Dank Christian Memes

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About

Dank Christian Memes refer to a series of image macros and photoshopped parodies that infuse the teachings of Christianity, Jesus and The Bible into pre-existing templates of popular memes. Since emerging through the subreddit with the same name (/r/DankChristianMemes) in April 2015, the meme has gained much traction on Reddit, Facebook and elsewhere online, particularly among the enthusiasts of ironic memes.

Origin

On April 4th, 2015, Redditor davidd00 created the subreddit^[1] sarcastically claiming God had visited him and told him to make a contest devoted to posting 300×250 images with the intention of "convert(ing) more redditers to our dank cause." The rules of the subreddit are as follows:

1. Dank memes only
2. NO SATAN ADMIRATION
3. Thy postings shall be about god or made by christians or something
4. Thou shalt post whatever as long as its relevant
5. Honor thy father and mother
6. Thou shalt link directly to the meme, not to twitter or a blog.

On May 10th, 2015, he posted an invitation to join the subreddit to /r/subredditads.^[3] As of January 2nd, 2017, the subreddit has over 51,600 readers.^[2]

Spread

The top post of the subreddit is a tweet by @david8hughes^[4] imagining Jesus at the last supper asking why anyone would order wine, referencing the Bible story in which Jesus turns water in to wine (shown below). The post has gained 17,300 upvotes.

The majority of the posts on the subreddit integrate Christianity into other meme templates, including Meme Man, ^[5] Evil Kermit, ^[6] Bae Come Over, ^[7] and many more. On January 2nd, 2017, The Daily Dot^[8] covered the growth of the subreddit.

Epic Christian Memes

In May 2015, two pastors one of whom is named Josiah started the @epicchristianmemes^[10] Instagram account. The account has accumulated 310,000 followers in four years. On April 17th, The Outline^[9] published an interview with Josiah who is "the leader of a large congregation with 2,000 members." In the interview Josiah revealed that "his page isn’t meant as a form of outreach or proselytization; it’s more of a therapeutic process for him to work through some of the contradictions that devotees to most religions face." The memes featured on the Instagram page cover any and all aspects of the christian faith. For example, on April 15th they posted a picture^[11] of bread buns that look like abs with the caption, "when you're so single bread starts tempting you" (shown below, left). The post has garnered 12,900 likes in two days. On the same day they posted an object-label meme^[12] with a falling person labeled "tech team" and a dancing person labeled "worship leader adding a spontaneous bridge" (shown below, right). The post has gained over 30,801 likes in two days.