all that's really left

Simple misfortune, or divine punishment for sin?

Sometimes when I look back at my days as a Christian, I’m thunderstruck by how absolutely exhausting it was in every single way. For a religion promising peace, rest, a light yoke, and vaguely-defined joy to its followers, Christianity brought precious little of any of it to any of us. Not long ago, I ran across a Southern Baptist Bible study about sin that really reminded me of that exhaustion.

The Southern Baptist races begin as the Old Guard announce candidates

In the spring a Gen X blogger’s fancy lightly turns to this year’s Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In election years, these meetings get extra-exciting for observers of this embattled denomination. And this year’s election is going to be extra-dextra-exciting, because it occurs during one of the SBC’s schisms. This year, the Old Guard and Pretend Progressives will clash for temporary ownership of the SBC. Winner takes all. Today, let’s meet the two candidates offered up by the Old Guard.

Not much to do on patmos I guess

Not the Onion: an evangelical suggests using the Book of Revelation as a self-help guide

Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve finally found an evangelical who thinks that the Book of Revelation is supposed to be a Christian self-help guide to conflict resolution. I thought I’d seen it all with shoehorned misinterpretations, but apparently not! And his listicle displays the worst, most misinformed, most studiously gaslighting elements of evangelicalism as a whole.