11mo ago

An app called Bless Every Home, which has been backed by some of the biggest names in evangelical circles, is mapping the names and addresses of immigrants and non-Christians.

newrepublic.com How Evangelicals Use Digital Surveillance to Target the Unconverted

The hot new thing in proselytizing is an app that allows Christian conservatives to collect data on whole neighborhoods of potential converts.

Atheism @lemmy.world

Admiral Patrick @dubvee.org

11mo ago

Evangelical app 'Bless Every Home' is mapping personal information of immigrants and non-Christians in a bid to conduct door-to-door religious conversions and “prayerwalking” rituals targeting them.

newrepublic.com /article/179397/evangelical-app-targeting-immigrants-surveillance

79 8

222 comments

Also doubles as a kill list for when they decide it's time.
- I’m pretty sure they just decided.
- Welcome to the primary purpose
- This is exactly what the nazis did when they invaded multiple countries. Found the registries of Jews and you know the rest.
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Utterly absurd levels of paranoia on display in this comment.
  
  Welcome back! I'm sure you have a lot to catch up on after being in a coma or whatever. Number 1, an angry mob tried to kill the vice president and 12 million people think they were right to do it and it's a shame they didn't succeed.
  
  You clearly don't know the Christian Nationalists I know. Let me ask you something, only for true believers. If you really truly believed in your heart that God was calling you to kill in his name, would you do it?
  
  Boy, I wish. Speaking as someone who knows these people, no. This is exactly what they want to do.
  
  You're one of the lucky 10000 today. Read up on Jewish registrations in the Netherlands.
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
  
  🤡

Jesus Christ!
My old post: Christians think gay people are trying to convert people to being gay because Christians try to convert people to being Christian.
- There was a Masto post recently where someone's conservative mother told her that she knows being gay is a choice, because she feel attraction to girls, but she chooses not to act on it, and that's the responsible Christian thing to do or w/e.
  It legit made me all of a sudden realize why there's so much overlap between "we have to punish the gays and make it illegal" and "I secretly go to male prostitutes all the time" in Republican circles. It just all of a sudden harmonized and clicked into place and made perfect sense.
  
  Many that think being gay is a choice, are in fact bisexual themselves. So for them it's a choice on whether or not to act on it. And they project that everyone else is the same.
- It's projection every time with conservatives. They hate you because they think you're as shitty as they are.
- Top tear post.
  
  Made me cry too

As a Christian: this is absolutely despicable. Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, and a huge part of loving someone is to respect their boundaries.
So screw this app and the people that built it. If you want to invite your neighbors to learn about Jesus:
Set a good example
Get to know them
Invite only when it's relevant (i.e. to a kid's baptism or whatever)
If they want to learn about Jesus, they'll ask.
- As an atheist, I wish there were more Christians like you.
  
  There are millions of them. You wouldn't know it though, because they don't announce themselves.
  
  If I were the devil and this world was mine to see Well, I'd witness all the atrocities and it'd probably frighten me So I'd run back home with a story to tell I'd tell all my demon friends that I always preferred Hell — Colby Acuff
  One of the existential terrors of deconstruction is realizing the human species is plenty capable of evil and atrocity, that no demons are needed
  Then when we've seen the absolute worst humans could imagine, Sir David Attenborough comes along holding Nature's beer.
  
  Good Christians leave because they realize who are in power and what corrupt shit have been going on
  
  As an atheist, I wish there were less Christians and more demons
  
  Honestly people US would move naturally to Christianity if the church as a welcoming nonjudgmental place.
  People don't need to be Evangelicalized. I think there are some lessons the all White Churches could learn from the historically black Church.
- As an ex-christian, the most un-christlike behavior is often espoused by Christians.
  
