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Your church’s prayer requests stopped routing.
That urgent counseling appointment scheduled through your ministry’s website? Gone. The online giving platform supporting your mission work? Inaccessible. The encrypted messaging you’d set up for your overseas missionaries? Dead.
Not because of a cyberattack on your systems. Not because you forgot to pay your hosting bill. Not because of anything you did wrong.
Because Cloudflare (the company positioning itself as your digital shield, your security layer, your protection against the hostile internet) just became the very threat it promised to prevent.
Today’s massive internet outage affected X, ChatGPT, transit authorities, and thousands of other services. The disruption revealed something Scripture warned us about millennia ago: infrastructure marketed as protection often functions as control and surveillance.
The shepherd who promised safety just scattered the flock.
A Note on Community-Driven Analysis:
My friend Parth Shah reached out this morning after experiencing today’s outage, asking if I’d ever covered Cloudflare directly. While I’ve addressed Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google’s surveillance infrastructure extensively, I realized I’d never given focused treatment to Cloudflare despite knowing about their problematic positioning for years.
This analysis exists because Parth Shah asked the right question at the right moment. That’s howauthentic community works: we sharpen each other, identify blind spots, and respond to real concerns with biblical wisdom. Thank you, Parth, for the prompt.
Christian Futurism offers Frameworks grounded in Biblical Scripture to address AI, Technology, and Digital Discipleship to build a Christian Future.Find me on Substack at: rockefellerkennedy.substack.
The Hebrew word ra’ah (רָעָה) carries devastating irony. It means “to shepherd, to tend, to protect.” It also means “to harm, to destroy, to break.”
Same root. Different outcomes.
Ezekiel 34 records God’s judgment against false shepherds who claimed to protect His people while actually exploiting them:
“Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.” (Ezekiel 34:2-5, KJV)
Notice the pattern: shepherds who claim protection while actually harming the flock. Leaders who promise security while creating vulnerability. Infrastructure that concentrates power under the guise of service.
Today’s Cloudflare outage demonstrates this ancient pattern with brutal clarity.
Cloudflare positions itself as internet infrastructure protection. DDoS mitigation. Security services. Content delivery optimization. The company’s marketing promises to “build a better internet” and protect websites from attacks.
But when Cloudflare experiences an “unusual spike in traffic,” millions of websites simultaneously become inaccessible. The shepherd scattered the flock. The protection became the problem. The shield became the weapon.
This isn’t merely technical failure. It’s the inevitable consequence of centralized control masquerading as distributed protection.
Rome didn’t conquer through military force alone. Caesar understood that control requires infrastructure (systems so embedded in daily life that subjects cannot function without them).
Luke records the mechanism:
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.” (Luke 2:1-3, KJV)
The Greek word apographō (ἀπογράφω) means “to write off, to register, to enroll.” It sounds administrative. Necessary. Protective even (how else can Rome provide services without knowing who its citizens are)?
But the census wasn’t primarily about taxation. It was about comprehensive knowledge for comprehensive control.
Once Caesar knows where everyone lives, their family structures, their economic status, their tribal affiliations, he possesses the infrastructure for total governance. The registration that promises order and protection creates the mechanism for surveillance and tyranny.
Cloudflare operates by the same principle.
To “protect” websites from DDoS attacks, Cloudflare must position itself between users and servers. Every HTTPS connection (the encrypted communication you think is private) must be decrypted by Cloudflare’s systems before being re-encrypted and passed along.
The company literally occupies the “man-in-the-middle” position that cybersecurity professionals warn against. But they’ve marketed this vulnerability as a feature, not a bug.
“We’ll protect you,” Cloudflare promises. “Just route all your traffic through our servers. Let us decrypt everything. Trust us to re-encrypt it properly. Give us access to every communication.”
This isn’t conspiracy theory. It’s how the technology fundamentally works.
And your complacency on privacy is a suicide pact
Genesis 11 records humanity’s first attempt at centralized infrastructure:
“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4, KJV)
The Tower of Babel wasn’t merely architectural ambition. It represented humanity’s rejection of God’s command to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). God designed diversity, distribution, and decentralization. Babel pursued uniformity, concentration, and control.
The Hebrew babel (בָּבֶל) means “confusion” (but not the confusion of many languages). The deeper confusion of believing centralized human systems can replace divine design.
God’s judgment wasn’t arbitrary destruction. It was protection through forced distribution:
“So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.” (Genesis 11:8, KJV)
Cloudflare and the handful of companies controlling internet infrastructure have rebuilt the Tower of Babel in silicon. A few centralized systems now handle massive portions of global internet traffic. Today’s outage demonstrates what happens when Babel’s single point of failure collapses.
The internet was designed as a distributed network specifically to avoid this vulnerability. Early internet architects built redundancy, alternative routing, and decentralized authority into the protocol itself. The system could route around damage because no single entity controlled the whole.
But surveillance capitalism and the security industry have systematically centralized what was designed to be distributed. Cloudflare, Google, Amazon Web Services, and a few others now function as chokepoints for global digital communication.
