Were Christians Persecuted at Burning Man? I Was There.
An evangelical missions team was kicked out of Burning Man this year. Since then, the story has exploded across social media—helped in no small part by the team itself—and Christians are divided.
Was this Christian persecution?
Were missionaries expelled simply because they proclaimed the name of Jesus? Is this the kind of rejection Christ warned his followers to expect—and something they will be rewarded for in Heaven?
Or is there another possibility?
What if Christians entered a culture they did not understand, treated people poorly, and repeated some of the same mistakes Christian missionaries have made throughout history?
Before I give you my opinion, here are the details.
What Burning Man Says Happened
Burning Man says the Shift the Atmosphere team was evicted after violating event policies, particularly around filming people without their consent.
According to the organization, the issue was not simply that the team was Christian or that they were talking about Jesus. The issue was their behavior toward other participants violated Burning Man’s consent and media policies.
What Shift the Atmosphere Says Happened
The team has presented a very different version of events.
Their public message has essentially been:
They were forced to leave without being given a legitimate explanation.
Their eviction amounted to Christian persecution from an organization that claims “radical inclusion” as one of its core principles.
The people appearing in their videos consented to being filmed.
What I Personally Witnessed
I witnessed members of the team filming without first obtaining consent.
I also saw videos they posted containing people I know. Those friends told me they had not been asked permission to be filmed. More troubling to me, some said they felt pressured into the conversations.
I cannot speak to every interaction this team had at Burning Man. However because of what I did see, I do not trust the full public narrative they are presenting about their eviction.
What Hurts My Heart Even More
What bothers me is the heart posture of this team. Their videos make the mission look beautiful. They present dramatic stories, sweeping drone footage, large numbers of “salvations,” and baptisms. But I wonder about the hearts and souls of the actual people in their footage?
People can easily become content. A stranger’s spiritual vulnerability becomes a testimony video. A complicated human encounter becomes a conversion statistic. Someone’s story becomes evidence that the ministry is succeeding.
And when that happens, even something called evangelism can begin to look uncomfortably like using people for the benefit of the ministry, not the soul.
Even worse, a friend of mine says she was surrounded by the team and coerced to “yes” to Jesus. According to her, the team asked if they could bless her with a song. She said, “yes,” thinking gifting is normal at Burning Man and they proceeded to sing a worship song over her. Then, they surrounded her and led her in the sinner prayer.
Unfortunately, do not see an attempt from this team to genuinely enter the culture of Burning Man.
I do not see much appreciation for its art.
Its playfulness.
Its generosity.
Its questions.
Its people.
Or an understanding and appreciation of the complicated spiritual journeys many Burners are already on.
Instead, members of the team have publicly described Burning Man in extraordinarily dark spiritual terms, at times portraying it as an intensely demonic place.
That is not how I experience the Burn.
I also see astonishing creativity.
I see people searching.
I see adults remembering how to play.
I see people asking enormous spiritual questions that they may never ask anywhere else.
And I see an openness to conversations about God, suffering, love, death, spirituality, and purpose.
That openness is one of the reasons I keep going.
My First Encounter With Shift the Atmosphere
The first time I met members of this team was three Burns ago when they walked into our tent while we were worshipping.
I invited them to join us and was excited thinking, “oh new friends!”
They declined.
I cannot know what they were thinking, and I do not want to assign motives to them that they never stated. But the interaction stayed with me. Here we were, Christians worshipping Jesus in the middle of Burning Man, and instead of recognizing fellow believers, there seemed to be distance.
I Want to Imitate Christ
This is the heart of it for me. I want to imitate Christ.
Christianity begins with an astonishing missionary movement:
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”- John 1:14
God did not shout salvation at humanity from a safe distance.
He entered it.
Jesus became human.
He lived inside our world.
He walked dusty roads.
He attended weddings.
He became tired.
He wept.
He knew friendship and rejection and grief.
The God of the universe entered our culture so completely that most people looking at Jesus simply saw a carpenter from Nazareth.
That is the incarnation.
And I think Christian mission should look something like that. Jesus certainly confronted sin. He spoke truth. He called people to repentance. He never watered down who He was.
But He also saw people.
He ate with them.
He asked questions.
He allowed people to walk away. When the rich young man rejected His invitation, Jesus did not surround him until he surrendered. Scripture says:
“Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”- Mark 10:21
And the man walked away.
Jesus let him.
Because love requires freedom.
The Gospel Is Proposed, Not Imposed
This is one reason I keep thinking about Redemptoris Missio, Pope St. John Paul II’s 1990 encyclical on missionary activity.
John Paul II is not timid about evangelization. He absolutely believes Christians are called to proclaim Jesus Christ. But he is equally insistent that authentic conversion must respect human freedom.
The Gospel is proposed, not imposed. Jesus Himself speaks this way: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” - Luke 9:23
Notice the invitation: If anyone wishes. Faith cannot be forced. Conversion is not something one human being manufactured inside another. It is a free response to grace.
Paul writes:
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9
Belief happens in the heart.
Missionaries Should Enter a Culture, Not Stand Above It
Redemptoris Missio also speaks about inculturation, the catholic word, or contextulization, the protestant word, that means the same thing. Both audiences read this blog.
Missionaries are not supposed to arrive carrying Christianity in one hand and their own culture in the other and assume the two are identical. The Gospel can enter every culture. And when it does, it affirms what is good, challenges what is broken, and allows Christ to be expressed through the beauty already present within a people. Paul understood this. He wrote: “I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”- 1 Corinthians 9:22
And when Paul arrives in Athens—a city overflowing with pagan religion—his first recorded words are fascinating. He does not begin:
“You people are disgusting idolaters living in the most demonic city on earth.”
Instead he says: “Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.”- Acts 17:22
Then he points to one of their own altars: “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.” - Acts 17:23
Paul observes their culture.
He notices their spiritual hunger.
He studies their art and religion.
And then he builds a bridge from something they already understand toward Christ.
That does not mean he agrees with everything in Athens. It means he respects the people enough to understand them before speaking to them.
That is missionary inculturation.
And Revelation gives us the final picture of where all of this is headed: “A great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” - Revelation 7:9
Burning Man Does Not Need Christian Conquerors
This is ultimately why this controversy hurts me.
I desperately want Christians at Burning Man.
I want more of us there.
I want Christians building art.
I want Christians giving away food.
I want Christians dancing.
I want Christians listening to people's stories at 3 a.m.
I want Christians praying for people.
I want Christians talking openly about Jesus.
I want Christians creating beautiful things simply because beauty reflects God.
I want Christians capable of recognizing the goodness already present while also having the courage to talk about what we believe is broken.
But Burning Man does not need Christians standing outside its culture announcing how dark everyone else is. It needs Christians willing to enter the dust.
The Incarnation did not happen from a distance. Neither should evangelization.
Maybe the most Christian thing we can do when entering someone else's world is not arrive as the hero of their story? Maybe we arrive as a guest?
We listen. We learn. We love.
We tell the truth when the opportunity comes.
We say the name of Jesus without embarrassment.
And then we trust the Holy Spirit, and follow, and probably end up making a friend.
Because people are not conversion numbers.
They are not content.
They are not proof that our ministry works.
They are our friends and beloved children of God.
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