Last time we met up, we talked about the recent death of Hal Lindsey, who wrote The Late Great Planet Earth. The book made Lindsey a mint and guaranteed him a lucrative career in evangelical prophecy. In 1978, eight years after the publishing of that book, its movie version came Read more
The famous—or perhaps more accurately infamous—Endtimes prophet Hal Lindsey recently died. His passing produced surprisingly little fuss outside of evangelicalism. Irony may have a sense of humor there, since Jimmy Carter also recently passed too, and almost everyone seems to be talking about him. It seems strange even to put Read more
Some years back, Christian bookstores made a mint with heavenly tourism books. These books claimed to offer not only PROOF YES PROOF of life after death, but also evidence for Christianity itself. For years, they made money. And then, the entire genre collapsed. Today, let’s talk about the rise and Read more
Considering it’s Christians’ official and desired Good Ending, they don’t seem to agree much about Heaven or what it’s like. I recently ran across a few Christians who like to make guesses about what their paradise will be like. Unfortunately, none of their ideas sound like a great way to Read more
You’d think that evangelicals would have learned a decade ago just what awful optics it is for anyone to vociferously defend slavery. BUT NO. Here we are yet again, staring down at the abyss of atrocity apologetics. In recent months, I’ve seen a serious uptick in hardline evangelicals defending what Read more
Pseudoarchaeology holds a special place in the hearts of Christians who think the Bible contains real history. After all, this is the one discipline that should attest best to their claims about Jesus and his earliest followers—as well as demonstrate the veracity of the mythic tales contained in the Old Read more
In the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), their leaders depend upon the flocks to donate lots of money to their Cooperative Program. Somehow, in the past decade those flocks have managed to just about maintain their level of giving despite their overall numbers plummeting. I never thought that level of giving Read more
By its very nature, evangelism is confrontational. It almost can’t be anything else. But in recent years, evangelicals have been questioning why it has to be that way. Some of them even offer other methods to let the more shy and awkward sheep in the fold ways to meet their Read more
Over the years, I’ve heard many, many accusations about the causes of my deconversion. It could practically be a religious genre by now: Cold-reading attempts to guess strangers’ motivations regarding religious choices. But only one thing actually caused my deconversion. Strangely, Christians never light upon that one. Today, I’ll share Read more
Well, everyone, I’ve finally found the definitive, surreally-otherworldly evangelical narrative about evangelism. We can stop looking. I’ve found it. I’ve found the worst dialogue ever constructed by an evangelical. It’s so weird that I half-suspect that it might be some Poe’s Law invention meant to make evangelicals look insectoid space Read more