  As the saying goes: one bad apple spoils the barrel.
  I think most Christians are fine, at least the Christians who understand and try to follow Christ's teachings, it's just the few "Christian influencers" or whatever that are a pox on society. I try to distance myself from them as much as possible, and encourage the rest to be better examples.
- Thank you. I thought I was alone in the world, haha!
- At the very least they should target people who consider themselves Christian but have stopped going to Church for one reason or another.
  Although to be fair many of the more "dedicated" Churches function more like a cult
  
  I don't think they should "target" anyone. The entire basis for this app is creepy at best, and it shouldn't exist in this form. If people want a way to discuss things, they should instead share anonymous experiences.
  But yeah, there are a lot of weird, culty "churches" out there, where I suspect the leadership is knowingly manipulating their congregations. But there ale also a lot of accusations of culty behavior that really aren't applicable, so it's a mixed bag. At the end of the day, I think most people are decent, regardless of religion, it's just the really vocal minority (the brainwashed minority, as well as those who left) that make the most noise.

That is absolutely terrifying.
If I made a least of where all the Christians live, they’d rightfully freak the fuck out.
- they've done it for you by accident

It would be a real shame if people started leaving reviews on the play store with their concerns. Real shame i tell you, its sitting at a 4.7 rating with all but 1 five star, and they gave it a four star.
Anyways for any god loving Christian who just wants to download their app to pray for their neighbors, ive taken the ten seconds needed to visit their site and grabbed their app links.
Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blesseveryhome.bealight
Apple https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bless-every-home/id1541313484
- While I'd love to add my opinion to the Play Store reviews, there's no way in Hell I'm installing some kind of Christofascist malware on any device that I control.
  
  Virtual machine and a burner gmail account lol
  
  Install waydroid, install the app, give it a bad rating, uninstall
  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Downloaded, used an empty home for the address, selected The Satanic Temple as my church, deleted the app, and gave it one star. Took 5 minutes.
  
  I don't have play store on my phone anymore 😭
- This definitely shouldn't be the top comment. Don't cross-post it to other communities who prefer that christofascists don't harass and dox immigrants and any non-christians they hate (see: most genders).
  Noooooo sir.
  
  And definitely don't report it as "Hateful or abusive" content or anything, it's not like Google or Apple is using automated algorithms to auto disable apps for a period of time after certain thresholds of reports are hit or anything like that
- Join an ever-growing community of Christ followers who are devoted to being a Light in neighborhoods through praying for, caring for, sharing the gospel with, and discipling homes.
  Holy shit
  
  Oh wait it says discipling not disciplining. Not quite as holy shit worthy.
- I'm doing my part!

Welp, time to create the reverse app and tag houses that are religious.
Do what you want with that information.
- Nah, just wait for the inevitable data dump because they won't pay for competent security, and invert the data. No need to get the data yourself when they're pretty much doing it for you!
  
  Do you mean a surprise distributed data backup?
  (referencing a recent meme on !programmerhumor)
  
  Just check all the account addresses
- Maybe the Jewish population could start a protest in front of there Church

The church is an organization that preys on people using their fear of death.
- Hinduism is a religion that preys on people's fear of not really dying at all.
  
  oof. Never noticed that about reincarnation. What could be worse than dying? Being brought back to suffer more.
  
  interesting

These lunatics have a disturbing amount of control in the US government.
Laughing at them might be fun, and I was doing it until recently, but they’re not joking. The worse our climate disasters become – and they will very soon – the more scared people will become, and the more these groups will take advantage of that fear. We’ll see more climate refugees, more desperation, and more fear. These groups prey on fear, and they’ll amplify it on purpose.
True fascism thrives on fear, which is why these people amplify it like they do. When climate disasters accelerate, these groups will harness the social upheaval to take control. I don’t know what we can do to stop it, but we should all be thinking about and sharing ways to head it off, because they’ve got plans in place already.
I know I sound paranoid, but I’ve been watching them and these aren’t my ideas, but theirs. They talk about this a lot, and if we aren’t prepared, their plans could actually work. I don’t want to live in the fascist future they’re planning. If we don’t combat it, we’ll be living in the Handmaid’s Tale before most of us realise.

OK, does this title end abruptly or am I just really high?
- "WE MUST CONDUCT DOOR, COMRADE."
  
