Analyzing Christianity
Orthodoxy: Why lockstep beliefs are so incredibly important to evangelicals
Correct beliefs do not correlate with rule-following, no matter how hard fervent evangelicals insist otherwise.
Analyzing Christianity
‘I prayed about it’: Why Christians use prayer as an excuse
If Jesus himself told them in prayer not to take the assignment, then what kind of Christian would the request-maker be to try to jump that chain of command?
Analyzing Christianity
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ retrospective: Who’s its intended audience?
Before You Lose Your Faith is a bunch of answers endlessly searching for a question. It’s a bunch of solutions looking for a problem. It’s a bunch of evangelicals chasing the wind.
Analyzing Christianity
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ makes one last Hail Mary pass
Our last writer throws a Hail Mary with his chapter, which asks doubters to direct their gazes to Jesus himself. As if anyone could!
Analyzing Christianity
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ has no clue why people believe (or disbelieve)
Every time I’ve said I’ve seen the worst thing evangelicals have ever done, one of them has turned up in short order with a backhoe and asked me to hold their Bible. So of course it’d happen with a book they’ve written!
Analyzing Christianity
What ‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ doesn’t understand about community
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ keeps pushing a vision of community that categorically does not exist and can’t ever exist in their flavor of Christianity.
From Patreon
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ loses all illusions of good-faith acting
Toxic Christians love encountering honest, vulnerable people. You know how they see those people? As prey.
Analyzing Christianity
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ hates its strawman of individualism
The fact that so many Christian groups require metaphorical mask-wearing and inauthentic presentation has nothing to do with evil ickie individualistic Western life. Rather, it has everything to do with the exact kind of tribalism that his flavor of Christianity most often embodies.
Analyzing Christianity
How ‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ fails to solve the Problem of Hell
We’re now on Chapter 12 of Before You Lose Your Faith. In this chapter, Joshua Ryan Butler tries—and utterly fails—to solve the eternal thorn in Hell-believing Christians’ side: The Problem of Hell. There’s a good reason why these thorns get capitalized names, of course. No Hell-believer has ever managed to Read more
From Patreon
Before You Lose Your Faith: Ch11 finally makes good, sorta
As a bookmark-carrying bibliophile, I might be required to like this chapter more than usual. We’re now on Chapter 11 of Before You Lose Your Faith. And for whatever it’s worth, this chapter isn’t bad at all. That’s not a huge surprise, given who wrote it: Karen Swallow Prior, now Read more