Reading Time: 11 minutes Recently, I learned of very sad news: Darrin Patrick, an evangelical pastor, has apparently died by suicide. Unfortunately, this news represents part of a widespread and growing trend in that end of Christianity. Today, let me show you what that trend is, and what it means for evangelicals as a group.
Groupthink
Posted inReligion
The Most Important Christian Claims (Fail Too)
Reading Time: 7 minutes Last time, we talked about the Christians who act all mystified about how their claims could possibly lack credible support. In the end, it came down to them not understanding what claims actually are, much less how to identify one and then adequately support it. Today, I’ll show you why that culturally-ingrained inability has led to the failure of their most important claims of all.
Posted inGaming, Religion
Dungeons & Dragons: An Old Cartoon Is New Again
Reading Time: 8 minutes Dungeons & Dragons somehow, against all odds, became an animated TV show in 1983. My sister and I were instantly hooked on it.
Posted inUncategorized
Living Behind A Mask
Reading Time: 12 minutes A recent scandal erupting on social media has shed some light on complementarianism and why it still exists despite being so obviously terrible. Come with me through an adventure in toxic communities. Then I’ll show you how this scandal relates to authoritarian Christianity–and why it’s so important for us to be able to identify the signs of a toxic community. Allez cuisine!
Posted inReligion
Christian Advice: From Useless to Disastrous, For a Reason
Reading Time: 7 minutes Much of the advice that these authoritarian Christian leaders offer their flocks sounds absolutely useless–that is, when it isn’t disastrous! Today, I’ll show you why these leaders’ advice isn’t changing anytime soon.
Posted inLGBTQ, Religion
Roy Moore and the Real Virtues of a Broken System
Reading Time: 15 minutes Roy Moore is someone who benefits from reaching the top of the ladder of a dysfunctional system that is possibly one of the worst out there. He does it by embodying his tribe’s virtues to the letter. I’ll show you what I mean by that–and what his system’s real virtues actually are. Worse, I’ll show you how Roy Moore may well have himself a lucrative career in politics thanks to how his broken system works.
Posted inLGBTQ
Conditional Acceptance and Bigotry-for-Jesus.
Reading Time: 12 minutes Christians use something called conditional acceptance to try to maintain control over a culture that is slipping out of their grasp more quickly with every passing day. I wanted to talk more about that paper today, because I’ve been noticing for a while that Christians sure do this a lot–and it’s very far from their stated goal of loving humanity.
Posted inReligion
Burnout: Pastors’ Wives Confess All
Reading Time: 17 minutes Today I’ll show you what this problem looks like, what the women dealing with the problem make of it, and what it means for the religion as a whole.
Posted inReligion
Coercion Through Virtue Signaling: The Last Ditch.
Reading Time: 8 minutes We’ve been talking about the various ways that Christianity has used coercion to convert and retain members through the centuries. Its legal clout has faded and its political power has waned, its credibility as a world faith is faltering more quickly than anybody could have guessed, its members leave by the thousands per day, and churches close by the hundreds per year. Its leaders and adherents alike know that clearly, something must be done! But when there is nothing in their toolbox but coercion, then that is the tool they shall use–even when coercion only hastens their end.