Without any hesitation whatsoever, I tell you that Hell is entirely a man-made doctrine. Some years back, we reviewed a movie (Come Sunday, 2018) about an evangelical leader who realized this. That leader, Carlton Pearson, lost almost everything when he publicized his change in beliefs. Amid Pearson’s recent death, a Read more…
A recent story in Baptist Press (archive) caught my eye with a reference to a self-proclaimed nontheist. It seemed like such a strange way to refer to someone who holds no religious beliefs or affiliations. That observation led me through a rabbit hole of evangelical contempt for non-believers. When their religion’s Read more…
Last time we met up, we talked about how evangelicals destroy their witness online. That means they act in ways that decimate their credibility as Christians. Now, evangelicals have engaged with the internet from the beginning almost, so you might well think that they’d be able to behave themselves better Read more…
Not long ago, we talked about the evangelical concept of a witness. This Christianese term describes the sum total of their knowledge of Christianity, their wisdom in communicating it, their effectiveness as evangelists, and their overall credibility as people. Evangelicals have never been great at maintaining their witness. In the decades Read more…
As the good folks who sell apologetics materials will tell you, apologetics is of dire importance to evangelical Christianity. For evangelicals, that notion is likely more monolithic than evangelism itself. But the reality, as we’ll see, is far different. Today, we’ll dive into the first part of an apologetics seminar Read more…
I bet that nowadays, some people can’t even remember a time when evangelicals weren’t in decline. It’s been going on for a long, long time now. But when one evangelical leader predicted the looming decline of evangelicalism in 2009, the entire Christ-o-sphere erupted into anger and disbelief. They simply couldn’t Read more…
In Christianese, there’s hardly a word that pulls more weight than witness. It acts as a verb, noun, and more in evangelicals’ jargon. But in recent years, they clearly care less and less about it or its importance. They only use it to justify their worst behavior. Today, let’s explore Read more…
For many years, evangelicals waged a loud and obnoxious war on Halloween. It figured prominently in their culture wars during the Satanic Panic, but even years afterward they regurgitated the propaganda they’d absorbed during those critical years. Somewhere around 2018, though, I wonder if they got tired of fighting Halloween. Read more…
Not long ago, we talked about a bunch of stuff—like apologetics arguments—that Christians mistakenly think is evidence supporting their various claims. Now, I want to zero in on one particular flavor of apologetics: the kind we encounter in Creationism. Yes, this sad, weird ideology still exists. Its leaders still cheerfully Read more…
Two recent stories about prayer come to us from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—and both reveal evangelicals’ false narratives around it. Worse, one of those stories represents nothing less than naked opportunism at the expense of the growing number of people suffering through the new conflict/war between Israel and Hamas. Read more…