Over the past five years or so, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been fighting more and more over their Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). This relatively-new subgroup of the SBC has become a proxy for the fight between the denomination’s two factions. One of those factions, the hardliner Read more
Years ago, I wrote about Bill Schnoebelen as part of the Cult of Before Stories series. The Cult includes that vast collection of fake, bombastic Satanism-and-witchcraft-themed testimonies that hucksters peddle for attention and profit to evangelicals. These fake testimonies hit their peak around the late 1980s before petering out in Read more
Recently, Calvinist pastor and G3 Conference founder Josh Buice got caught operating eight sockpuppet accounts over at least a couple of years. He used them to anonymously criticize and attack other evangelicals. So far, he’s lost his G3 leadership position at least. But he’s not the first Calvinist leader caught Read more
Tradcaths, a super-vocal, super-conservative branch of Catholicism, have been extra weird since Pope Francis died. I can see why, too: Most of them converted into Catholicism from extremely conservative hardliner evangelical groups, so they expect Catholicism to work like their old faith—just with extra incense and chanting. Nor do they Read more
Last time we met up, we talked about an evangelical leader named Mike Bickle. He founded and used to lead an evangelical group called International House of Prayer (IHOPKC). Over a dramatically short time last year, his star crashed to earth. The truth came out at last: For decades, he’s Read more
Once again, right-wing Christian leaders are spinning bad news straw into gold, and as always it’s gloriously daffy. With churches emptying and scandals piling up, let’s unpack the bad news they can’t face—and how they’re lying to their flocks about winning the culture wars (This post first went live on Read more
A lot is going down in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I mean that literally. Their membership hasn’t even yet hit the bottom of its long-haul decline, and now the money train is slowing down. And now, as they gear up for their big Annual Meeting (June 8-11 in Dallas), Read more
Sometimes, Christians start flailing around trying to figure out what their practice of Christianity is missing. I was reminded of this truth just last week while researching our Catholic evangelism topic. Along the way, I ran across a Catholic convert’s testimony. It contained the usual tropes of something being missing Read more
Accounts differ somewhat regarding exactly what happened with Pope Francis this past month, but everyone close to the situation agrees that he was very sick and is still recovering. He seems to have stabilized somewhat at this point, but his courtiers are still all aflutter. Speculations abound about what’ll happen Read more
Next week, Matt Queen finds out what his penalty will be for lying to federal investigators about a sex assault cover-up at a Southern Baptist seminary. Through his lawyer, Queen is trying to make himself seem like a TRUE CHRISTIAN™. Yes, he just made a little bitty oopsie-doodle-boodle! He was Read more