler Rant videos? This kiddie needs some subtitles! Evil subtitles.
Takuan

makes more sense than most preachers
Anonymous

NEIN, NEIN NEIN!!!