Analyzing Christianity
Confirmation bias: Catholic early marriage edition
Confirmation bias is a helluva drug.
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’ 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
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ wants the culture wars, but make them more Jesus-y
After years of hearing evangelicals declare that their political opponents are, in fact, evil, I got a kick out of seeing Samuel James condemn that exact mindset as the result of improper Jesus-ing
Analyzing Christianity
Don’t worry: Evangelicals know exactly how to evangelize Gen Z
This time around, evangelical leaders want Gen Z evangelicals to do a lot of friendship evangelism. But they also want to train older evangelists in how to better bamboozle young adults.
Analyzing Christianity
‘Before You Lose Your Faith’ calls forth True Scotsmen to battle white evangelical racism
In a lot of ways, this chapter really exemplifies evangelicals’ inability to engage meaningfully with the dealbreaking flaws in their flavor of Christianity—like the Bible’s amazing ability to twist and contort to fully support any opinion that any Christian could ever possibly have.
Analyzing Christianity
Reframing evangelicals’ bigotry-for-Jesus in ‘Before You Lose Your Faith’
Something in Rachel Gilson’s childhood led her straight to the worst, cruelest, most evil and inhuman flavor of Christianity in the entire shit-tastic Christian rainbow. Through sheer necessity, she’s figured out a way to reframe her tribe’s infamous bigotry-for-Jesus. But it doesn’t have to fool anybody else, and I don’t think it even fools her at times.
Analyzing Christianity
Evangelicals still yearn for the Rapture with the ‘Prophecy Pros’
Let’s check out yet another pair of Rapture hucksters today, the howlingly self-described ‘Prophecy Pros,’ and see how they build upon evangelicals’ existing folk-beliefs about the end of the world.