While reading this awful book, I quickly realized that Gary Smalley wasn’t suggesting his readers make any big changes in their behavior or attitudes. Rather, he only wanted to show them some techniques to ease the worst of their marital crises. But those efforts are doomed to fail. Today, I’ll show you why his suggestions represent the weakest of all weak sauce.
Author Gary Smalley coaches complementarian men in repairing their failing marriages. And as we all know, the first step in fixing a problem is identifying it. Right? So today, come watch my husband, Mr. Captain Cassidy, take a quiz to find out how much trouble our marriage is in. Who knows? Maybe we really need Gary Smalley’s help!
Though he kept these facts on the down-low, Gary Smalley himself was a big-name complementarian and evangelical Christian. Because he wrote from that perspective, his tribe didn’t even care that he lacked any qualifications for counseling married couples. Today, I’ll show you why that perspective matters more than qualifications to Gary Smalley’s target audience–and why that audience would turn to poor-quality advice like his for help.
The notion of spiritual warfare isn’t new at all in fundagelicalism. In fact, it’s a go-to standby non-solution to everything that ails the Christians who buy into it. I bet you had no idea that the gaining of a happy family life hinges completely on spiritual warfare, either! Today, let me show you magical thinking at its very worst.
I came face-to-face with two completely untrue beliefs I held: that my god transformed people upon conversion, and that Christians would never lie while representing that god. Hooboy, don’t ya just have to laugh sometimes? I was so innocent. So this story is about how my then-husband Biff arrived at that dais to lie for Jesus. To get there, he had to fool a whole lot of people–and that is exactly what he did. Today, let me tell you what happened right before that devastating night.
Conservative Christian leaders have sold their female followers a bill of goods about marriage. Today, I’ll show you what that bill of goods contains, and how it’s hurt the women who believe it. It’s a horror story that beats werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and goblins–because it’s real, and it’s happening right now to millions of women.
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
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.
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!
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.