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Recently someone started a Twitter hashtag called #EmptyThePews to encourage Christians to let the horrifying events of this week be their breaking point–and to walk away from their churches to show that they do not stand with their racist leaders. Immediately stories began pouring through that hashtag–stories about deconversion and disengagement, indignation and anger, disappointment and betrayal: vast narratives revealed in 140 characters or less. I’ll show you why this hashtag matters.

Not long ago, we watched the Christian exploitation-fest that was I’m Not Ashamed. And we all had a lot to say about the movie–very little of it positive. Christians loved it, unsurprisingly, largely because it reinforced for them all the worst parts of their religion’s teachings and showed them a world that matched their worst fantasies. One of their very favoritest fantasies involves their unwarrantedly high opinion of themselves, and this movie served that fantasy up with a side of sweet-potato fries alongside a heaping helping of false martyrdom and fearmongering.

Eclipses are rare occurrences in our world–and even to someone raised in a science-embracing world they can feel mysterious. Little wonder that Christians have been co-opting these events ever since their religion got started.

One day I realized that my prayers had changed without my even noticing. But they had. When I noticed that change, that moment became a turning point in my own faith journey.

This marketing tactic is hugely dishonest, yes, but it’s also very effective against the unwary. No wonder so many Christians use it so often in their evangelism efforts: we carry around in our heads a raft of cognitive biases that ensure that even the most skeptical of us can fall for bait-and-switch evangelism. Today I’ll show you what this type of marketing is and why it works.

What angers me most about the horrible Christian movie I’m Not Ashamed is its absolutely shameless contortion of a child’s brutal, senseless death to advance a very clear political agenda. Today I’ll walk you through how that task was accomplished–and show you why we absolutely must reject it.

Here follows the mega-review and a short rant about the movie, as is traditional; we’ll talk more about it in coming days.

We’re going to be reviewing the movie I’m Not Ashamed shortly, so this is our customary pre-review post setting up the movie and outlining some of its major ideas (and problems). And man oh man, are there ever problems here.

Of all their sales techniques, their most successful is surely their creation of a sense of urgency in their marks. I’ll show you why this technique is so useful–and why it’s starting to backfire on the Christians who use it.

If it’s not fixed by Saturday (tomorrow), I’ll move the review post of I’m Not Ashamed back appropriately since I expect that to be a heavy commenting day and I’d never dream of depriving us of sharpening our claws on this movie!