Reading Time: 4 minutes In yet another example of Christian conservatives telling on themselves, Matt Kennedy, rector of Church of the Good Shepherd (an Anglican church) in New York and father of six, recently revealed his best child-rearing advice in a Twitter thread. Kennedy measures his success by the fact that “none of them are in jail.” If that’s […]
child abuse
Posted inParenting & Family
Support for corporal punishment varies by religious identity
Reading Time: < 1 minute When asked if it is sometimes necessary to give a child a good hard spanking when disciplining them, 48% of nonbelievers agreed. This is more than Jewish respondents at 38%, but nonbelievers are the 2nd lowest group. 81% of Baptists believe spanking is necessary for discipline, followed by 74% of Non-denominational Christians.
Posted inReligion
Jesus as a child sacrifice?
Reading Time: 5 minutes A simple argument that tries to defend Christian dogma by correcting a clumsy phrasing—that Jesus was a child sacrifice—goes off the rails in a surprising number of ways.
Posted inLaw
31 former students sue Seventh-day Adventist school for child abuse
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dozens of lawsuits have just been filed against Miracle Meadows School, a Seventh-day Adventist-run alternative school in Salem, West Virginia that has become synonymous with abuse and neglect. It comes after a previous group of students sued the school for similar reasons and came away with a hefty settlement. Miracle Meadows first made headlines for […]
Posted inReligious News
Workers at Alabama church-run daycare charged with felony child abuse
Reading Time: 2 minutes Three women who worked at a church-run daycare facility in Alabama were arrested yesterday on charges of child abuse against up to a dozen kids under the age of two. (Seven kids have already been identified as victims.) The incidents took place at a daycare run by Journey Church of the River Region in Prattville, […]
Posted inGeneral
Study: Childhood Trauma Affects People for Years
Reading Time: 4 minutes Hi and welcome back! Today’s story might not be all that surprising, but it definitely bears mention. A long-term study (link) has revealed that childhood traumas and bad experiences can linger with us for our entire lives. Since we talk a lot around here about being raised in authoritarian religious households, I thought this study […]
Posted inReligion
Josh Duggar and His Entirely Unsurprising Child Porn Charges
Reading Time: 11 minutes Hi and welcome back! Last night, we got the news that Josh Duggar — eldest ultra-evangelical son of ultra-evangelical Quiverfull-type parents — had just been arrested. No charges had been filed yet, but no bail had been set, either. Well, we found out today what the charges were: possession of child porn. I hope nobody’s […]
Posted inReligion
How the Satanic Panic Led Straight to QAnon
Reading Time: 11 minutes After a couple of years of ignoring the whole thing, evangelical leaders have finally noticed just how many of their flocks have begun chasing after QAnon. And of course the flocks have done that. Thanks to the Satanic Panic years ago, they were primed and ready for just such a time as this.
Posted inReligion
Weaksauce Substitutes and Daddy Issues in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #124, Ch. 14)
Reading Time: 10 minutes In Chapter 14, we’ll discover how dangerous it is for Christians to seek out real experiences that compete with their beliefs. We’ll also encounter a character capitalizing on a young woman’s Daddy issues. Yes, today, Lord Snow Presides over two dangers fundagelicals dreaded in the Satanic Panic in the 1980s: counterfeit experiences and secrecy.
Posted inReligion
Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Pets: MLMs On the Prowl
Reading Time: 7 minutes As public understanding of and backlash against MLMs grows, the people caught up in these schemes get more and more desperate to succeed in them. These examples demonstrate that lately, no low is too low for a desperate hun.