In the Bible, Jesus commands his followers to feed the hungry, shelter refugees, and comfort the afflicted. Whether they obey or disobey this command, he says, on judgment day they’ll be treated as if they had done the same to Jesus himself:

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’

Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.'”

—Matthew 25:31-46

Although the Bible contains many atrocities and evils, it also has some good, even beautiful passages. This verse, in this atheist’s opinion, is at the top of the list.

It’s praiseworthy because it teaches the bedrock value of empathy. It says that the measure of a Christian’s character isn’t how often they go to church, how many gospel tracts they hand out, or how many Ten Commandments plaques they cram into classrooms and courthouses – but how they treat the poor, oppressed and downtrodden. It tells them to focus on those society looks down on.

This is a beautiful message, and if more churches followed it, the world would be a better place. That being said, it’s fair to ask: do Christians follow it? Or is it just one of the many parts of the Bible they ignore?

One person conducted a brilliant experiment to find out.

On TikTok, Nikalie Monroe had a simple yet ingenious test. She called churches and religious institutions across the country – some small and humble, some large and wealthy – and posed as a mother in need of help.

She said she was out of food and money and her two-month-old baby had had nothing to eat since last night. (For verisimilitude, she played the sound of a crying infant in the background.) She asked the church if they’d donate a can of baby formula. If the person who answered the phone suggested a local food bank, she said that she’d already called that place and they couldn’t help.

The test was whether the church would help, as Jesus told them to, or whether they’d make up excuses or deflect the responsibility onto someone else.

Can you guess what happened?

According to Nikalie’s report, she called 42 churches and other religious institutions. Of those, 33 – a huge majority – either gave her the runaround or said no.

In this category, there were many huge, wealthy churches that unquestionably could have helped: for example, Dream City Church, a Pentecostal megachurch in Phoenix which Charlie Kirk attended.

Joel Osteen’s massive Lakewood Church in Houston told Nikalie she could put in an application to their “benevolence ministry”, but said it might take weeks for them to approve her request – as if that’s helpful for a baby who’s starving now. (This is the same church that refused to house flood refugees during Hurricane Harvey.)

At the 13,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, the person who answered the phone said, “I’m not aware of any programs that we have to help you.” Nikalie asked if the church was pro-life, and they hung up on her.

Germantown Baptist Church in Memphis said, “Our benevolence is for our members” and turned her away. Note, it wouldn’t even be good enough for her to be Christian – she’d have to be a member of that specific church for them to consider helping!

(As a side note: I listened to a lot of Nikalie’s videos to write this post. The sound of a screaming baby is viscerally disturbing. It was taking a psychological toll on me, and I knew there was no actual baby! Imagine the hard-heartedness of people who listened to it in the belief that it was real and still did nothing.)

This is just what an atheist would have predicted. We’ve always said that the churches’ pretensions of morality are empty shams. They claim to be the source of all goodness, but in reality, most are self-perpetuating clubhouses of privilege. The only thing they care about is accumulating as much wealth and power as they can get their greedy hands on.

To be sure, not every church flunked Nikalie’s experiment. Although most turned her away, a few said yes. Most of these were either smaller, poorer churches, or non-Christian religious minorities.

For example, when she called a tiny church in rural Kentucky, the pastor, who’s a great-grandfather, immediately offered to go out and buy it himself. (After her experiment was publicized, this video went viral and over $100,000 in donations poured in to that church.)

A mosque in North Carolina said yes the instant she asked.

A Buddhist temple suggested several ideas for her to try, and when she said none of those had panned out, the woman who answered the phone offered her money.

What’s striking is that some churches that failed the test – and were called out on social media for it – didn’t react with shame or contrition. Instead, they attacked Nikalie personally. It’s as though they thought, if they could find some reason to condemn her, it would invalidate her experiment.

For example, the pastor of Germantown Baptist gave a sermon where he huffed that his church was targeted by “radical woke unbelieving trolls” who engaged in “an unrighteous fake attempt to set a trap for us“.

He didn’t show the slightest remorse. He didn’t concede that, even if this was a trap, the way the church responded says something about them. He couldn’t even be bothered to say that they’d learned a lesson or that they’d reevaluate their members-only policy.

It gets worse. Raymond Johnson, pastor of Baton Rouge’s Living Faith Christian Church, arrogantly sneered, “I don’t apologize to the devil.” He said Nikalie had “the spirit of a witch” and, most shockingly, “my Bible say[s]… do not allow that thing to live”. (Is this a death threat wrapped in scripture?)

And Steven L. Anderson, the grotesquely misogynist pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona, snarled and raged about “‘single mother’ whores” (Nikalie never claimed to be a single mother in her experiment). He said – where other people could see it, under his own name – “Churches should not be funding fornicators and their bastards.” (Remember, brethren, Jesus threw the first stone at a prostitute!)

What deepens the sting is that most of these churches are conservative institutions who believe that government safety nets should be dismantled because it’s the church, not the state, that’s supposed to be helping the needy. But when presented with a perfect opportunity to do just that, they failed miserably. They put the lie to their own faith and their own politics.

These churches are naked in their hypocrisy. But rather than treating this as an opportunity for self-reflection, they lashed out in anger at the person who exposed them.

Again, while this was the more common response, there were good people in every religion who were willing to help a fellow human in need. The beauty of Nikalie’s test is that it’s a clear, unambiguous way to tell which is which. It’s like a litmus strip that changes color the moment you walk through the door. More than anything else, that’s what most churches fear: an inescapable test of their actions, not just their words.