When last we met up, we talked about a YouTube video concerning an abuse scandal that Bethel Church helped cause. Mike Winger, who created the video, painted the scandal as a purely Charismatic evangelical problem. But as we soon found out, his own denomination (Calvary Chapel) has the same scandals Read more
On January 17, Mike Winger released a nearly six-hour-long video about the Shawn Bolz scandal erupting in Bethel Church right now. Winger thinks that the Bolz scandal indicates huge problems within Charismatic evangelical culture. But he’s wrong. The rot goes completely to the core of hardline, right-wing conservative Christianity itself—including Read more
In recent weeks, the right-wing Christ-o-sphere has been alight with outrage over Bethel Church’s protection of an alleged sexual predator and confirmed false prophet, Shawn Bolz. Last time we met up, we talked about how laughably inept Bolz is at what he calls prophecy. But there’s a far darker side Read more
In Alpha Course #9, we began quite a strange pivot into Charismatic-specific flavors of Christianity. That’s no accident, either. As we’ll see today, the masters of Alpha Course might say it’s ecumenical, but this course really aims for one specific destination in converting viewers. We’ll trace the origins of this Read more
Last time we met up, we talked about the weird take on postmodernism that evangelicals have. They consider this philosophy one of their worst enemies, but they don’t understand even the most basic things about it. Despite that trivial little problem, their evangelism experts have been hard at work coming Read more
In Alpha Course video #8, the title promises to tell us exactly who the ‘Holy Spirit’ is. But as we saw in previous videos, it’s pure folly to trust this series’ titles to live up to their promises. In this review, we’ll explore what the video says, what it studiously Read more
Among evangelical these days, their fondest hope is for revival. They want Jesus to send them a massive new influx of fervent converts and re-stoke their own zeal with divine strength. Right now, their current belief is that there’s a quiet revival happening across the western world, particularly among Gen Read more
On September 2nd, Pew Research released yet another blockbuster post about secularization. It reveals that the process of secularization tends to begin with lowered participation in religious rituals, followed by fading of religious identity and eventually even de-prioritizing even affiliation in name only. This study has got to be worrying Read more
We now arrive at Alpha Course #5, which concerns prayer in Christianity. Here, we see Christian dishonesty at its fullest flowering. The Christians responsible for this mess desperately want to promise potential recruits that prayer results in miracles. Oh, yes, they do desperately want to promise that. But they know Read more
On August 11, an evangelical crusade took place in Portland, Oregon—and it reveals some breathtaking arrogance on the part of its creators. It attracted decent numbers who came to hear preachers lament how much “darkness” the city contained and how sad its creators were that the city’s residents had “pushed Read more