When Cloudflare experiences problems, millions of websites fail simultaneously. The protection became the vulnerability. The security service became the single point of failure.
This is ra’ah shepherding at internet scale.
Jesus warned about exactly this pattern:
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15, KJV)
The Greek pseudoprophētēs (ψευδοπροφήτης) literally means “false speaker” or “liar claiming divine authority.” These aren’t merely mistaken teachers. They’re deceivers who position themselves as protective shepherds while actually serving predatory interests.
Cloudflare’s “sheep’s clothing” is its security marketing. The “ravening wolf” underneath is its man-in-the-middle surveillance infrastructure.
Consider what Cloudflare’s technology actually requires:
HTTPS Decryption: Every encrypted website using Cloudflare’s services must share its private encryption keys with Cloudflare. The company can see everything (payment information, private messages, health records, confession booth conversations, missionary communications in hostile territories).
Centralized Visibility: Cloudflare handles 20% of global web traffic. This means the company has unprecedented insight into internet usage patterns, communication networks, and information flows worldwide.
Government Cooperation: Like all major internet infrastructure companies, Cloudflare responds to government data requests and takedown orders. The company can censor content, block access, and provide user information to authorities.
Commercial Surveillance: Despite privacy policy promises, Cloudflare collects network data, IP addresses, and traffic routing information. This data becomes valuable for targeting, profiling, and selling to third parties.
The company claims to protect privacy while occupying the perfect position for comprehensive surveillance. The shepherd claims to tend the flock while wearing wolf’s teeth.
What Scripture Reveals About Information Ethics in the Surveillance Age
How should Christians evaluate Cloudflare through biblical wisdom? The WISE Framework (developed in “Beyond AI Anxiety: A Biblical Framework for Navigating Artificial Intelligence”) provides four essential criteria for assessing any technology:
W - Worship: Does this technology encourage or hinder our relationship with God?
Cloudflare’s centralization replaces trust in divine providence with dependency on corporate infrastructure. When a single company’s failure can silence your church’s website, shut down your ministry’s giving platform, and interrupt spiritual communications worldwide, you’ve transferred faith from God to Silicon Valley systems.
The outage reveals the idolatry: we’ve built digital Babel towers we cannot maintain.
I - Image: Does this technology honor human dignity as image-bearers?
Man-in-the-middle positioning fundamentally violates human dignity by eliminating genuine privacy. Even when communications are “encrypted,” Cloudflare can read everything. You cannot have truly private conversations with your pastor, truly confidential prayer requests in your church group, or truly secure communications with persecuted believers when a corporate middleman reads every word.
This treats image-bearers as surveillance subjects, not sacred souls worthy of privacy and dignity.
S - Service: Does this technology serve human flourishing and the common good?
Today’s outage demonstrates how centralized infrastructure harms rather than serves. When millions of websites fail because a single company experiences problems, the “service” reveals itself as systematic vulnerability. Christians in restricted nations who depend on specific platforms for spiritual fellowship find themselves cut off. Church administrative systems fail. Online giving platforms stop processing donations. Ministry work halts.
Centralization creates fragility. Fragility undermines flourishing.
E - Eternity: Does this technology align with God’s ultimate purposes?
God’s design throughout Scripture emphasizes distribution, diversity, and local community accountability. From the twelve tribes to the body of Christ’s many members, biblical patterns resist the concentration of power in single entities. Cloudflare’s centralized control contradicts these eternal principles by building infrastructure that mimics Babel’s rebellion rather than reflecting kingdom design.
Cloudflare fails all four WISE criteria. This isn’t merely suboptimal technology. It’s infrastructure fundamentally opposed to biblical values.
The REFUGE Framework (developed in “Sacred Boundaries: Biblical Wisdom for Digital Privacy”) provides practical steps for implementing sacred boundaries in digital communication:
R - Recognize Sacred Communication: Your prayer requests, counseling sessions, missionary correspondence, and spiritual conversations deserve protection from corporate surveillance. Routing them through man-in-the-middle infrastructure violates their sacred nature.
E - Establish Digital Cities of Refuge: Build communication channels that don’t depend on centralized surveillance infrastructure. Self-hosted websites, decentralized platforms, and peer-to-peer systems provide alternatives to Cloudflare dependency.
F - Foster Graduated Disclosure: Not all communications require the same protection level, but your most sacred conversations (confessions, spiritual counseling, persecution-vulnerable fellowship) must never route through man-in-the-middle surveillance.
U - Uphold Vulnerable Community Members: Your choice to use Cloudflare-dependent platforms affects persecuted believers worldwide. When authorities compromise Cloudflare (and they can), they gain access to communications that could endanger lives.
G - Guard Community Boundaries: Work with your church’s technical leadership to migrate away from services requiring Cloudflare dependency. This isn’t paranoia; it’s stewardship.
E - Encourage Alternative Infrastructure: Support ministries and platforms building decentralized alternatives. The internet was designed to be distributed; we can return to that design.