  ALL ABOARD!
  they heard as the conduct door took one last look at the platform.
- Both!
  
  I'm in no position to deny this.
- Lemmy has a different title length limit than Mbin, as I just now discovered. I kinda like the modified version though. 🙂

This is a yikes, they're doing the Westboro Church tactics without wanting the money, just to harass.
The Mapping Center for Evangelism and Church Growth’s founder and president Chris Cooper suggests using the app to conduct neighborly activities such as putting on a barbecue for potential converts, but scattered throughout the app’s training and promotional videos are suggestions to undertake the controversial practice of “prayerwalking.” An idea becoming increasingly popular among Christian supremacist groups, prayerwalking involves believers flooding so-called “un-Christian” territories in order to combat “demonic strongholds.” In practice, it varies from blessing new neighbors to gathering groups to pray in front of everything from mosques to drag bars in service of “spiritual warfare.”
- And how long until this app gets tied to several mass shootings and a spate of burning crosses?
  
  "It was a deeply disturbed lone wolf. It's unfortunate, but there's nothing we can do. Thoughts and prayers."
  
  I'll give it about a week.

Wait till they start using that same data to harass and target.
- I mean that's exactly where we are headed in the US.
  Project2025 in part wants to institute laws against blasphemy... They quite literally want to make the united states a theocracy, absolutely no fucking exaggeration here. It's literally what they want.
  
  Serious question: Any source on that?
- Isn't that what they have always done
  
  Never this efficiently and from such few tracks.
- Can I use it to find like minded individuals?
  
  No, they are not in the dataset.

JFC, I installed the app and added "my address" and immediately was given a list of names and addresses to "pray for".
How am I supposed to pray for so many people!? What am I, an ATM?! Gelatians 4:20:69 had nothing to do with Gelato!1! This is getting 1 star and reported on the app store.
- You know what they say, good Christians are ATMs
- Dude, that's beyond creepy. I know of 1 christian that will certainly never install that thing. Not that I can right now, since I have absolutely no Google or Apple store at my disposal. #degoogled all the way.
- What the FUCK
  For some reason it didn't sink in to me from reading the article how weird and sinister this is
  
  Literal names and addresses. Unbelievable.

This is terrifying. Thank fuck I'm not in the US. I already get anxious when some random knocks on my door. If they started spouting off about praying for me and my family I'd be weirded right the fuck out.
Granted, I love my physical privacy. I generally don't answer the door to plain cloths unless I'm expecting someone. My 5 year goal is to move outside of my current town and have no neighbours. Preferably with a nice long driveway that I may install a gate on at the road.
- Your physical is quite nice.
  
  Thanks, I get quietly called brave a lot for it at the beach!
- So did you pass? (Your physical)
  
  Lol clean as a whistle

This is concerning. I don't want some stranger knowing personal details about me before I even know they exist
- I've received letters twice from the same individual who belongs to a JW church. The first was when they moved into the area, and the second was when I moved to another place.
  Your property ownership records (if you're American) are public records, and if you grab it within like, 3 years (where I live), you can even find the closing price and more detailed information on the sale.
  Demand better privacy laws.

We really must find a way to purge our collective selves of the scourge of religion.
- I wish it was never invented in the first place. I would much rather have a world where we argue over which scientific theory, or whatever, is right—rather than the one we have now, where a majority argue about whose 'flying spaghetti monster,' unseen for centuries (if ever), is better and why it trumps even the most solidly proven scientific facts.
  
  Religion is a mental disorder.
  
  Scientific theory doesn't tell you to love your neighbor nor does it give you strength. Religion is important no matter the specific beliefs.
  You don't need to be Muslim or Jewish yourself but you could at least try to be respectful. We don't need any more hate in the world.
- As it turns out, the vast majority or "religion" is completely harmless and is kept personal. The problem is the 1% who are constantly the target of bad PR (for good reason)
  What are you saying? Are you advocating mass arrests? Good luck finding every Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and all other beliefs. Your statement seems overly broad.
  
