Reading Time: 8 minutes Recently, I showed you this new Gallup poll bearing yet more bad news for Christians (here’s the original story). In it, we learned that fewer than half of Gallup’s survey respondents said they belonged to a church. Church-belonging Christians now represent a minority in America. And you can guess that Christian leaders — especially from the really authoritarian, reality-challenged flavors — don’t like that poll at all. Today, let me show you some responses to the news, and what I discovered when I went to find out what Christians plan to do about it.
No True Scotsman
Posted inUncategorized
What is “True Christianity”?
Reading Time: 8 minutes How does one go about arguing that their version of Christianity is the “True Christianity”™? This is an epistemological and exegetical problem. I have discussed this previously with regard to Islam and its differences to Christianity in ‘“True Islam” and violent extremism – redux’ and “Islam vs Christianity: the core differences”, the latter which I will […]
Posted inReligion
Deconversion: Christian Leaders Throw Down Against Ex-timonies
Reading Time: 11 minutes In the wake of some high-profile deconversions, toxic Christians have begun to notice ex-timonies again. And as usual, the Christian love flows freely from their spewholes. Today, let me show you some of their reactions–and what those reactions reveal about the fight of their lives.
Posted inReligion
Joshua Harris and the TRUE CHRISTIANS™
Reading Time: 9 minutes Don’t know who TRUE CHRISTIANS™ are? Just ask them. They’ll tell you! And as certain as they are of their own status, they’re even more certain about that of other people. Today, let me show you what that label means, why so many Christians police and gatekeep it like they do, and what their hypocrisy means in the big picture.
Posted inReligion
Why the ‘Christian Love’ Flows After Joshua Harris’ Announcement
Reading Time: 7 minutes Evangelicals’ reaction came swiftly and inevitably in the form of their usual ‘Christian love.’ This reaction shows us way more about themselves than they should want us to know, and yet they can’t help themselves. Today, I’ll show you why Joshua Harris’ tribemates reacted like they did–and why they felt they had to.
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In Search of the TRUE CHRISTIANS™
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last time we met up, we explored the authoritarian urge to control how people use language. Today, we dive into a specific example of that urge. One of the biggest power plays in the religion is occurring right now as we speak, and it concerns who exactly gets to define what a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ is. […]
Posted inReligion
The No True Scotsman and Christians’ Version of Atheism
Reading Time: 10 minutes I’ll show you what this fallacy is, why and how Christians use it, and why we’re in the right to reject both their mislabeling of atheism and their negation of us.
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The Tell-Tale Heart of #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear.
Reading Time: 11 minutes I was even more interested in the responses to the stuff women are sharing on #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear. These responses reveal a lot about the religion and its direction–and why it is failing so fast and so hard. They are the reaction to a tell-tale heart in hashtag form.
Posted inEthics and Morality
No True Scotsmen, Religion and Criminality
Reading Time: 6 minutes This old chestnut. It rears its ugly head every so often when a believer is found to do some terrible crime. I think the last time I talked about it in this context was when Anders Breivik went and shot up a group of young political people in Norway. Let’s first remind ourselves of the […]
Posted inReligion
Evangelical Churn: The Fury of the Tribe
Reading Time: 9 minutes You can probably imagine that Christians aren’t terribly happy about Shannon Low’s deconversion. Today we’ll look at what his onetime tribe is making of his defection, because most ex-Christians have encountered much the same treatment–and if you’re a newly-deconverted person and haven’t yet, hang in there because you probably will at some point.