authoritarian leaders and followers

church drift with the waves | roll to disbelieve

Steve Timmis’ rise and fall (reveals a serious problem in Christianity)

The more seriously Christians take their ideology, the more dangerous a malignant leader becomes to them. One prime example of these rules could well be what just happened in Acts 29, a huge Christian church-planting business. Their leader, Steve Timmis, just lost his job there. And he lost it by being, apparently, a grade-A jerkweed. Today, let’s check out Acts 29 and see what red flags Steve Timmis might have been waving there long before his situation came to a crisis point. 

By Captain Cassidy, ago

What Thom Rainer Teaches Pastors About Anonymous Complaints

Today, I offer up a recent blog post from none other than Thom Rainer, one of the biggest names of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He wrote about how pastors should handle anonymous complaints. And y’all, his post reveals one of the most serious disconnects in the minds of authoritarian Christian leaders–and maybe even gives us a hint about why their churches have been doing so poorly for so long.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

Before the Cult of Before Stories: Tricking Authoritarians

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.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

The Predators in Plain Sight (in a Broken System)

It seems like there is a never-ending litany of miserable stories about abusers, predators, and scam artists lurking around Christian churches. If I wanted to write one of those blogs that concerned itself chiefly with exposing and discussing these people, I’d have to seriously step up my schedule–because there are that many stories, and each is more nauseating and horrifying than the last. But for some strange reason, Christian churches rarely engage with the problem they’ve created for themselves and perpetuate through their cultural practices and beliefs, and today I’ll touch on why that might be.

By Captain Cassidy, ago