Not long ago, the Discord’s AV club watched A Distant Thunder (1978), the sequel to A Thief in the Night. This movie hit a vast number of tropes in evangelical Rapture/Endtimes movies, centering on one of my very favorites: Taking the Mark of the Beast may occur under duress, but Read more
Last time we met up, I showed you how Tim Keller addressed what he called defeater beliefs. We found his self-titled “deconstructions” in a handout hosted by a college evangelism group called Cru. That’s not too surprising, given that the handout is meant to help evangelicals recruit new members to Read more
Not long ago, I ran across a Cru handout of Tim Keller’s “Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs: Leading the Secular to Christ.” In it, he details what he calls these defeater beliefs, which he thinks are beliefs that make Christian claims seem less plausible. But his response to them is anything but Read more
After a new round of people treating belief in Jesus like an essential vitamin every human needs, I want to show you why that’s not true. Faith in Jesus isn’t like Vitamin C. Humans don’t need it like that. Nor can we fail to meet all our emotional needs without Read more
Recently, we watched A Thief in the Night. This 1972 movie is one of the original grandmasters of the evangelical Rapture genre. Millions of people have seen it, and many of them were just children. Today, let’s check out its overview and see how hard it pushes fear-based marketing to Read more
In the 2010s, Christians began noticing that their religion had entered a period of decline. For a while, the hints of it were subtle enough to ignore, so most of them did just that. But eventually, it got too obvious and protracted to do that anymore. Evangelicals in particular evolved Read more
Over the years, I’ve heard my share of nonsensical and weird evangelism advice to Christians. Effectiveness stopped being a concern ages ago, replaced by just getting out there and trying to evangelize. But one bit of that advice stands out as the worst I’ve ever heard. It stands head and Read more
Recently, people have been talking about evangelism in crowded spaces with no way to exit—evangelism to captive audiences, in other words. The evangelists in question do it on purpose, of course. They even gloat about how much they love the fact that nobody can leave the venue. But their gloating Read more
As we wrap up our look at Alpha Course, one fact stands out above all others: This isn’t a very persuasive series. We’ll bring everything home now by summarizing the entire thing, then evaluate it for effectiveness. (This post first went live on Patreon on 7/28/2026. Please support my work—see Read more
Just over ten years ago, big-name apologetics hustlers realized that Christianity was fully and truly in decline. These apologists embarked on a new narrative: That their product, apologetics, would turn the ship around and get Christianity back into cultural dominance. Today, let’s check out their grand visions and predictions—and see Read more