In the Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus makes a lot of promises to his disciples. In between mass-healing people of physical and emotional distress through his magic, he promises that he’ll return before his followers “tasted death,” and that he’ll give them whatever they ask of him/his father in Read more…
In broken systems with flawed messages, group leaders would rather lay that blame anywhere but where it deserves to be.
Lately, we’ve been talking about Christianity as a fandom. It certainly shares a great many characteristics with secular fandoms: Object(s) of devotion, ritualized behavior, participation in a niche culture, infighting both within the fans’ own particular groups and with other groups in the wider fandom as a whole, and more. Read more…
For centuries, Christians have loved to imagine that each leader in their religion is really a servant leader. That may be true of some, but it’s certainly not true of them all. In Christianity, the worst abuses come from leaders who do not deserve to wield their power. And those Read more…
Look, Satan just attacks, okay? It’s what he does! He attacks!
Evangelicals’ certainty in discernment is bad. Use these progressives’ certainty in discernment instead. Yep yep!
Lately, we’ve been checking out the friendship evangelism techniques pushed by a minor evangelical leader named Larry Dixon. For a few years now, he’s been on a tear about the benefits of being an evangelical like himself. We’ll talk more about the specific entries in this 52-part series later, but Read more…
Long, long ago I fully believed in the power of prayer. I believed that a real live god stood by to receive my prayers, then granted them out of love for me—except, of course, when he didn’t grant them at all. In this way, I was like most Christians today. Read more…
Years ago, I noticed that quite a few younger evangelicals strive mightily to practice what I’ve come to call Weird Christianity. It’s equal parts oneupsmanship, Original Christianity, and yearning for something genuine and real in their religion full of false claims. So Weird Christianity scratches all kinds of itches in Read more…
Rock of ages, cleft for me, still rolling, rock n rolling! It’s Ray Comfort vs the Rock: Who will win their second round?