What we are.
The Holy Post exists to help people think Christianly and live faithfully—and to have fun doing it! We are a theologically orthodox, pro-neighbor, entertaining, multimedia Christian idea company. Let’s break each of those parts down.
Theologically Orthodox. This looks great in a list, but just like you, we are aware that there is not universal agreement on what it means to be theologically orthodox. The Christian faith has many diverse and divergent expressions. However, there are historic creeds and doctrines that are widely affirmed, and we think one of the better modern articulations of orthodoxy is the Lausanne Covenant. While broadly ecumenical and affirmed by Christians throughout the world, even the Lausanne Covenant cannot capture all that God has revealed of himself through Christ. Therefore, it is deeply valuable to examine theologies and traditions that have been passed down uncritically, and we will continue to do so. But we remain squarely committed to a common, and widely-affirmed, understanding of theologically orthodox.
Pro-Neighbor. We believe that Christians can flourish in a pluralistic society. More importantly, we believe Jesus’ command to love our neighbors means Christians should advocate for a pluralistic society where everyone enjoys the same rights and freedoms—not just Christians. Despite the culture war rhetoric we hear so often today, we can be for the wellbeing of our neighbors who practice other faiths, affirm other values, or support other politics. In short we are against fear, we oppose Christian Nationalism, and we value diversity.
Entertaining. We produce content people want to engage with, not what they want to want to engage. Most of us buy books that we wish we wanted to read, and we subscribe to podcasts we know would benefit us but we never listen to. Just as Phil Vischer made vegetables appealing to kids 30 years ago, The Holy Post is now making theology, history, politics, and social commentary entertaining for a new generation of Christians. A prominent Christian leader recently told us that they love what we do because we “are reaching the average Christian.” We believe that is because we are committed to being intelligent and having fun while we do it!
Multimedia. Most people probably know us as a podcast and that will continue to be our flagship, but we are growing our capacity to release more videos, articles, digital and material resources, and even live events on a regular basis. We want to be able to match our diverse content with the platform that best communicates our ideas and most effectively serves our audience.
The path we are on.
There are plenty of ditches to avoid as we set out down this path together, and that requires us to navigate a number of tensions with grace. These include:
Pluralist but Principled
Followers of Christ are not called to dominate the culture (Christian Nationalism) nor are we to acquiesce to popular trends. We want to affirm the diversity of our society while discerning the truth of God.
Orthodox but Hospitable
We are committed to the historic faith and theological orthodoxy, while remaining welcoming to those outside the faith. This means engaging non-Christians with humility, intellectual curiosity, and from a posture of genuine friendship.
Intelligent but Accessible
We value the contribution of deep scholarship, and often feature academics and experts in our content. But we seek to make this content accessible to everyone.
Timely but Not Hot Takes
Engaging with current events and cultural trends is important, but we want to provide thoughtful, nuanced analysis rather than soundbites and cliches. In a world of social media hot takes, we want to be an oasis for deeper reflection.
We believe our role is to be courageously prophetic while also providing a positive vision of life with God in our increasingly post-Christian culture. In this time of massive upheaval, that is a calling that many legacy Christian institutions deem too risky, but The Holy Post is uniquely positioned to engage voices and topics that other institutions are afraid to address.
Many years ago, we heard a pastor say, “We have to be careful that the preservation of the institution doesn’t take precedence over its original mission.” We’ve been haunted by that statement ever since. No institution is immune to mission-drift, but we are trying to make decisions at The Holy Post to minimize this possibility. We recognize three temptations that could lead us astray:
Catering to Large Donors: We have chosen to be a for-profit media company rather than a non-profit ministry in part because we believe generating revenue from dog food ads and individual subscribers allows us to be more independent. Our leadership team has extensive, positive experience within non-profit ministries, but we have also seen how dependency upon large donors can have a chilling effect upon an organization’s prophetic courage. We also recognize that non-profits can spend their best time and energy raising money to do their work rather than actually doing their work. As one friend advised us, “Some things can only be accomplished by non-profits, but if you can accomplish your mission as a for-profit you should do that.”
Relentless Audience Growth: For any media company to be entirely funded by advertising revenue alone requires a very, very large audience. After studying companies that have pursued this model, we’ve concluded that aggregating a large enough audience would require The Holy Post to rely on hot-takes, outrage, and capitulating to the divisive consumer desires that we so often critique. We do not want to be another cog in the Evangelical Industrial Complex that is simply telling religious consumers what they want to hear.
Unsustainable Content Quality. We are committed to creating smart, orthodox, and entertaining content. Many outlets are capable of doing this, but few can do it consistently and sustainably over time. This is because the internet has conditioned many to believe all content should be free. In reality, revenue is necessary for smart, thoughtful people to invest their time and gifts into creating excellent content. In order for The Holy Post to pursue a completely free content model would either require an unhealthy dependency upon donors (see above), or significantly diminishing the quality of what we produce.
The hybrid approach.
Avoiding all three of these ditches has led us to pursue a hybrid business model for The Holy Post that mixed both free and paid content with revenue generated by both advertising and subscriptions. The flagship podcast, website articles, the newsletter, and other popular offerings, will continue to be accessible to everyone for free. Advertising helps cover our production costs for these products. In order to create our most thoughtful content, which is less likely to find a large audience appealing to advertisers, we are employing a subscription component called “Holy Post Plus.” We think of The Holy Post as a welcoming home with many rooms. Our flagship podcast is the foyer where people first enter. Holy Post Plus is an invitation to explore the rest of the house.
We’ve landed on this hybrid approach after studying many other new media companies. Stephen Hayes, one of the co-founders of The Dispatch—a media outlet we admire—said, “I don’t want to sound hokey, but we’re just really encouraged that when you do good work, and when you’re not playing into polarization, it actually drives new signups. We’re making money on really good journalism, and that’s sort of why you get into this game,” We feel the same. We are setting out to produce high quality content that paints a positive vision of life with God in a post-Christian culture, and we trust that enough people are willing to pay a few dollars a month for that content to sustain and expand The Holy Post.
This is the path we are on, but only time will reveal exactly where it leads. There’s no doubt that adjustments will be necessary and unexpected turns await us, but we believe we have a plan that is consistent with our mission, sustainable, and designed to serve the needs of our current and future audience.
We are grateful for those who’ve been walking with The Holy Post for the past 12 years, and we’re excited about what lies ahead.