Analyzing Christianity
Ray Comfort and the Cruel Dilemma
It’s a collision that doesn’t need to happen, and one that no longer gives the results Christian leaders want.
Analyzing Christianity
A Jack Chick Retrospective
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.
Analyzing Christianity
The Real Danger of Being Unequally Yoked
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.
Analyzing Christianity
God’s Club: Being Genuinely Helpful vs. Being Christianly Helpful.
If we really want to help people, then we need to do something that the Christians of God’s Club simply can’t do.
Analyzing Christianity
God’s Club: They’re Just Trying to Be Nice!
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.
Analyzing Christianity
Persecution Complex: God’s Club and the “Religious Liberty” Scam
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.
Analyzing Christianity
“God’s Club” Shows Us the Disconnect Between Christian-Land and Reality-Land
I’d be hard-pressed to point to a more glaring illustration of that discrepancy than the disgraceful spectacle of Christians making movies presenting themselves as they really truly believe they are–while remaining completely (and, one increasingly suspects, willfully) oblivious to how others see them.
Analyzing Christianity
God’s Club: Why Fundagelical Movies Create Such Polarized Opinions.
I’ve been doing reviews of Christian movies for a while now. And unsurprisingly, I have been uniformly unimpressed because Christian media is uniformly awful. But to hear Christians themselves talk about “their” movies, these are all masterpieces. Epics. Perhaps marginally flawed here and there, but essentially wonderful. Everyone else is left to wonder if they’re even seeing the same movies these Christians are praising. I’m not surprised at all to see this lopsided reception.
Analyzing Christianity
God’s Club: The Mega-Review
In ‘God’s Club’, we learn that Jesusing fixes everything—including serious mental illness.
Analyzing Christianity
Checking All the Boxes of a Not-Pology In TGC’s Scandal.
In its scant 140-ish characters, this carefully-crafted, polished tweet manages to check off just about every single item on the list of features of a perfect Christian not-pology.