  Ah, yes. No religious wars and discrimination, no raped children, no mutilated babies, no subjugation. Religion is all fucking sunshine and chipmunks.

When people ring your bell to annoy you about religion, reply by trying to converting them into atheism or another religion (satanism included)
- Maybe not the best idea. According to the article, using this app they can leave notes about you for other members to see. Talking about satanism would probably flag you for even more harassment.
  
  Hmm I would not know that they are using an app. Anyway I don't think we should make any concessions or be scared of those people and adapt to them.
  Noone has the right of making you swallow their religious views.
- I don't have time to argue with stupid.
- I do that all the time. I don't care if you're a christian, Muslim, Jehovah's witness or whatever else, if you come to my house uninvited to tell me why I should follow any religion, be ready for a heated debate on why that's not your place, I dont care what your leaders have made you believe. Its one thing to talk about Christ to tell anyone about Him, and then drop it and move on to a civil interaction, its an entirely different thing to splat your believes on people's faces and telling people they will go to hell if they don'tdo what you tell them. We have friends of all religions and lack of religion, and we have never attempted to change them. They know what we believe in, we know what they believe in, and none of that makes any difference. I'm glad I dont live in the US, nothing more disgusting than mixing faith with politics.
- I just let my dog help me answer the door.
  He's a big boy and very talkative. The proselytizers can't get a word in...

This is real bad. I'm a christian (albeit a very unorthodox one), and this goes against everything Christians are supposed to follow according to the bible. This can only be construed as church authoritarianism. Maybe this is why I'm looked down upon by most "Christians" out there, but I could not care less. If a christian says or does anything that does not align with LOVE EVERYONE,that's not a christian, but a "faith merchant". Their "privacy policy" is tailored to make it seem like they are doing God's work, when reading it with the intent to understand clearly displays the intention to gather data on you and everyone around you. And I'm sorry, but anyone that does this is guilty of wanting data to sell until proven otherwise, no exceptions.
- Who Has Access to Your Data
"Your password is not accessible by or shared with anybody. Not even we can access it. It is stored in an inaccessible encrypted format."
So, ONLY the password is encrypted, everything else is stored as clearly as a traffic sign. Noted.
"None of the information entered by you is shared with anybody unless you specifically give us permission to do so by opting in to affiliate your Light role with one or more of our partner organizations; by opting in to have your contact information available to other Light roles in your neighborhood; or by creating an administrator role in a partner organization."
Where have we seen this before? Ah, right, in EVERY parivacy policy on every single company known to sell our data for profit without caring about anyone or anything except getting more money.
Funny thing is, there's no mention anywhere on how they are getting the data on what they call the "blessees". Care to take a wild guess on how that's done?
I am genuinely sorry that this is happening, and blown away by how disgusting this is. No wonder most people don't want anything to do with us, Christianity has become everything Jesus spoke against.
- I am genuinely sorry that this is happening
  Appreciate the sentiment, but it's not anyone's task to apologize for someone else's shitty behavior.
  What you (and other Christians who are bothered by this approach) can do is to talk to your fellow believers about it and express your concerns.
  We all know they're not going to listen to us heathen unbelievers...
  
  Thanks for the comment man. I apologized because it bothers me to no end, and for vetter or for worse, calling mysrlf a christian puts me in the crosshairs of people that are understandibly upset at that behavior, and I'm not narcissistic enough to just pass by and not try to make it a bit better if possible. Unfortunately, because of their radical religious way of thinking and blatant inability to exercise critical thinking, they won't listen to anyone but their "church leaders", whom, for the most part, only have their own interests at heart.
- FYI: If you hear someone talking about encrypting passwords (instead of hashing); big red flag that they don't know what they're doing.
  
  I didn't think about it, but you're absolutely right. Thanks for the correction.
- You and people who hold beliefs like yours should just pick a new name for yourselves, I've tried to convince family members of this for years. Let the jerks have the name they tainted, pick a better name for your beliefs, and get out of the way for people to condemn the institution of Christianity for it's actions.
  You shouldn't feel responsible for them. You should just let them suffer the consequences of their actions and get outta the way.
  
