A Prophet in Babylon: Joel Berry on Truth, War, Faith, and the Jews He Will Not Abandon

Joel Berry is an extraordinary person. You could say he’s a kind of a saint, someone who stood up to defend the people of Israel, paying prices that many Jews themselves might not be willing to pay. 

He’s funny, devout, thoughtful, and earnest. The Editor of the Babylon Bee, agreed to give an exclusive interview to Jfeed, and it was truly an honor to speak with him about humor, his faith, the political climate in America, his connection to the people of Israel and the Scriptures, and what he believes can bring hope and salvation to the world, to the children of Israel, his fellow Christians, and to America.

"I grew up in the church. My parents instilled the Scriptures in us, and as for the Five Books of Moses, it's all part of it. You read about the people of Israel and realize, it’s completely real. They don’t glorify themselves. You see both their highs and their lows. God, He extends them mercy, and never gives up on them. And you think, this is me. This is all of us."

Berry sees the struggle of the Jewish people as his own - a reflection of the inner battles he faced with his identity as a Christian,

"The Jewish people teach us about our own struggle with God, and He keeps showing us His faithfulness and goodness, again and again and again."

"Some Catholic friends came to visit, big family, lots of kids. They want to show the world they’re different. And they had this bumper sticker on their car: ‘We know we have a lot of kids, but we’re not like all those families with lots of kids. We’re cool.’”

"That wasn’t foreign to me. There was a time I was a bit ashamed of my Christianity. I grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist environment. Only the King James Bible was allowed. No music. No TV. No movies. We were all homeschooled. At 19, I started questioning everything. I decided I had to get out. I joined the military without telling my parents. They were worried."

"The Marines were the best. It was the toughest, and I wanted to say, I’m doing the best."

Not your typical introduction to secular America...

"Exactly, I became the guy who didn’t drink, didn’t curse. Always the designated driver. And in 2006, I was deployed to Iraq. I was in Fallujah... and that year, I was pulled out of the bubble, no more church services on Sundays and Wednesdays. No Christians in Iraq. Just a small Bible, and I started reading. I read the Gospels. It was during my quiet time, alone with my thoughts. And a couple things happened to me.

2. God’s presence was with me. I can’t explain how I knew it, there’s no logic to it. I just felt His presence, His protection, over my body and mind. He spared me from so many things and helped me return home whole. I believe He had a plan for me"

"In the military, I saw the world and realized it’s all real. God is real. The Bible is real. And I was able to separate that truth from the strange elements of how I was raised, and hold on to the basic truth. Leaving my environment was actually my salvation experience. My theology didn’t change. I kept much of the theology I grew up with, but I let go of the rigid structure. Church is important. Study is important. But my path is between me and God. It’s my responsibility to obey."

Christianity, Judaism, and Interfaith Dialogue in the Modern Age

Today, with everything happening on the American right, it seems there's a need to remember the theological importance of Calvin which enabled the rise of a meaningful Jewish-Christian Dialogue

"In Calvin, the enemy is yourself. It’s not an external enemy. The battle is inside you. You’re cursed by sin. You’re saved by Gospel, but you still struggle with your nature. Life is a constant struggle to become more like the Son of God. And the evidence that you are a Christian, is in your fruits. This is my problem with the Catholics, and I had an argument with Sohrab Ahmari on exactly this point. He says that if you go to Mass and receive the sacraments, you are saved. You’re in. That means Joe Biden is in. But for us, Scripture says to beware of false prophets. It says you will know them by their fruits. So I look at the fruits, not the sacraments."

There’s a rise in authoritarian rhetoric, calls to make America a Christian monarchy.

"It’s confusion and chaos. People crave structure. They long for authority. Someone to make them want the good. In Dostoevsky, there’s this Catholic inquisitor who gets a visit from Jesus. He tries to justify himself to Jesus. He tells Him, "you left the job unfinished. You did what you did, but left a world of chaos and free will. You let people choose. We had to build the structure. Clean up your mess".

Jesus stays silent. The inquisitor keeps trying to justify himself.

"That’s why we burn people", he says. "We have to. Don’t you get it? If we don’t do it, there will be chaos".

Jesus says nothing. At the end, He kisses him and walks away without a word. The answer to all of this is love.

And that ties directly into the debate happening in America today?

"We live in a country that is wildly free and prosperous I saw it when I came back from Iraq I looked at this civilization we have and tried to understand how it all works. And I came to the conclusion that our freedoms aren’t even possible without a deep foundation of spiritually grounded Christians who are self-governing and morally serious".

