Reading Time: 7 minutes Christianity itself became superfluous a while ago for a lot of Americans, and church leaders simply can’t deal with that fact. Well, most of them. Today, we’ll meet a Christian leader who has a better perspective on his religion’s decline.
Christianity Compared to a Business
Posted inGeneral
The Flocks Still Hate Evangelism: Reset Button Edition
Reading Time: 9 minutes Something has to give, when it comes to panicking businesses in decline. They must pick something to cherish and do it right. Sometimes that’ll mean forging ahead with a new customer base they can actually please and which can actually support them as a business. Other times, it’ll mean taking extra-good care of their existing customers. And evangelicals haven’t yet figured out where to land there.
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The SBC’s Big Plan: Sowing Division to Poach New Members
Reading Time: 8 minutes Yesterday, we talked about how strange Ronnie Floyd’s VISION 2025 initiative seems. He wants the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to put into place all this expanded room for more members, but doesn’t include any specific plans to get more members. I theorized at the time that maybe he planned to poach regressive evangelicals from other, more sensible denominations during this pandemic. Well, today we’ll see that this does indeed appear to be exactly what the SBC’s top leaders are counting on. They’re deliberately sowing division to bring vaccine denialists and QAnon- and Trump-addled Christians to their very regressive banner.
Posted inReligion
The Duggars: Authoritarians Trying to Protect Their Tainted Brand
Reading Time: 7 minutes Last week, the Duggar clown car family hit the headlines again. Unsurprisingly, those headlines centered on the arrest of family scion Josh Duggar. Federal authorities charged him with possessing child pornography. Slowly, news has been trickling out about what his father, Jim Bob Duggar, knew and how he handled his eldest son’s impending arrest. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear about his reactions, either. His family struggles hard these days — not with substantively addressing Josh Duggar’s sickening perversion and degeneracy, no, but rather with protecting their family’s two increasingly tainted brands. Today, I’ll show you what the Duggar brand is and how the Duggar patriarch is desperately trying to protect it from that taint.
Posted inGeneral
The Megachurch Model Reveals the New Normal of Christianity
Reading Time: 8 minutes Hi and welcome back! It didn’t take long after Hillsong’s troubles became public for Christians to engage in one of their favorite pastimes: criticizing megachurches. Non-megachurch-attending Christians hate megachurches for all kinds of reasons. Today, I want to show you some of those reasons — and what the megachurch model means in the age of […]
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Overcoming Objections: Evangelism As Predatory Salesmanship
Reading Time: 10 minutes It ought to disturb non-Christians to know about the sheer amount of advice that Christians make available for free online about overcoming evangelism objections. Worse, Christians phrase this advice exactly as such. Today, let me show you some of the stone-cold salesmanship practiced around evangelism — and why that’s actually not a bad thing for Christians.
Posted inReligion
Why Culture Warriors ALWAYS Flunk the ‘Greatest Commandment’
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Evangelicals’ support of super-conservative politics and conspiracy theories has been getting some much-needed attention of late. Suddenly, the culture warriors of evangelicalism are pulling back to a discussion about getting back to that love stuff Jesus commanded them to show without fail. They call it their ‘Greatest Commandment,’ in fact. But […]
Posted inReligion
LifeWay: A Continuing Spiral to the Bottom
Reading Time: 10 minutes LifeWay is the publishing and propaganda arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) — and easily the denomination’s biggest and most influential subgroup. But in recent years, LifeWay looks more and more like a star that is falling. Today, let me catch you up on what’s going on with this evangelical publishing company — and show you why their most recent leader reflects this dysfunctional group’s covert goals a lot better than its stated ones.
Posted inReligion
MLM Coaches: Scavengers of a Declining Industry
Reading Time: 7 minutes Yesterday, I showed you the story of Kimbyrleigha, a social media influencer who did videos criticizing MLMs before joining one. In addition to joining one of these predatory schemes, she offers her fellow multi-level marketing scheme (MLM) participants a coaching service. In this decision, she joins a massive trend in the declining MLM industry: scavengers seeking to make a buck before the gravy train makes its last stop in town. Today, let me show you these scavengers — and how the scavenging trend relates to other declining industries.
Posted inReligion
The Ride or Die Statistic the SBC Can’t Fix
Reading Time: 8 minutes Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Isn’t that the saying? Well, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has long set one statistic above all others. They knew they were in decline long before their membership numbers began to reflect that reality. Today, let me show you their ride-or-die statistic: how they arrive at it, what it means to them, and most importantly what it means to the rest of us.