  Most of us would, for sure, if it wasn't for the fact that we're called Christians because we follow Christ. However, from my very personal perspective, the name is irrelevant. So much so that our own bible does not mention "christians" anywhere. Having said that, I am a die hard follower of Jesus, people can call me Jesuit, Jesus freak (yes, been called that plenty of times, I find it funny), or whatever. But first and foremost, I'm a human, full of flaws, an expert at finding out what doesn't work (I guess Normie's call those "making mistakes" 🤣🤣), with lost of situations in my life, and a firm believer that, should everyone decide to respect others, love them with their flaws, and be willing to help EVERYONE else as long as it's not detrimental to themselves, their environment or others (in thayvsame order), we would have so much peace in this world that it'll probably get boring haha. Anyway, switching gears real quick: Does anyone here have experience with Arch based Linux distros? Preferably EndeavourOS? I live what I'm seeing, but I can't find a reason why none of my flatpak installations are showing in my apps. I really want to try Arch to find out why die hard Arch users are so proud of that, but so far it seems like a distros made exclusively for people that like to be in pain. What gives? If you can pint me in the right direction to a community where I can vent and maybe find solutions, I would really appreciate it. Oh, and God forgive me, but FUCK MICROSOFT!

They've also just mapped themselves by selecting the inverse

I'm assuming in a bid to conduct door-to-door preaching is what the title was supposed to say?
- Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're a subpar LLM.
- Door to door free cookies? Yes?

Can we appreciate how incredibility messed up it is to have Christians trying to tell other religions are not valid? It is terribly messed up to try to convert Muslims to Christianity.
With that being said it is important to note that this is a small group of people in Christianity. They are ruining the reputation for all denominations and creating Christian hate which will hurt Christians everywhere in the long run. I wonder how they would react if there was Jewish protest in front of there Church
- Religion is incredibly messed up FIFY
  
  Yeah no one would want to care about your fellow human beings.
- I think the "try to convert" part makes no sense. Conversion is a very personal thing, and you can't force someone to do it. You can invite, but that's about it.
  Anything more violates common decency.
  
  You would surprised how much control a fearmongering narcissist can have over you. And I'd argue, most christian conservative are narcissists.
  
  I agree. If you create a welcoming environment people will stick around
  
  The “try to convert” thing sounds like the marketing & sales division of the church. People can’t join your church if they don’t even know about it.
  And both being annoying, of course.
  
  I don't think the app is designed to try to convert people. Filtering by immigration status is the giveaway.
  Oftentimes, American-style authoritarian organized religion equips you with a very particular type of doublethink which makes it possible to promote an app like this and wholeheartedly believe that it will be used for good things because you and all the people around you are the best type of people that exist, while being aware and planning for it to maybe be used (and making sure it's useful) for something totally different.
  
  Someone on lemmy commented that the purpose of those conversion drives is not to garner new members (though it's a nice benefit if it works), but to help reinforce the "us" versus "them" division in the people out knocking on doors. It really makes a lot of sense to me.
- When one group of Torah fan ficti9n lovers hates the other groups fan ficti9n its a big deal.
  
  That's not really the case outside of a minority

I hope they come to my door. I'll tell them all the stuff that is taught in Seminary that they don't teach the parishioners.
That being said, this is totally fucked up. Hopefully someone that is affected can sue them into oblivion.

I feel like this information is going to get sold to GOT--sorry, 'voter suppression' efforts and general databrokers.
- Highly likely in the US.

Thats some Gilead shit.

I dare one of them to show up to my front door. They are going to be in for a fucked up conversation that will make them second guess their life choices.
- I did that and converted a Jehovah's Witness to Linuxism.
  
  The fundies are always carrying on about daemons, I hope you set the JWs up with all the "best" ones, and more.
  
  Which distro?
  
