A Response To Michael Tait
Justice, Mercy, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, And Virtue Signaling
I’m gonna link to a couple Instagram videos below, one of them is a dude elaborating about Hayley Williams from Paramore and how she blew a head gasket over CCM and Michael Tait—a take worth considering and responding to.
Secondly, I’m gonna link to Michael Tait’s confession, in case you haven’t read it.
But let me begin my diatribe with a few opening comments.
First, I’m not a Deconstructionist—my viewpoint is not marked by radical cynicism.
Deconstructing Christians—or as the Bible calls them, Backsliders and Recalictrants—can be effectively summarized as the Unforgiving Servant, found in Matthew 18:21–35. It’s one of Jesus’ most piercing stories about hypocrisy, mercy, and divine judgment.
Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother? Seven?” Jesus replies, “Not seven, but seventy-seven times”—meaning as many times as it takes. Then Jesus tells a parable that reads like a divine mic drop.
There’s a king settling accounts with his servants. One guy owes him 10,000 talents—an astronomical sum. We're talking billions in today’s terms. The guy can’t pay (shocker), so the king orders him, his wife, and kids sold to repay the debt.
The servant drops to his knees, begging, “Be patient with me, and I’ll pay everything back!”—which, let’s be honest, is nonsense—the debt is unpayable. But the king has compassion. He cancels the entire debt.
And just when you think this is a heartwarming tale of mercy…
That same servant walks out, finds a guy who owes him 100 denarii (about three months’ wages), grabs him by the throat, and screams: “Pay me what you owe!”
The second man says the exact same thing: “Be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.” But instead of showing mercy, the forgiven servant throws him in prison until the debt is paid.
Other servants see this nonsense, report it to the king, and the king loses it. He summons the first servant and says:
“You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”
Then the king hands him over to be tortured until he pays back everything—which, again, is impossible. The story ends with Jesus saying:
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
God’s mercy is staggering. Absurd. Unpayable. And yet, we so often choke people over emotional IOUs. Jesus’ parable is a surgical strike against spiritual amnesia—forgetting what we've been forgiven, while demanding payment from others.
It’s not just about forgiveness—it’s about the moral insanity of receiving grace and refusing to give it.
Now why do you think people people would withhold grace and yet demand payment?
Because “payment” is borrowed virtue—knowing that they are wretched and poor, they must exact some kind of currency that clothes their nakedness, seeing that they have refused God’s covering.
And this brings us to Michael Tait, the Deconstructing Christians, the Virtue demanding CCM world, and how we ought to think about the fallen DC Talk member:
