GodTube.com, a YouTube knockoff for the evangelical set, seems to be one step closer to building a kingdom on earth.
Last week the site, which shows Christian videos and features a flip-through Bible and prayer blogs, received a $30 million investment from GLG Partners, a big London hedge fund. The investment valued GodTube at nearly $150 million, according to PaidContent.org.
GodTube offers sermons, theological debates, Christian rap videos and low-budget skits like ”See man watching porn get caught by Jesus,” which plays out exactly as the title suggests. The investment will help sustain the on-screen Bible and a prayer wall where devout Web surfers can petition God to bless the afflicted or warm the heart of an intransigent girlfriend.
When it was introduced in August, GodTube became the fastest-growing Web site as rated by comScore.com, attracting 1.7 million unique visitors for the month. The traffic remains about the same today. ”People thirst for more than just a once-a-week relationship with the Lord and Savior,” said Jason Illian, GodTube’s chief strategy officer. ”They desire something that they can live out 24/7.”
Unlike its secular cousin, YouTube, all content must gain approval from the site’s headquarters in Plano, Texas. Vulgar or overtly sexual material is not allowed. Neither are videos promoting other religions – for that, there are JewTube.com and IslamicTube.net. (The domain name SatanTube.com is still for sale.)
Mocking Christianity is definitely not allowed. James O’Malley, a 20-year-old from Leicestershire, England, posted a series of videos last year that jeered at evangelical theology. During a videotaped walking tour of the London Natural History Museum, he referred to a Plesiosaur fossil as a ”liar-saur” and noted that volcanoes tended to erupt in non-Christian countries.
”The first couple of videos, where I spoke about biblical infallibility and homosexuality, remained on GodTube and were treated like any other video,” O’Malley said. ”It was only when I posted a third video suggesting that the earth was flat and that astronauts were part of the ’round earth’ conspiracy that they finally cottoned on to the fact it was a hoax, and I was banned.”
More in line with GodTube’s spirit is ”Baby Got Book,” a satire of the rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot’s ode to the full-sized derrière, ”Baby Got Back.” In it, Dan Smith, a 34-year-old minister at a church near Cleveland, simultaneously praises godly women and pokes fun at aspects of Christian culture. He dances around with a gold neck medallion reading KJV (”King James Version”) and tweaks Sir Mix-A-Lot’s lyrics so that ”butt” becomes ”Bible” and ”she looks like a total prostitute” turns into ”looks like Mother Teresa.”
The video has logged more views on GodTube than it has on YouTube. Smith said he appreciated the exposure, though he preferred promoting his music in venues where he could reach out to nonbelievers, like call-in radio shows. ”I just know there aren’t a lot of unchurched or de-churched people going to GodTube,” he said.
That self-selecting audience is part of the site’s marketing appeal. GodTube’s advertisers sell Bible software and degrees from online seminaries. Soon the site plans to provide Facebook-like pages for ministries and churches.
”What that does is sort of replicate the Mel Gibson ‘Passion of the Christ’ marketing plan,” said Mara Einstein, an associate professor at Queens College at the City University of New York and author of a recent book about the marketing of religion. ”If the pastors become the salespeople of it, I think this is going to explode, absolutely.”
