Have you ever heard of the Jesus Revolution? Well, David Alexander, a Latter-day Saint YouTuber, lived it.
“Stoned on mescaline and drunk on wine,” a 16-year-old Alexander and two of his friends stumbled on an Assemblies of God revival in his hometown of Olympia, Washington. It was there that he gave his life to Jesus.
Sort of.
Though he was raised Catholic, he was a self-described irreligious hippie burnout — and the revival left him confused.
“I ran out of there and was like, ‘happened to me?'” said Alexander.
Since nobody invited him to take action, like going to church, he returned to his previous habits and wondered about his experience with Christianity for the next five years.
“I had completely immersed myself in moral relativism, I didn’t believe that anything was true and life was absurd,” Alexander said.
When he was 21, evangelical preachers came back to his town, and this time he really did give his life to Jesus. After, he knew for a fact that Jesus died for his sins, that God loved him and that the Bible was true.
But he would later realize, despite the sincerity of his conversion, without the proper Priesthood authority, he was not truly baptized.
He would be baptized four more times before he found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and began to spread its message on YouTube, an experience he described in an interview with Scroll.
Alexander shares his testimony at a Latter-day Saint church. Photo credit: David Alexander
As the years went by, Alexander grew disheartened by the lack of authority and unity among evangelical Christianity. But since he knew nowhere else to go, he stayed with it. For 47 years, he would desperately search for the missing pieces.
In his quest for truth, the thought of investigating the Church didn’t cross Alexander’s mind — until last December.
In the decades prior to his baptism into the Church, he had several dozen conversations about Latter-day Saints with fellow evangelicals. He never heard a positive thing about them and their beliefs — other than they’re really nice.
He calls this the accusatory fog.
However, at the end of last year, his desperation for truth reached its tipping point. He thought he’d looked everywhere, even as far as the Amish and the Mennonites, but no denomination had a foundation of prophets and apostles.
On Dec. 23, 2022, worn with frustration, having prayed to God in desperation, the thought finally came to him, “find out what these Mormons believe.” He made contact with his local missionaries and immediately knew that for the last several decades, like the Johnny Lee country song, he had been looking for love in all the wrong places.
As he investigated further, he loved the unity among church leadership — a breath of fresh air from the disunity and power struggles among protestants that he had always disliked.
“The ark was right there man, I just couldn’t see it,” Alexander said, chuckling.
The fog had cleared.
David Alexander's first published video defending the Church against critics. Photo credit: Mario Miguel
From the time he met the sister missionaries, it would take him another four months to be baptized, but he already knew the Church was the most beautiful thing he had ever found.
But his evangelical friends, and even his Catholic sister, didn’t think so. They pelted him with videos, scriptures and other literature that sought to expose the Church as a fraud.
“None of it cut any ice with me, man,” said Alexander.
In his life-long religious journey, he wrestled with the Bible constantly, so much so that he would change his opinion on a particular doctrine multiple times before coming to a conclusion. When Alexander says that everything Latter-day Saints believe is supported by the Bible, he means it.
Weeks prior to his March 20 baptism, he released his first YouTube video. In most of his videos he simply turns on his camera and talks. Many of his videos have included conversations with other members and devotionals he has given at Latter-day Saint events.
Alexander couldn’t sit still while the Church, of which he was not yet a member but which he had come to love, was slandered with false accusations.
His first video on March 6 was a response to arguments against the Church by the Calvinist media organization, Apologia Studios. Since then, he has covered topics such as baptisms for the dead and polygamy. Alexander uses the Bible as his main support.
While he is more than happy to defend his newfound religion, he feels it is important for Latter-day Saints to, in their own way, share and defend the truth they have.
“Part of the culture of the Church is just to be, sometimes, way too nice,” Alexander said.
Latter-day Saints, he says, are the only ones with a foundation left to stand on.
“We’re supposed to shout the Gospel from the housetops man,” Alexander said.
He shared each person should share the truth according to their own personality; it’s as simple as inviting a coworker to watch a football game and talking about the Gospel afterward. Alexander said that other Christians would listen if Latter-day Saints showed excitement about their beliefs, particularly if they centered on Christ.
“It’s hard to attack somebody who’s glorying in the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Alexander said.
With over 12,000 subscribers — and the authority of God on his side — Alexander might have started his own Jesus Revolution.