"But then others ask "is that really enough?. Is sincere Christian faith really sufficient?"

So the question becomes church or government?

"To me that’s hubris. What makes you think you’re so special that when you get power you won’t use it like everyone else in history has?.

"Are you going to be the first who doesn’t persecute those who don’t worship like you do?.

Then the deeper question arises. Is there a spiritual justification for separating church and state Or is it just something that came out of historical circumstances like they claim?

"The Gospel is pretty clear. The kingdom is not of this world. The Jews were angry about that. They wanted a conquering king who would restore their glory. They wanted someone like King David to drive out the occupiers and make Israel great again."

"But what happened in the New Testament? Jesus made it clear the kingdom was spiritual. He told the Samaritan woman the time would come when people would worship not in a specific building but in spirit and in truth. It’s a spiritual place more communal and more personal.

"What drives me crazy are the people who say America is not an idea. That we’re just people and blood and soil. Heritage and family. And I say, "No America shares a DNA with Protestant Christianity and Judaism".

"We’re not just blood and soil. We’re people of the Word, of the Logos, and the covenant.

"Truth is our North Star And we’ll find it no matter where we go.

"C S Lewis in 'The Abolition of Man' talks about the idea of natural law. That truth is embedded in reality. And even if you’re not a Christian anyone with honesty and reason can recognize it. And when you have that humility you realize, truth doesn’t come from a land or an institution. Truth belongs to God And anyone who seeks it can find Him. It’s written in Isaiah 56.

We’re seeing an almost unprecedented wave of antisemitism on the American right. It’s deeply disturbing. It feels like a kind of American Inquisition.

"When people started reading the Scriptures, even just the book of Romans, Paul tells the Gentiles, you’ve been grafted in. God was generous enough to include you. So don’t look down arrogantly on others. Because He can cut you off too.

"That’s something we used to sing about in Sunday school. “Father Abraham, had many sons” I’m one of them, and so are you". We saw ourselves as children of Abraham. People who don’t understand or live the Gospel will twist it.

But they say they’re quoting Scripture.

"So did the devil.

"Anyone who searches the Bible just to justify hatred or push an agenda isn’t using it the way it’s meant to be used."

You got a lot of criticism for saying that Catholics in Gaza support Hamas.

"People tried to turn Gaza into their George Floyd moment. They tried to build that narrative. I short-circuited it."

How do you explain this sudden rise in antisemitism on the right, especially since we used to associate antisemitism more with the left?

"I’m a simple guy. I always found it interesting how Jews have these deep theories and detailed explanations for things. It’s fascinating. But from my perspective, the Jewish people are God’s chosen, chosen by grace, not because they earned it, but because God is merciful and loving."

"Through them, we received the law, the foundation of Western civilization, and through them came our Messiah.And ever since then, Satan has hated them. He’s been trying to destroy them.

"To me, it just makes sense. If Satan is real, and I believe he is, and if spiritual forces are real, and they are, then the hatred of God and His chosen people makes perfect sense.

"Both Jews and true Christians are persecuted. That’s what helps me make sense of it. It’s not political, it’s spiritual. Spiritual light against spiritual darkness. And that darkness infects people.

Why now? Why is antisemitism rising at this moment in time?

"It’s the canary in the coal mine as Peterson says.

"To me, it signals the loss of faith, especially Protestant faith.

"Historically, a lot of the persecution of Jews and Christians came from Catholics. And here in America, we’ve been blessed, because this country was founded on strong, deep-rooted faith.

"The people who came over on the Mayflower came because they wanted to dedicate their lives to holiness. They wanted their children to be holy. That’s who built this nation.

"Now that’s being lost. And when people lose God, they go back to default mode. They get angry at His people. It’s like being angry at God, so they take it out on the Jews."

The Bee

And then there's the role of satire, which has become central to your work at the Babylon Bee.

"We started The Babylon Bee in the spring of 2016, and I joined a few years later, in 2019.

"It began as kind of inside humor for evangelicals. Christians need to be able to laugh at themselves. Chesterton said that the test of a good religion is whether you can joke about it.

"In the beginning, we got a lot of people following us because we were laughing from a place of affection. I was a huge fan of the Bee. I remember thinking, “Who are these people who get me and the world I live in and can still laugh?”

"It felt completely new.

"Then in November 2016, Trump got elected, and suddenly the divide began. People didn’t know if it was okay to support him or not. That’s when we really started to take off.

"During his first term, he gave us so much material. He was hilarious. The best part was, you could joke about him and about everyone else at the same time. You didn’t have to try that hard - it was gold.

