The 29-year-old influencer Daniela-Marlin Jakobi has been active on the Internet as a blogger and content creator for many years. With a video that she recently created for the Evangelical Regional Church in Baden (EKIBA), she caused an unusually large number of reactions. Opinions on the content vary widely.
Jakobi satirizes in her 45 second long Video a Christian who has recently started attending a free church. It is titled “POV: Your girlfriend now goes to a fundamentalist free church.” Jesus changed her, Jakobi says in an artificial voice. “The books I threw away are satanic and are not good for me.” Next: “Why I broke up with my boyfriend? Oh, you know: My future husband should be someone who is worthy of my submission.” In addition, yoga offers “evil influences,” “but the Free Church has really great weekend offers.” The video ends with a reference to a “shift to the right in Germany”: “Oh, dear, this country has become so godless!”
In an explanatory text about the video, Jakobi writes: “Christian fundamentalism is a form of religious extremism.” Many fundamentalist (free) churches prided themselves on being particularly “biblical” and claim absoluteness in their way of interpreting the Bible. The Bible is being misused for the fundamentalist agenda. “Once you get caught up in the pull of fundamentalism and your worldview is determined by it, it is very difficult to get out again.”
Blogger explains spiritual abuse
Jakobi has been writing in her blog “The Fabulous Diary” since 2010 and has been uploading videos to Instagram since 2016. She is now self-employed as an influencer and content creator. The Christian writes, among other things, that she used to be part of a free church and experienced spiritual abuse there in 2022, which led to “many years of depression”. She describes herself as a “cult dropout from a fundamentalist free church”. Since June 2023, Jakobi has been part of the “yeet” network, which supports Christian creators who bring their faith into conversation via social media.
The video about clichés of a fundamentalist Christian, which was now produced together with the Baden regional church, received more than 800 likes, and there have been heated comments and discussions in the comment field since it was published. One viewer wrote that she was inciting people to “fight back” with the sarcasm in the video; A spectator accused the Baden Regional Church of engaging in “free church bashing”. “The video leads to prejudice rather than enlightenment,” wrote one viewer. Someone else wrote that Jesus had actually changed her and she was grateful for that. “It would be crazy if faith didn’t change us.” One user accused Jakobi of having fallen away from the faith.
There was also praise, including from people who identify with a free church. Some were reminded of their own spiritual abuse. Many comments are also about yoga.
Jakobi said in an interview with evangelisch.de that she had not expected such a wave of indignation over the video. “I never thought people would be so upset.” She didn’t mean to hurt anyone with the video. However, Jakobi emphasizes: “Nevertheless, the article touched a nerve – and that is good.” Jakobi warns that anti-feminist and patriarchal mechanisms are legitimized by the “love of Jesus”. She noticed that some commentators used exactly these methods.
The head of the EKIBA’s communication and fundraising department, André Kendel, said that the video had triggered very ambivalent reactions: “There was a lot of approval and sympathy – but also a lot of headwind.” Kendel continued: “The differentiation between free churches and fundamentalist movements was not clearly recognizable to everyone.” The department head is also critical of the tone of the reel: “Irony is a stylistic device that does not help to dismantle a culture of outrage.” He emphasizes that it is instead important for churches to speak with a Christian voice .
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