Begin by auditing your current dependencies. Your church’s technical leadership needs to identify which ministry platforms route through Cloudflare (your website, giving systems, communication tools all require examination). Online tools can check whether Cloudflare sits between your congregation and your digital infrastructure, but this audit reveals more than technical architecture. It exposes where you’ve unknowingly surrendered sacred communications to corporate surveillance.
Prioritize protecting your most sensitive spiritual conversations first. Counseling records, prayer requests from believers in restricted nations, pastoral communications discussing vulnerable community members require migration to end-to-end encrypted systems that don’t employ man-in-the-middle positioning. The migration takes effort, but today’s outage demonstrates why dependency on centralized infrastructure threatens ministry continuity when systems inevitably fail.
Consider self-hosting your church website rather than depending on platforms requiring Cloudflare. Yes, this costs more initially and requires technical competence your congregation may need to develop. But genuine independence from surveillance infrastructure serves kingdom purposes better than convenient dependency on systems that scatter the flock during crisis. The early church built resilient community without digital infrastructure; modern churches can build digital infrastructure that reflects biblical principles of distribution and local accountability.
Share this analysis with your elders, deacons, and technical volunteers. Today’s outage provides perfect timing for discussing infrastructure vulnerability without seeming paranoid or reactionary. Build redundancy through backup communication methods that don’t depend on internet infrastructure (phone trees, text chains, in-person networks all matter when digital Babel collapses). Test these backup systems quarterly. Can you still coordinate ministry, process giving, and maintain fellowship when your primary platforms fail? If not, you’ve built on centralized sand rather than distributed rock.
Scripture provides the counter-example to false shepherds:
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” (John 10:11-14, KJV)
Jesus doesn’t position Himself as middleman requiring access to all your private communications. He doesn’t build centralized infrastructure that creates single points of failure. He doesn’t market protection while actually concentrating control.
He gives His life for the sheep. He knows them individually. He provides genuine security through relationship, not surveillance.
Today’s Cloudflare outage scattered digital flocks worldwide. Your ministry’s website failed. Your communications interrupted. Your systems collapsed.
But your actual Shepherd never crashes. Your true security doesn’t depend on Silicon Valley infrastructure. Your real protection comes from the One who promised: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).
Build accordingly.
What ministry systems in your church currently depend on Cloudflare or similar centralized infrastructure? How could today’s outage have affected your congregation’s spiritual life and practical ministry?
How does understanding Cloudflare’s man-in-the-middle positioning change your perspective on “privacy-respecting” internet services? What sacred communications might you be exposing to corporate surveillance without realizing the shepherd claims protection while reading every word?
How does today’s outage demonstrate the difference between hireling shepherds (Cloudflare, other infrastructure companies) and the Good Shepherd (Jesus)? What practical steps can your community take to reduce dependency on systems that will inevitably fail?
Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to stay updated on how biblical wisdom exposes infrastructure marketed as protection while functioning as control. And if this resonated with you, share it with your church’s technical leadership (they need to understand what today’s outage reveals about centralized dependency before the next collapse).
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[^1]: Ezekiel 34:2-5 (KJV). God’s judgment against shepherds who claim protection while exploiting and scattering the flock.
[^2]: Luke 2:1-3 (KJV). Caesar’s census as infrastructure for comprehensive population control and surveillance.
[^3]: Genesis 11:4-8 (KJV). Tower of Babel as humanity’s first centralized infrastructure rebellion against God’s distributed design.
[^4]: Matthew 7:15 (KJV). Jesus’s warning about false prophets appearing as protective shepherds while serving predatory interests.
[^5]: John 10:11-14 (KJV). Christ as the Good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep, contrasted with hirelings who abandon flocks during crisis.
[^6]: Cloudflare handles approximately 20% of global internet traffic according to the company’s own infrastructure reports. See: Cloudflare Network Map
[^7]: For technical explanation of how Cloudflare’s SSL/TLS termination creates man-in-the-middle positioning, see: Troy Hunt, “The Importance of Trust in Security” Troy Hunt Blog (2017)
[^8]: Hebrews 13:5 (KJV). God’s promise of permanent presence contrasted with infrastructure that inevitably fails.
[^9]: For analysis of distributed vs. centralized internet architecture, see: Paul Baran, “On Distributed Communications Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Communications Systems (March 1964)
[^10]: International Christian Concern, 2024 Persecution Report: Digital Surveillance Enabling Global Christian Targeting (2024), documenting how centralized infrastructure enables persecution in hostile nations
Related Reading:
“When Babylon’s Eye Went Blind: Starlink’s Warning” - Tower of Babel centralization patterns
“Sacred Boundaries: Biblical Wisdom for Digital Privacy” - REFUGE Framework development
“Beyond AI Anxiety: A Biblical Framework for Navigating Artificial Intelligence” - WISE Framework foundations
“Palantir Is Building the Mark of the Beast” - Surveillance infrastructure theology
Rockefeller Kennedy
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