Reading Time: 14 minutes If I’m right, then it doesn’t matter at all how many people Heath Lambert loses over his demand.
Reformed Theology (Calvinism)
Posted inPsychology
Why dissenters won’t (and can’t) save Christianity or evangelicalism
Reading Time: 8 minutes Eventually, one after another, various Christians have become completely positive that they know exactly how to save their religion from utter irrelevance. A recent New York Times op-ed post represents only the most recent of the tribe’s guesses about how to do it with evangelicalism. Today, let me show you some of the previous guesses. Then, let’s check out this most recent one. And then, let’s explore why it won’t work either–and why it can’t.
Posted inCulture
Culture warriors just wrecked an old denomination
Reading Time: 7 minutes In 2012, the RCA began to break apart over homosexuality. One faction –the more mainline end — wanted inclusion. The other — the culture warriors — wanted to the denomination to be bigots-for-Jesus. That breakup completed this month, with 43 congregations full of culture warriors leaving. They’re joining a new denomination, ARC (Alliance of Reformed Churches). All this, over a culture war evangelicals lost over a decade ago!
Posted inUncategorized
Calvinists, On Why People Dislike Calvinists
Reading Time: 8 minutes Recently, I discovered that Calvinists themselves have caught on to outsiders’ near-universal dislike of them. But as usual for extremists, Calvinists’ utter lack of self-awareness has led them to some really wacky conclusions about why that dislike exists.
Posted inReligion
Russell Moore Wants Authoritarianism, Just Without Scandals
Reading Time: 8 minutes I had not yet learned that authoritarianism itself precludes sincerity or faithfulness in Christianity. Individual Christians might cultivate these traits, but there is no way to have a whole group of them reliably doing the same thing. Sooner or later, a bad-faith actor gets into that group — and wrecks it, often before it’s even really gotten off the ground.
Posted inReligion
Russell Moore: Not Really a Hero
Reading Time: 8 minutes In these two letters, Moore tries very hard to portray himself as a man of deep principles and great morality: a hero in every sense of the word, fighting hard against the enemies of good in the halls of power in his denomination. Alas, his actual behavior doesn’t quite support that portrayal. Today, we’ll see how Russell Moore fits into his own self-presentation as a big damn hero.
Posted inReligion
Church Plants: Making Awful Lemonade Out of SBC Lemons
Reading Time: 7 minutes Yes, the SBC ended up with a small net positive in church additions to their denomination. Much of it seems to have come from church plants, meaning brand-new churches. But that number isn’t one to celebrate, as we’ll see today.
Posted inGeneral
Gospelbound Embraces the False Myth of Persecution
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Lately, we’ve been talking about a podcast called Gospelbound. It’s a production of The Gospel Coalition, a hard-right Calvinist evangelical group online. In this particular episode of Gospelbound, two guys talk about all the awful persecution that their tribe totally faces. Except this persecution is largely a complete myth. In reality, they’re usually […]
Posted inReligion
Christian Strategies Reveal Their Disbelief in Their Own Claims
Reading Time: 9 minutes For a bit now, we’ve been looking at an evangelical podcast called Gospelbound. In the specific episode we listened to, two Christians outlined their strategies for reversing their religion’s decline. Interestingly, both strategies reveal the speakers’ distinct lack of faith in their own religious claims. Today, let’s marvel at their accidental reveal — and ask what their strategies might look like if they actually believed that anything they said about their god was true.
Posted inReligion
Gospelbound: Authoritarians Think More Control Means Less Churn
Reading Time: 10 minutes The tagline TGC created for Gospelbound claims it offers listeners “firm faith in an anxious age.” Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Instead, it offers the usual authoritarian blahblah from the most toxic elements in their entire end of Christianity. I’ve saved the most alarming of that blahblah for last: their oh-so-very Calvinist plan for churn reduction. They think more control over congregants means less churn from their churches. Today, I’ll show you what that means — and why it’s such a laughable contradiction of the supernatural claims of authoritarians.