We’ve been talking lately about the various ways that Christianity rose to power as the dominant Western religion in the 2nd to 5th centuries. But the fun couldn’t last, and now that power is declining sharply with every passing year. As Christians began losing the power to force people to comply with their demands, they also became increasingly desperate to regain that power.
Bill Schnoebelen is one such storyteller. Once a popular figure in fundagelical Christianity, his narrative long ago lost its cachet. He’s had to reinvent himself–but is finding that once someone’s joined the Cult of Before Stories, that’s really hard to do.
When power-hungry people want to abuse others, and they are given the means by which to do it and victims to abuse, abuse will happen–and Jesus won’t lift a finger to stop it.
Church discipline is usually initially presented to members by way of an agreement called a ‘covenant.’ I want to show you these agreements today, and walk you through why they’re such bad news for church members.
I’d be hard-pressed to name a ministry idea that fails as hard as this one.
In a way, it’s more important to understand Jack Chick’s role in shaping right-wing Christian culture than it is to understand Jimmy Swaggart’s contribution to the mindset. For good or ill, Jack Chick was modern American fundagelicalism. I’ll show you what I mean by that today.
The ironic thing is that out of all the made-up, manufactured terrors that Christians burden themselves with, this one actually is a problem. Today I’ll show you why Christian leaders put so much emphasis on never being unequally yoked–and why they should fear it.
If we really want to help people, then we need to do something that the Christians of God’s Club simply can’t do.
Last time we talked about the Oncoming Bus Gambit–that popular Christian thought experiment–because the movie God’s Club is built around this trope. The story centers around the efforts of protagonist schoolteacher Michael Evans to proselytize kids at his public school, the pushback he receives as a result of his “help,” and how he overcomes this persecution.
The central idea in the Christian movie God’s Club, which we reviewed recently and have been discussing off and on, is a very common talking point believed by right-wing Christians all over America: that they are facing unprecedented levels of persecution in this country, and thus are in great danger of losing their religious liberty–and from there getting imprisoned and even executed for their beliefs. Non-Christians may well feel baffled about why so many Christians cling to this idea as hard as they do–and why they seem to genuinely think that they are in real danger.