A recent Barna survey shows churches having trouble finding pastors: first, because there are simply fewer Christians in each successive age cohort, and second, because the young adults who still affiliate with Christianity are seldom doctrinally pure enough for their elders.
Engaging meaningfully with new information is a process. Avoiding that engagement is called antiprocess. When it comes to people’s beliefs, antiprocess is how they avoid confronting challenges and contradictions, and still come out thinking that they totally nailed that fight.
In the book Before You Lose Your Mind, various progressive Christians—many exvangelical as well—discuss their deconstructions. Though written in very lofty language indeed, they all talk about feeling a deep, enormous sense of love after deconstruction. One writer in particular, Jason Elam, contributed such an interesting chapter that I had to Read more
Earlier today, I got a good laugh out of this post about evangelism from Relevant (a website/magazine site aimed squarely at Millennials). In it, Richard Coekin pretends to ask why that site’s readers are “so bad at evangelism.” The answers he offers for his strawman questions reveal that evangelicals aren’t Read more
While meeting with Jesuits in Portugal, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, lamented how ‘backward’ American Catholic hardliners are these days.
Catholicism has always been in a constant state of change. But this American faction can’t admit or allow that.
The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) just can’t get away from nonstop drama. This time, it involves fabricated credentials, a swift resignation, and an equally swift replacement appointment. At least it’s not another sex scandal! Situation report: The Executive Committee The SBC contains a dizzying array of Read more
Scholars have long known that conservative politics and media distort and mischaracterize reality. This distorted reality insulates right-wing media consumers from contradictions and challenges to their beliefs. As a means to power, conservative politicians see this as a feature, not a bug.
Evangelism, or evangelical recruitment, isn’t doing very well these days. When you read between the lines of their supposed success stories, you discover that very few people who weren’t already Christian are joining their churches. Worse, even fewer people who weren’t already baptized seek baptism from them. But evangelicals don’t Read more
Last time we met up, I showed you how evangelical leaders are dealing with ongoing declines in church attendance. Mostly, they’re just insisting up and down that church attendance is not optional, people! Hey, that approach works in apologetics! So why shouldn’t it work everywhere? But an apologetics-consuming audience is Read more
The Healy wearable has only a very limited FDA clearance. But its claims go much, much further as they blitz your social media.