From Bloody Pentagrams to Being a Debater for God

The Church has been the most iconic place to spread God’s word throughout history. However, church attendance in the U.S. has steadily dropped for decades, with a sharper acceleration in recent years.

Gallup, one of the longest-running trackers, reports that weekly or near-weekly attendance fell from 42% of U.S. adults in 2000–2003 to 30% in 2021–2023, a decline across nearly all religious groups (e.g., Protestants from 50% to 44%, Catholics from 45% to 33%). This continues a longer pattern: In the 1930s–1990s, attendance hovered around 40–50%, but it began eroding around 2000 due to fewer people identifying with organized religion.

Since fewer and fewer people are in the church, it begs the question: how do ministries spread the gospel? Because God commands man to spread His word in places where it doesn’t exist: Mark 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’”

Meet 23-year-old Richard Q. Ford, known as Q-Top to his 941,000 followers on TikTok. A man of faith who took to an unlikely place to reach across ideological lines while doing what the church does in part—reaching people. Specifically, on TikTok.

Over 160 million Americans have the TikTok app installed on their phones, and it has been the number one social media platform used by teenagers and adults for almost nine years.

This year, I conducted a three-month study on the most engaging part of TikTok—the live stream feature. Where anyone can start streaming live on the platform, but only a small percentage hit over an average of 100 viewers per broadcast. The most sought-after attribute of a streamer is uniqueness. They need to stand out with an ability to engage the viewer intellectually. The first time I came across Q-Top, I saw him debating an atheist using arguments that couldn’t be defeated brilliantly—I instantly knew I was watching a genius.

A trait of a genius isn’t just that they can go six hours and not lose one debate about why God exists, but that they figure out how to solve complex problems in creative ways. Since God’s word has reached fewer in the church, Q-Top wanted to branch out his ministry. But before Q-Top had even found God, he had made a bloody offer to Satan, which was that the devil could take his life by the age of 21.

“I used to worship the devil,” said Q-top when I interviewed him. I was surprised to see the man of God I saw on his streams, once used to draw pentagrams in his own blood.

I asked him how he escaped that. He said, “One of my friends who’s a Christian started planting seeds in my mind about God.” Q-Top said he realized all the blessings in his life still came even though he did so much against God. “That’s how powerful God is,” he said.

Now, instead of blood rituals, Q-Top is working to expand the Kingdom of God through his own ministry of music and debates. Q-Top has become a voice on TikTok, similar to the one that reached him while he was engulfed in demonic worship. But instead of reaching only one, Q-Top can reach thousands a day. I asked him what the best argument is that God exists.

He said, “God exists from the impossibility of the contrary because questioning God's existence presupposes that god exists.” Going on to say, “Arguments aren’t possible without God. In a world where everything is derived from chance, why does it make sense to question anything?” Hinting at the possibility that nothing is subject to being true or false. “How can matter question anything?” He said. Implying humans have to be more than matter. “That’s my Vantilian ontological transcendental argument that God exists.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was talking to someone who used to be demonic. Now a Christian debater. My questions centered around trying to understand that part of him. And then he said, “God saves those engulfed in a sinful lifestyle.” Voicing that he believes God favors those who have been rejected by society. Because ”Those people appreciate God’s grace more than anyone else.”

We discussed how I believe most people on social media are atheists who are looking for dopamine hits in their lives. I said, “I think your approach to reaching people on TikTok through debates is two-pronged. The first is that you shatter the worldview of atheists, which could lead to them having a revelation about God. The second is that you represent us believers of Christ in an intellectually honest and vigorous way.”

After saying that, I realized this 23-year-old man’s story is one of the most contrasting. I envisioned his braids dripping with sweat as he used his own blood to communicate with the dark forces of this world, to destroying atheist worldviews while using the Bible.

He truly wasn’t just in the dark. He was the dark. And now he shines light. Q-Top said when debating against atheists, “I make them look into the eyes of eternity, because eternity is around the corner.”

The philosopher Augustine of Hippo said, “Repentance is the heart’s turning from the darkness of sin to the light of God’s grace, where true life begins.”

Q-Top isn’t just debating; he’s facing the forces of evil in this world. Using logic to reframe reality for people, one that involves God. One that can lead to people escaping suffering by finding Him, one debate at a time.

In a way, Q-Top says to Satan that the only sweat that will run down his face will be for God. And that he will never shed blood for the dark again. Every word that penetrates the gray matter of nonbelievers from Q-Top’s mind is a revelation of the truth of God, and a showing of how, with thoughts themselves, Q-Top escaped the dark. He is not a minion for the fallen angel but a debater for God. Planting seeds in the darkest part of this world.

And since Augustine said that true life begins when one turns to the light of God, I wonder how many beginnings Q-top’s words have provided for people? How many people were watching him debate late at night, in the dark, far away from God. And had one debate change, everything.