"Meanwhile so many other comedians lost their sense of humor. They started seeing themselves as too important. They wanted to use their platforms to “defend democracy” or whatever. And the moment they did that, they stopped being funny. They turned into political commentators.

"That left an open space. We could fill it, with good-natured humor. We could laugh, and let others laugh too.

How did your own community respond to that?

"I’d go on Christian radio and TV stations, and people would ask me, “How can you do this as a Christian? Is it okay for Christians to be sarcastic or funny?”

"And I’d respond, “Why are we here if we can’t laugh?”

"If the Bible is true, it can handle a little humor. We’re secure in our faith, and we’re okay with it. It’s completely fine.

"To me, the essence of humor is a guy in a million-dollar suit slipping on a banana peel. It’s about sharing in the human condition, in the fact that none of us is perfect, and we all think more of ourselves than we probably should.

"People need to be reminded of that - not to take themselves too seriously."

"Excellent. Here's the next part, covering Elon Musk, backlash from the far right, and the controversies over satire related to Catholics and Israel:

Elon Musk has shared your work quite a bit. But now we’re suddenly seeing a wave of criticism coming from far-right circles.

"A few things happened. We’re all Calvinists, we grew up that way. We gained popularity thanks to Trump, COVID, and BLM. People were looking for a place to exhale. We gave them that.

"We also had a huge Catholic audience. And we started making a few jokes about Catholics.

"One that went viral last year was about the Virgin Birth.

"We joked that Joseph shows up on the wedding night and says, “You’re going to be What?!”

"It was lighthearted. But it caused a firestorm. People lost it.

"Seth Dillon got canceled from speaking engagements that were meant to be pro-life events. Just for that.

"We also made a joke about saints being shocked that people were praying to them.

"We weren’t attacking Catholic doctrine. We were laughing at ourselves and everyone else too.

Then the backlash came from people who were upset that you were pro-Israel.

"Yeah. That started with anti-Zionist who were mad that we supported Israel.

"Then Nick Fuentes launched “Jesus is King”, which was basically a campaign to purge Jews from the right. It was a political strategy to make the right fully Christian and exclude non-Christians.

"And then it became about using phrases like “dirty Jew”, and to me, as a Christian, that’s full-on heresy. To use language like that in a political context is a complete betrayal of the third commandment.

"Seth and I started speaking out against it. And from that moment, people began to suspect us. Are they even real Christians? Then it came out that Seth has Jewish roots. And the far-right Groypers, the same ones who had followed us and thought we were on their side, started calling us “Talmudic Bee” or “Zionist Bee.” That’s how it all began.

"Suddenly, all these people who used to laugh at our church jokes, flipped. They decided the Babylon Bee was secretly a Jewish operation trying to undermine Christianity".

The Bible as our destiny and future, Salvation and Humor

"I always saw the struggles of the Hebrews as the struggles of humanity. It’s not just the Jews who reject the prophets. It’s everyone. And still, God acts with grace.

"Antisemites love to talk about how the Jews said “His blood be on us and our children” during the crucifixion. I find that ironic. Because from my perspective, being covered by His blood is actually the best thing that can happen to you. It’s not a curse. It’s a blessing. Because that is the blood we believe brings salvation.

"I think it’s beautiful that God chose, in His grace, to work with a specific people. The failures, the sins, they’re part of how He fulfills His purpose. We, are the ones who were grafted in. Thank God. That takes humility. I don’t get how someone can be so prideful. You were adopted into the family. Why would you ever look down on your family?

"In Catholicism, there’s a strong focus on the death of Jesus. For us, the focus is more on the resurrection. For Catholics, it’s the crucifix. For us, the cross is empty. In their Eucharist, they re-sacrifice Christ. They believe they are participating in His ongoing suffering. For us, the crucifixion is a victory for he has risen. It’s part of God’s plan, and the Jewish people, as God’s agents, played a role in that plan for the good of humanity."

"Ben Shapiro once asked me, ‘How do you guys at the Bee manage to stay so joyful and upbeat, even with all the awful news in the world?’

""I told him, the reason we laugh and keep going is because our King is on the throne, and He’s already won. So why would we live in fear? If He could redeem the greatest crime in history, the crucifixion, and turn it into salvation, then what are we worried about?

"God is in control. He is working. And His Word promises that He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him.

But they believe the Jews have been replaced.

"They need to understand the Scriptures. For centuries, people weren’t even allowed to read the Scriptures for themselves. The only thing that will protect us from antisemitism is to return to the Word. It’s easy to believe you’re always right when all you listen to is yourself."

"But real faith means walking in the Word, not just building echo chambers of self-righteousness."