To say the least, we haven’t been, um, impressed by it a whole lot. And the funny thing is, a lot of his fellow fundagelicals aren’t either. It seems like for every fan of the guy’s ideas, he’s got a couple of detractors–all of whom have their own pet ideas about What the Big Problem Here Is and How to Fix It.
David Kinnaman’s central idea is that The Big Problem Here is that modern churches aren’t properly discipling their youth and that if this starts happening properly, young people will stop leaving and maybe even return to the groups they’ve already left. Today I’ll teach you what this confusing term means–most of the time anyway–and why this author is totally wrong.
David Kinnaman always couches Prodigals’ disbelief in terms of how they came to disbelieve. The exact stuff we don’t believe doesn’t interest him nearly as much as how we related to our last Christian group–and how we might relate to another in the future.
For a long time now we’ve been talking about evangelical churn and the strange and wacky effects of Christianity’s continuing hemorrhage of members. Here’s a new sign that I hadn’t quite thought about until now: pipe organs in need of new homes as churches all over the country close.
This book is a good example of how wishful thinking and self-deception makes Christians incapable of seeing what’s happening in their religion, much less acting to change anything for the better.
Nowadays, many Christians act like they only run into trouble because individuals come in and wreck their parade. But they’re wrong. Despite what Christians believe, it’s not really all that one guy’s fault. It’s the fault of the system itself allowing those disruptions into the mix.
One verse most fundagelicals know well is 1 Timothy 6:10: the line about how money is the root of all evil. But I don’t think that’s true. I think, rather, that love of power is their religion’s big problem.
I’ll show you why Christians are fond of the Argument from Embarrassment, and why that misplaced fondness matters to the rest of us.
My ex-C friends are reeling–as they should be–at the news that a recent Republican scandal hit a little close to home this past week. To me, the story illustrates one of this blog’s primary messages: that deconversion doesn’t actually instantly confer enlightenment or wisdom upon anybody.
So Preston Sprinkle went into the overflowing hopper of Christians Who Think They’re Saying Something New and Exciting But Aren’t, and we all moved on. Then around Easter I caught wind of him proudly announcing that he’d written some more stuff on the subject and done a podcast or something, and I found myself groaning inwardly.