Analyzing Christianity
A Matter of Faith: The Mega-Review
In ‘A Matter of Faith’, a 2014 Christian movie, a girl attends a college biology class and almost loses her faith!
Analyzing Christianity
Lord Snow Presides #3: The Backlash Against the Internet Begins in Earnest
I’ve seen pastors try off and on to stop their congregants from accessing the internet, but this new book that just came out, What Falls from the Sky, really takes the cake on that score.
History and Science
Lord Snow Presides #1: Sovereign Citizens Edition.
Welcome to the first off-topic chat post!
Analyzing Christianity
The Cult of Before Stories: Bill Schnoebelen, desperate for relevance
Bill Schnoebelen has had to reinvent himself a few times, but maybe he’s finding nowadays that once someone’s joined the Cult of Before Stories, it’s really hard to leave.
Analyzing Christianity
Ray Comfort and the Cruel Dilemma
It’s a collision that doesn’t need to happen, and one that no longer gives the results Christian leaders want.
The Games We Play
My Mother’s Dress
Clothes fascinate me. They’re a powerful sign of our own personal individuality and a statement about how we view ourselves, our place in whatever tribe we call our own, and what aspirations and opinions we hold. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been fascinated with the subject. Weirdly, until recently I wasn’t much for modern fashion itself, but the everyday clothes that people choose and wear is something I could talk about all day long. In my case, the sartorial apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. Today I’ll show you how.
Analyzing Christianity
SHARONDA RASHANDA (Speaking in tongues: A primer)
One of the weirdest practices you’ll ever encounter among right-wing Christians has to be “speaking in tongues.” I strongly suspect that more people know about snake handling than know about speaking in tongues—and for a reason. So here’s a guide to this wild fundamentalist practice!
Analyzing Christianity
We Welcome Ben Carson to the Cult of Before Stories
A long time ago, I wrote a post called “A Cult of “Before” Stories” in which I described what it was like as a young Christian to realize that my then-husband had constructed a testimony full of lies–and how I realized that pretty much all of the really dramatic testimonies I heard from other Christians were largely untrue as well. On the heels of realizing that these stories were untrue, I also began to perceive the unbelievably rich rewards Christians get for concocting and sharing these dramatic testimonies. I began to see my tribe as one that was simply obsessed with these “before” stories–thus, my name for the mindset.
Analyzing Christianity
The Unequally Yoked Club: Fireproof’s fatal assumption
While someone might see this movie and assume–as I did repeatedly–that it was hawking a particular marriage advice manual, The Love Dare, that’s not entirely true. The characters repeatedly reference the book and laud how amazing it is and how much it’s helped their marriages, but the movie is quite clear about exactly what really saved Kirk’s marriage in the movie.
Analyzing Christianity
The Handbook: The ‘original Greek and Hebrew’ (is still nonsense).
Back in my Pentecostal days, there was a phrase I heard non-stop: “the original Greek and Hebrew,” used to describe my denomination’s doctrines and creed. The idea was that our denomination, unlike those of all those other inferior Christians doing everything wrong, had gotten our ideas from “the original Greek and Hebrew” and therefore were closer to what our god wanted out of his followers than all those other Christians were. I notice that Christians still love that phrase, so I want to talk about it today.