Evangelical leaders’ attention was always fated to shift from Millennials to Gen Z. Millennials utterly failed to secure a turnaround in the tribe’s fortunes. So now those leaders look to Gen Z to save their bacon.
In a lot of ways, this research really asks about how American Christians engage with the Problem of Evil. The Problem of Evil asks how suffering can possibly exist in a world governed by an all-powerful, all-good, and all-loving god. It shouldn’t exist at all, and yet here we are, in a world full of suffering.
Interestingly, absolutely nobody has offered a supernatural explanation for this disappearance. And of course nobody has. This is a 100-ton recycling plant we’re talking about, not lost keys or a parking spot or a missed connection on the subway. Nobody’s going to blame this one on demons or pixies or malevolent Neolithic Bell-Beaker ghosts. Nobody thinks wizards cast a spell to shift a recycling plant into the astral plane.
The natural inclinations of awful people tend to be awful. And such people can make an innocent visit to a neighborhood church into a horror story those guests will remember for years.
It’s nice that he accepts the science around climate change — and about humans having brought our planet to the brink of utter ecological disaster. That’s definitely nice to see from a Christian. But he’s trying to use that potential future as a way to terrorize people into accepting his religious claims.
Solid information can only be good to have. If we can’t identify and describe something that’s happening, we’ll have very little chance of predicting outcomes from it or influencing it. That’s why I found Ryan Burge’s recent post on Religion News kinda frustrating.
The evangelicals I knew back then thought fundamentalists were dangerous zealots and wingnuts who’d missed the entire point of Christianity in their mad dash to theological super-correctness. Meanwhile, fundamentalists thought evangelicals were lukewarm weaklings who couldn’t handle the real deal of TRUE CHRISTIANITY™ — and thus would fold and accept the Mark of the Beast the moment the Endtimes began in earnest.
Naturally, Michael Flynn got reamed on Twitter for his comment. But he’s revealed a truth that we dare not ignore. This is the endgame for his entire flavor of Christianity. This is them revealing something very important about what they know about their decline. Today, let me show you the dreadful truth that Michael Flynn let slip about evangelicals.
Toxic Christians have a lot of similar methods of easing their consciences and keeping themselves feeling smugly superior to others. In a lot of ways, we could even call their self-soothing methods substitutionary atonement for their real-life behavior. Today, let me show you what I mean.
Instead of doing anything constructive or meaningful, Chris Pratt felt super-sorry for himself, then tried to find ways to soothe himself with a huge dopamine hit. And thanks to evangelicalism, he found exactly what he needed.