Reading Time: 10 minutes The tagline TGC created for Gospelbound claims it offers listeners “firm faith in an anxious age.” Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it offers the usual authoritarian blahblah from the most toxic elements in their entire end of Christianity. I’ve saved the most alarming of that blahblah for last: their oh-so-very Calvinist plan for churn reduction. They think more control over congregants means less churn from their churches. Today, I’ll show you what that means — and why it’s such a laughable contradiction of the supernatural claims of authoritarians.
Calvinism
Posted inReligion
Calvinism and Arminianism in the New SBC Power Squabble
Reading Time: 9 minutes As we examine Calvinism’s tie-ins with Robert Aaron Long’s beliefs and how he lived them out, I thought it might be useful to talk about Calvinism and its counterpart and describe how they factor into the SBC’s power squabbles.
Posted inReligion
Tim Keller and the Lies He Tells About Death
Reading Time: 10 minutes Christians promise up and down that their product can give people peace of mind about death. It does not. And Tim Keller found that out the hard way, though I doubt a single one of his followers will understand his recent confession.
Posted inReligion
The Gospel: Meaning and Magic Amid Decline
Reading Time: 6 minutes For years now, evangelical leaders have coped poorly or not at all with their overall decline in cultural clout. As that decline starts hitting closer to home than ever, though, they’ve been leaning harder than ever on a concept they’ve imbued with magical powers: the gospel. Today, let me show you what they mean by this popular Christianese phrase.
Posted inReligion
‘American Gospel’ Accused of Being Calvinist Propaganda
Reading Time: 11 minutes Hi and welcome back! Last weekend, we watched American Gospel: Christ Alone. It’s a documentary about the true and accurate form of the Gospel, presented by a group of Christians who think they’ve got it right. Immediately after its release, other Christians who disagreed with them went on the attack. One of their main accusations involves the […]
Posted inReligion
American Gospel: Christ Alone (Red-Hot Mega-Review!)
Reading Time: 18 minutes Yesterday, we watched American Gospel: Christ Alone. In this 2018 documentary, Christians bicker and argue about exactly what ‘the gospel’ even means. The documentary makers decide ultimately that it means not prosperity gospel. Today, let me show you this documentary — and we’ll see how well they make their case.
Posted inReligion
American Gospel: Pre-Review Warmup!
Reading Time: 4 minutes Today, we prepare to watch a 2018 documentary called American Gospel: Christ Alone. It’s a critical analysis of prosperity gospel and how this ideology has influenced American Christians. This post is our setup post.
Posted inReligion
The Hilarious Glory of a Failed Showdown
Reading Time: 13 minutes Toxic Christians like to set up big showdowns between two diametrically-opposed sides to force other Christians to pick a side they dislike, in order to avoid picking a side they profoundly don’t want to support. That mentality used to work grandly. But now that Christianity is failing, it isn’t working quite so well. Here’s a Christian who tried to set up one of those showdowns, and how he failed on a galactic level.
Posted inGeneral
Lord Snow Presides #16: Mark Driscoll Can’t Stop the Signal.
Reading Time: 6 minutes Having suitably–he thinks at least–absolved himself of responsibility for Mars Hill’s disintegration and his own loss of power, now Mark Driscoll must lay tracks down about his personal integrity.
Posted inReligion
The Big Problem with Denominational Infighting.
Reading Time: 11 minutes I’m reading this weird little sermon transcript about “The Difference Between Calvinism and Reformed” and it’s making me think anew about the big problem with denominational fights: namely, that their proliferation and quarrels only illustrates the lack of validity for Christianity’s claims.