Reading Time: 4 minutes Despite all the drama occurring on Capitol Hill right now, the new year has also reminded us that some things will never change, like Christians rewriting old songs like “Eye of the Tiger” to spread the Gospel message: That’s the sort of “Christianized” song you might hear in a lot of modern evangelical services. Or […]
Christian Media
Posted inGeneral
The Jesus obsession in ‘The Great Divorce’
Reading Time: 11 minutes By the time I joined evangelicalism (in the mid-1980s), I learned to feel downright guilty for not injecting enough Jesus-ification into my life. I couldn’t just read a fantasy novel for the sake of it, go to a movie, or enjoy music that didn’t mention Jesus even once.
Posted inBooks
‘The Great Divorce’ Horrified Me (Review)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Today, let’s review The Great Divorce — and get an idea of how its ideas have unfortunately infested Christians’ thinking today.
Posted inReligion
Thom Rainer’s ‘Autopsy’ Needs Churches to Totally Change Now Please
Reading Time: 6 minutes In essence, ‘Autopsy’ demands that evangelical churches become something besides what they are and always have been: gratification stations for the self-declared chosen elite ambassadors of King American-Jesus Superman.
Posted inGeneral, Religion
‘Christian Rock’ During the Satanic Panic (LSP #158)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Hi and welcome back! I’ve wanted to feature this topic for a while now, and today seems like a great day for it. Way back when, evangelicals clutched their pearls over an imaginary Satanic plot to take over the world. A big part of that plot centered on demons influencing the hearts and minds of […]
Posted inReligion
Deconversion: How Reality Drained My Faith Pool
Reading Time: 10 minutes Hi and welcome back! Lately, we’ve been talking about a Christian book called Atheist Overreach. In particular, yesterday we discussed the ways that Christians mangle and negate science — and even deny reality itself — to make their claims look more valid. That line of thinking led me to memories of my own deconversion. Today, […]
Posted inGeneral
The Conversion of Bernice Krueger in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #154, Ch. 36-37)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Hi and welcome back! We turn our attention now to Frank Peretti’s 1986 novel, This Present Darkness. In this installment, the finale continues to build. And that means that Peretti continues to move a bunch of plastic cut-outs shaped like people around on his gameboard to their rightful places. So far, Bernice Krueger has escaped his […]
Posted inReligion
‘Atheist Overreach’ and the Law of Conservation of Worship
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hello and welcome back! Recently, I got a little book with a title I’d consider clickbait in a blog post: Atheist Overreach. Its author, Christian Smith, says he wrote it to help normies achieve ‘greater insight and perhaps, dare I say, enlightenment.’ Oof. I wanted to show it to you because it’s a relatively new book that […]
Posted inReligion
The Big Coincidences Build in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #152, Ch. 33-34)
Reading Time: 10 minutes Hi and welcome back! Now, let’s turn our attention to the finale gaining steam in Frank Peretti’s 1986 Christian pipe dream, This Present Darkness. In this installment, all of our main and secondary characters come together at last in preparation for the confrontation to come. Also, Edith Duster makes a surprise return! Y’all, these chapters have […]
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.