Hi and welcome back! Lately, we’ve been talking about a podcast called Gospelbound. It’s a production of The Gospel Coalition, a hard-right Calvinist evangelical group online. In this particular episode of Gospelbound, two guys talk about all the awful persecution that their tribe totally faces. Except this persecution is largely a complete Read more
For a bit now, we’ve been looking at an evangelical podcast called Gospelbound. In the specific episode we listened to, two Christians outlined their strategies for reversing their religion’s decline. Interestingly, both strategies reveal the speakers’ distinct lack of faith in their own religious claims. Today, let’s marvel at their accidental reveal — and ask what their strategies might look like if they actually believed that anything they said about their god was true.
Hi and welcome back! Last night, we got the news that Josh Duggar — eldest ultra-evangelical son of ultra-evangelical Quiverfull-type parents — had just been arrested. No charges had been filed yet, but no bail had been set, either. Well, we found out today what the charges were: possession of Read more
Hi and welcome back! We had to stop the presses today. My goodness, that Hillsong megachurch is just struggling hard these days, isn’t it? Yesterday, we learned about a third American church of theirs that’s been hit by scandal. Today, let’s review Hillsong’s recent past and newest scandal. And then, let’s wonder Read more
Yesterday, we covered the first prong of Gospelbound’s revitalization strategy: forcing compliance through church discipline. Today, we’ll cover the other: super-long, strict periods of indoctrination.
The tagline TGC created for Gospelbound claims it offers listeners “firm faith in an anxious age.” Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it offers the usual authoritarian blahblah from the most toxic elements in their entire end of Christianity. I’ve saved the most alarming of that blahblah for last: their oh-so-very Calvinist plan for churn reduction. They think more control over congregants means less churn from their churches. Today, I’ll show you what that means — and why it’s such a laughable contradiction of the supernatural claims of authoritarians.
As narratives go, Cinderella has alternated between capturing American women’s imaginations to repelling them, then back again to charming them. Today, Lord Snow Presides over a fairy tale that speaks to how we feel, ultimately, about relationships — and people are examining this age-old love narrative from a modern perspective.
Yesterday, I showed you an episode of Gospelbound, a new-ish podcast from The Gospel Coalition (TGC). In that episode, a pair of hard-right evangelicals talked about how they could totally rescue their failing religion from utter irrelevance. And they proposed two prongs to their approach: showing off their Jesus Auras to impress potential recruits, and grabbing more control over the dwindling number of recruits they get nowadays. Today, we’ll look at how Jesus Auras work in TRUE CHRISTIAN™ mythology, and why this style of evangelism fails so hard.
Gospelbound’s own marketing claims that it will give listeners ‘firm faith in an anxious age.’ We checked out their most recent episode, about a TGC-produced book called Before You Lose Your Faith, and we weren’t impressed. But hey, maybe they just forgot about their target audience because they were talking about their own book. So I wanted to check out what else they were telling potential doubters. Today, let’s evaluate another of their episodes — from the point of view of a Christian who desperately needs a jolt of ‘firm faith in an anxious age.’
TGC’s people think that churches need to step up to be safe harbors for Christians struggling with their faith. That’s an impossible demand, but also a very safe one for them to make.