Reading Time: 7 minutes Communion is a big deal to Catholics in America. But about a month ago, a Catholic archbishop in America barred Nancy Pelosi from being able to take Communion because of her vocal position on abortion rights. The Vatican clearly didn’t agree with this decision, and she herself clearly didn’t either.
Christian Infighting
Posted inPolitics
Grace Chapel Megachurch: A Mutiny of Their Own
Reading Time: 10 minutes Sarah Berger, the wife of Grace Chapel’s former high priest lead pastor, Steve Berger, grabbed the mic to rant at length about how her husband had been hard-done-by in the change in leadership. In her rant, though, Sarah Berger said something that really caught my eye. Today, let me show you how an authoritarian leader pulls rank to force compliance from followers.
Posted inReligion
Speaking in Tongues on TikTok (LSP #207)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Hi and welcome back! I saw a story a while ago that has me kinda sighing and laughing at the same time. Pentecostals are still doing their thing, but they’ve had to branch out into social media — especially now that it’s harder for big huge rowdy get-togethers. Of note, Religion News recently ran a […]
Posted inReligion
Megapastor Todd Elliott and the Church Mutiny
Reading Time: 6 minutes For years now, Todd Elliott and his elders have been fighting over who holds ultimate control over the megachurch. Obviously, Elliott — as the sole megapastor by them — thought he should wear the crown. But his elders disagreed.
Posted inReligion
Ed Litton: Evangelicals React to His Plagiarism Scandal
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Last week, we heard about a minor scandal brewing in evangelicalism (and for once, it’s not a sex scandal). Ed Litton, the newly-elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), plagiarized a series of sermons from the previous SBC president, J.D. Greear. As one might expect, his faction’s enemies leaped upon […]
Posted inUncategorized
How Hell Evolved in 2nd-4th Century Christianity (Journey Into Hell #8)
Reading Time: 9 minutes We tracked the prehistory of Hell already, so today, let’s look at what 2nd-4th century Christians did with the idea of it.
Posted inPolitics, Religion
The Sheer Racism in the Russell Moore Letters
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! Lately, we’ve been talking about the two leaked letters from Russell Moore. Until recently, he worked for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) as the leaders of their Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). But a few weeks ago, he resigned from that position (and left the SBC iself) amid a firestorm […]
Posted inReligion
Don’t Ever Believe the Hype: Authoritarian Christians and Their Beautiful Lies
Reading Time: 7 minutes Back in 2013, one of their major subgroups, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), desperately needed an image makeover. They hired Russell Moore to solve their crisis, and he did indeed solve it. But then, the SBC’s top leaders found that they had created a whole new problem, one that they couldn’t easily solve: their hype had collided with their reality. Today, let me show you why you just can’t trust a broken system’s hype, ever, no matter how ethereally perfect it might sound.
Posted inPolitics, Religion
Russell Moore: The SBC Drives Out Yet Another Dissenter
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Yesterday, I showed you the story of a quintessential, consummate yes-man for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC): Al Mohler, who leads their flagship seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS). Very early on, he realized exactly how he was going to need to behave to maintain his upward trajectory in the denomination. […]
Posted inReligion
What Churchless Believers Tell Us About Christians’ Powers of Coercion
Reading Time: 10 minutes What we see now in Christianity’s declining numbers is what a purely-optional, coercion-free Christianity looks like. And it looks like a little minority religion that is largely irrelevant and meaningless even to its own believers.