Analyzing Christianity
The Unequally Yoked Club: How marriage became a cult in toxic Christianity
Christian leaders push hard to get their flocks to adopt rigid, unworkable rules about marriage. There’s a reason for it, of course.
Analyzing Christianity
The Unequally Yoked Club: The 2018 Gritty Reboot
Some years ago, I ran a series called the Unequally Yoked Club (UYC). It was one of my most popular series–and also one of my longest-running! It was about how Christian couples navigate when one partner deconverts from the religion. Today, let’s return to that topic. Together, we’ll see what’s changed Read more
Analyzing Christianity
Lord Snow Presides Over Christian Weight-Loss Plans (LSP #47)
One of the more recent Lord Snow Presides (LSP) posts was about vegetarianism. It provoked a lot of discussion about eating styles in general–and with it, weight loss (and gain). And this might not surprise you much at all, but Christian hucksters have infested diet systems too! Today, Lord Snow Presides over conjobs in Christian weight loss. We’ll look at a few of these hucksters, and examine why they’re so toxic to their adherents.
Analyzing Christianity
The Cult of Before Stories Welcomes Benedict Atkins!
A line’s determined by two points, so I reckon we’ve found a new trend. His end of Christianity might have come to the Satanic Panic too late for the dancing, but they arrived eventually. So today we welcome Benedict Atkins to the Cult of “Before” Stories!
The Games We Play
Zingers: A Painful Truth That (Many) Christians Don’t Want to Face
Last time we met up, we looked at Lydia McGrew’s take on it. She wrote a sort of Argument from Jesus’ Resurrection Totally Happened So Christianity Itself Is Totally True. Among its many flaws, her essay revealed a huge shortcoming in Christians’ thinking. I’ll show you what that shortcoming is–and why it’s such a dealbreaker.
The Games We Play
The “Prodigal Planet” Grand Finale Review-a-Thon!
Tonight we had a grand time watching Prodigal Planet (PP), the fourth and last movie in the A Thief in the Night (ATITN) series. So is it going to suck unremittingly? Or will there be a few scenes that are jewels in the dungheap? Come and see.
The Games We Play
A Thief in the Night: Traumatizing Children for Fun and Prophet
Sometimes I catch myself thinking that fundagelicals are, at heart, perfectly normal people who have simply been socialized in really awful ways, so they really aren’t aware of the threats they constantly use and the fearmongering behavior they exhibit. I start thinking that they are so immersed in fear tactics that they notice it all about as often as we notice the air in a room or how often we blink. And then A Thief in the Night rolled past my eyes, and I had to come face-to-face with my own boundless misplaced optimism.
Analyzing Christianity
A Thief in the Night Retrospective: Where they (and we) are now
It’s been so eye-opening for me to see just how deeply and painfully these movies have affected so many people with their terrifying, traumatizing message. I’ve heard from a great many people over this past week who wanted to share how frightened they’d been by these movies. So we’re going to be looking at why these movies had the effects they did. I’ll start with a retrospective–come join me!
The Games We Play
“A Thief in the Night” Sequel Extravaganza!
If you wanted to know what 70s Christians thought about the Rapture, these are your movies! Bear in mind that the Christians leading all these churches and Congressional committees and “think tanks” today are the ones who grew up on these movies. These idiotic movies are what informed their opinions about the world. To me, the value they have is that they show me a little of what went into the adult fundagelicals I see grandstanding today.
The Games We Play
“A Thief in the Night” Sequels: The Pre-Review Chat Post!
As horrible as the first A Thief in the Night was, as little happened in it narratively, and as awful as it was according to every single of filmmaking that exists, what blows my mind is that the creators of it found funding for not one–not two–but THREE other sequels.