Evangelicals have no shortage of advice about becoming a good listener. It’s one of their main evangelism strategies, after all! Being a good listener involves a number of soft skills, however, and evangelicals really can’t practice any of them without serious challenges to their beliefs. They find themselves, therefore, in Read more
Personal evangelism abuses social roles and expectations to deliberately manipulate targets. No wonder the flocks hate it!
One of the earliest known human sites speaks to the power of ritual. Today, let me show you how our ancestors related to ritual, how they used it, what it did for our entire species, and why ritual practices certainly change a lot over time, but they still matter today. Read more
As I researched the Anglican Church’s ongoing sex abuse crisis, a secondary story about organizational power emerged. It illustrates the gulf between an organization’s leaders and its followers—and how those leaders must be much more careful than they think about how their behavior comes off to followers. This story pairs Read more
Not long ago, I ran into an article about Dean Inserra, a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) pastor, and his thoughts about evangelism. Specifically, Inserra identified one group of people who were virtually impossible to convert to his brand of tribalistic white evangelicalism: “Good people.” In his opinion, “good people” resisted Read more
Thom Rainer functions as a living, breathing, nonstop rebuttal to evangelical claims. Back in Ye Olden Daies of evangelical power, he reigned as the leader of Lifeway Christian Resources, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) propaganda and publishing arm. During that time, Lifeway tanked in sales. Once he scare-quotes ‘retired,’ he Read more
Engaging meaningfully with new information is a process. Avoiding that engagement is called antiprocess. When it comes to people’s beliefs, antiprocess is how they avoid confronting challenges and contradictions, and still come out thinking that they totally nailed that fight.
For decades now, Christians have been arguing among themselves about worship music. And I can see why. Music speaks to the heart and mind in ways that words simply can’t. Two editorials from Christianity Today reveal that this argument is nowhere near an end. In fact, it might only be Read more
The day I realized that Christianity is a super-intense fandom with extra strings attached, a lot of keys turned in a lot of mental locks for me. Ever since that magic moment, I haven’t been able to view exhortations to Christians about reigniting their Jesus-passion the same. I just can’t Read more
Most folks don’t like to take social risks. Evangelicals aren’t any exception to that rule. So they seek out ways to cushion those risks as much a they can.