Christians have an entire mythology built around their supposed monopoly on finding meaning and purpose in life, and it’s easy to see the appeal of having those big questions answered so quickly and smoothly. But there’s another (and much darker) payoff for the followers who accept these artificial constructs in place of genuine meaning and purpose that they’ve figured out for themselves.
This second myth drives people to extraordinary lengths–and leads them to make life-altering bad decisions, even after deconversion. I’ll show you why Christians perpetuate a culture based around this second myth, and in the doing hopefully show you how very earthly and non-supernatural their process and thinking really is.
Strap in and hang on–keep your hands and feet inside the SUV at all times and please don’t get excitable with the flashlights around the T-Rex–and let’s turn our attention (and that flashlight) to the topic of Meaning and Purpose in Life.
Today I’ll show you the two kinds of Christian ghosting, how prevalent ghosting has become in that community, and a very likely reason for why it’s happening so much lately. And in the doing, maybe we’ll see something here that we can use to understand ourselves better.
Today we’ve got a progressive Christian who’s here to give us the real skinny about just what’s wrong and just what has to happen to fix everything. I’ll spoiler this thing now by telling y’all that he’s wrong, just in a different direction than we normally see.
The response of Christians to this news isn’t surprising, but it is very telling. In an age when Christians simply can’t bury negative news stories like this one, they’re finding new response tactics that absolve their broken system of any responsibility at all for their hypocrisy.
The bizarre spectacle of their vicious, over-the-top response to his statement demonstrates two things. First, it shows us that they know that the greatest threat to their longed-for return to power comes not from outside their sheepfold, but from within. Second, it shows the rest of us that they are quite right to fear the dissent coming from inside those sheepfolds.
Typically the response of Christian leaders to the fact that their congregations are abandoning them in droves is to blame the congregants themselves for leaving. They act like there simply never is a time when anyone’s allowed to leave, no matter how unserved they feel or how much they disagree with their pastors’ leadership. There was a time not long ago when someone might have cared about this outrage, but that time is fading quickly–and there’s nothing those pastors can do about it (that they’re willing to do, anyway).
The religion’s leaders 100% believe that there’s some magical way to return Christianity to its former power and dominance through marketing and superior sales techniques. This notion is just another example of magical thinking in Christianity, and I’ll show you why right now.
I’ll pick apart his speech today, and then show you–for good measure, since I’m helpful that way–why his tribe is actually having trouble recruiting and retaining members.