Analyzing Christianity
Pastoral burnout on the rise (again)
There might not be a Big Quit as such, but what there is instead might be way worse. It’s not so much about empty pulpits, but more about ’empty preachers.’
Analyzing Christianity
Finding your calling when the caller doesn’t exist
In Christianese, a calling represents Jesus’ orders for what his followers are meant to be doing with their lives. But in reality, finding one’s calling works in a very prosaic–and earthly–way. Even then, it doesn’t work at all the way that Christians think it does.
Analyzing Christianity
“Everyone’s a slave to something” — except not really
When I was just a teenager, some evangelical set this over-simplistic equation in front of me: Pick your master, because you’ll always be a slave to something.
Analyzing Christianity
‘There is a payback coming’ as evangelicals dream of revenge and dominance
Let’s check out a recent gathering of authoritarian evangelicals. I’ll show you their plans–and the not-so-hidden desires of their hearts.
Analyzing Christianity
The Jesus Aura: Why this false belief persists
Many Christians have this idea that their faith imbues them with a sort of glowing-but-invisible aura that both attracts and repels non-Christians. It’s their Jesus Aura.
Analyzing Christianity
Pastor Tom Buck is very upset that his enemies exposed his abusive behavior
By painting himself as the poor widdle victim of a meaniepie leak, while entirely denying/ignoring the fact that the leak was about his abuse of his own wife, Tom Buck clearly hopes to escape the scrutiny that cost Paige Patterson his job–and not hinder his faction leader, Tom Ascol, from reaching the heights of SBC power.
Analyzing Christianity
Simple misfortune, or divine punishment for sin?
Sometimes when I look back at my days as a Christian, I’m thunderstruck by how absolutely exhausting it was in every single way. For a religion promising peace, rest, a light yoke, and vaguely-defined joy to its followers, Christianity brought precious little of any of it to any of us. Not long ago, I ran across a Southern Baptist Bible study about sin that really reminded me of that exhaustion.
Analyzing Christianity
Evangelicals aren’t coping well with deconstruction
I do not recognize my experiences in this belligerent fundagelical’s listicle. But that’s kind of the point, in a way.
Analyzing Christianity
Captain Cassidy and the Haircut of DOOM
Today, we check out one of the goofier aspects of the Endtimes: how weirdly voluntary the Mark of the Beast always is.
Analyzing Christianity
How Hillsong is quickly falling apart
So far, Hillsong has lost 9 of its 16 American campuses. It’s a swift comeuppance for a church that seemed too big to fall. But Hillsong has shown, through these constant scandals, that their dazzling and trendy image is distinctly at odds with their lived reality.