A traveling evangelist has begun upselling a failed 2014 evangelism campaign called “Who’s Your One?” Today, let me show you what this campaign is, who started it and who adopted it and why, how it failed, and most importantly what it tells us about the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole.
The reason evangelicals invented complementarianism was to win a denominational slapfight. That’s it. The architects of it just wanted to demolish feminism. So they simply did not care how complementarianism would play out in the everyday lives of their increasingly-authoritarian flocks.
Testimonies, in Christianity, are short anecdotes about how Christians came to believe the various claims made by their flavor of the religion. They’ve been on my mind lately because not long ago, a Christian told me that he thought Christian Read more
In the spring a Gen X blogger’s fancy lightly turns to this year’s Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In election years, these meetings get extra-exciting for observers of this embattled denomination. And this year’s election is going to be extra-dextra-exciting, because it occurs during one of the SBC’s schisms. This year, the Old Guard and Pretend Progressives will clash for temporary ownership of the SBC. Winner takes all. Today, let’s meet the two candidates offered up by the Old Guard.
Recently, Elon Musk challenged Vladimir Putin to single combat–with the winner taking Ukraine. It was a dumb joke, for all that Musk claimed to be “absolutely serious” about it. But it caught my attention because the person he challenged happens to be one of the biggest authoritarians on the planet. That kind of challenge means something to an authoritarian that a non-authoritarian doesn’t quite understand.
A few days ago, the world learned that Brian Houston–beleaguered founder of Hillsong Church, a global megachurch–violated his church’s code of conduct with “inappropriate behavior” directed at two women. He’s trying his best to spin-doctor what he did, but he’s just making his situation worse. In the process, he’s revealing just how extensive his enabler network is–and how far they’re willing to go to protect Hillsong itself.
Studies have repeatedly shown that when we have an emotional feeling about a claim, we tend to react to it way differently than if it’s neutral for us. In particular, if the claim challenges our worldview or makes us feel criticized or less-than, we tend to reject it out of hand no matter how much evidence it has to support itself. It’s really hard for us to engage with an idea that makes us feel that way, and even harder for us to change our mind about it.
What’s strange is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen any real advice about evangelizing atheists that might actually work to create a sales engagement.
I’m not even half surprised by any of these revelations. For years now, I’ve noted unsettling trends in this publication. Once again, then, we learn to our detriment that evangelicals cannot have authoritarianism and institutional sexism without it breeding scandals and abuse.
This apology and settlement represent some of the very most definitive actions the SBC has ever taken regarding any sexual abuse claim since journalists first exposed their mega-scandal, “Abuse of Faith,” three years ago. I don’t think the timing of this action is accidental. Today, let me show you why.