Sam Smith’s marketing plan for their and Kim Petras’ hit “Unholy” appears to be well-balanced in standing up for queer people in the arts and tapping into the self-righteous heart of the church. But, of course, we all know that is a volatile mix and will only increase the visibility and number of streams exponentially further than without it. So today, I want to share some dynamics within the religious right I have seen, but they probably don’t.

Blindspot #1 - Self-Righteous Response

And I say the “self-righteous” heart of the church because they are going against Christ’s teachings of loving and serving others and hating on, or even taunting, the singers instead (example: Mark Driscoll). They are not approaching the situation's heart as he would. Jesus always looked for the good in the person before him and met them where they were, not distracted by what they had done.

Their self-righteous actions are not the righteousness of God as some seem to think. That’s one blind spot.

Blindspot #2 - Selective Focus On Punishment of Sin

The song calls out a man committing adultery against his wife and abandoning his kids for adulterous trysts. The man is not portrayed in a positive light, yet the styling of the video was very sensual and featured a LOT of queer people and entertainers.

This song exposes (to me, at least) religious hypocrisy about sex. Myriads of Christians across the internet and the web are solely focused on Sam’s intentional design elements to depict the scene unholy and get mad at him for it. First, they obsess over Sam’s non-binary status, Kim being trans, and some of the performers on stage and in the grammy video being trans and drag queens. Then they ridicule (verbally punish) Sam and Kim.

Selective focus on and punishment of sin: This would be blind spot number two, not their job.

Blindspot #3 - Hubris

Some Christian responses even take the music and cadence of the song (intellectual property theft) and rewrite the lyrics to something like:

Satan don’t know God is on the job

Gathering up the squad

Doing something so holy…

… and so on. So they make it about them being hip, clever, and gaining notoriety online.

They believe “Unholy” glorifies sin, inspired by Satan, and must be reframed in the Christian worldview of sin and hell. Specifically Sam and their crew’s alleged sins and how they are puppets of hell, promoting hell and going to hell.

Again, Christ never said to mock your enemy and steal their intellectual property—blind spot number three.

Blindspot #4 - Missing The Point Entirely

Notice that they are not addressing the song's topic, adultery, … at all? At least all the responses I have seen have not. Instead, all that I have seen is contextualized by taunts and complaints (emphasis mine):

Mummy don't know daddy's getting hot
At the body shop, doing something unholy
He's sat back while she's dropping it, she be popping it
Yeah, she put it down slowly
Oh-ee-oh-ee-oh, he left his kids at
Ho-ee-oh-ee-ome, so he can get that
Mummy don't know daddy's getting hot
At the body shop, doing something unholy (woo)

This is where a Christian response to a public message would be appropriate. Maybe talk about their view of sex and marriage (not that I would agree), but there is nothing wrong with looking at the heart of a clear message and responding. That would be a worthy response. Self-righteous selective focus to infotain the angry by mocking and missing the point entirely is an unworthy response.

So there’s that! Lol. Thanks for reading, and have a good day.