  Are the JW's using this? Two stopped by my door a few weeks ago to convert me or us (my wife is Catholic, I'm atheist). I noticed that they drove separately, and I wondered why they hated the environment so much (we live off the beaten path). And I'm pretty sure they ONLY stopped at our house, one parked in our driveway and the other along the road in front of the house. It definitely didn't seem like a general canvass.
  
  That's a win from every possible perspective.
- One stopped by my house last week. I told them this is an atheist household and the bible is a fictional story book, no offense. I quite enjoyed the face they made.
  
  In my younger days told a Jehova's Witness that Jesus was my favorite fictional character because he had the coolest superpowers. They went from overjoyed that I was engaging with them to Charlie Brown sad walking away in the space of a sentence.
  These days I'd probably be more rude but less offensive.
  
  My favorite interaction was on a college campus. They had set up a table and were telling every passerby “Jesus loves you!” So I cheerfully returned “and Allah loves you!”
  I will forever cherish the physical recoil and look of revulsion that crossed their faces. I’m an atheist, for context

I might need to get a door decoration that tells them to leave me alone. Then I won't feel bad about telling them to leave. I gave them a chance.
- I have a backlogged project sketched to use computer vision AI and a doorbell cam to recognize (Most of the time, they wear identifiable name tags, but I know it won't be a perfect system) when religious door knockers are at my door.
  Then proceed into a rant about how organized religions are a cult and that if they want my help to leave the cult I'd be happy too, but if not they are officially being charged a "personal land space" rental fee of $25/Minute lol
  
  Lol. That's awesome. I can literally picture their faces when this happens to them 🤣🤣
- I'd like to put something up that will outrage and provoke them. The CoS has a few items that might do the trick: https://www.churchofsatan.com/sources-artifacts/

I mean they don't need sensitive data, they already know which house is religious, because the people signed up for it. So by default every other home gets added. That is all very puplic information.
- It says in the article they employed a commercial data set that is not composed of widely available public data in creating this app. Also, it lists a lot more information about people than whether or not they are christians.

This is basically the same as the voting rolls that democrats and republicans use for canvassing. The amount of information they have and have had for years predating the internet, is immense.

I feel like I need the hero protecting the little person meme. The arrows are roving bands of proselytizers, and the hero is my little "no soliciting" sign
- It's America. You can buy a gun.

Why did you decide to change the title and then stop halfway through?
- mbin has a different title length limit than Lemmy, which I didn't know.
  Just edited it just for you, you should see it fixed whenever it federates.

Christians like this are why I've followed the Morrigan for 15 years
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morr%C3%ADgan Pretty interesting. A goddess that is 3 parts in one, just like our God. And very similar to the old testament God that had Israel strike fear on it's enemies and pushed them to always win their battles, as long as they obeyed. I'm going to dig deeper on this and other comparisons. Thanks for the tip. I've never heard of this until now.

Any of you super coders in here know of a way to download the app ourselves and inject significant amounts of false data into it?
- I already like you sir.

"The app boasts influential supporters, including the former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jim Henry, and controversial Christian data-harvesting firm Gloo. It puts a lot of features at the fingertips of the faithful, including the ability to filter whole neighborhoods by religion, ethnicity, “Hispanic country of origin,” “assimilation,” and whether there are children living in the household."
Christ.

It doesn't seem to be available on android
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blesseveryhome.bealight
  
  Ugh.

Oh please let them come, I'll gladly tell them all about how "Jehovah, or JHVH-1 as WE know him, is no true god but an evil space monster from some corporate sin galaxy sent here to take our SLACK! He's been fooling them! But J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, High Epopt of The Church of The SubGenius, knows the truth, and he has a plan to save all his followers from certain death come X-Day. We'll all be Ruptured up into the PleasureSaucers for orgies with the alien sex goddesses and the MWOWM machine will make our every possible desires true. You want that lost comic collection back? Want revenge on that one priest? Well "Bob" will give it to ya, young evangelist, here, take this pamphlet to get you started..."

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/9/20851753/ai-religion-robot-priest-mindar-buddhism-christianity

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