Reading Time: 7 minutes Though he kept these facts on the down-low, Gary Smalley himself was a big-name complementarian and evangelical Christian. Because he wrote from that perspective, his tribe didn’t even care that he lacked any qualifications for counseling married couples. Today, I’ll show you why that perspective matters more than qualifications to Gary Smalley’s target audience–and why that audience would turn to poor-quality advice like his for help.
The Authoritarians (Blog Series)
Posted inReligion
If Only He Knew: The Huckster Fleecing These Sheep
Reading Time: 8 minutes Over the next week, I’ll show you just why Christian marriage advice is so pathetically awful. Today, we kick off the slumber party with a look at the author of If Only He Knew, and get an overview of what this book offers.
Posted inReligion
Christianity Works For Them, and Evangelists Hate Being Reminded Of It
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Christians try to sell us their religion, they bristle when we treat their assertions like subjective opinions. But even more than that, these Christians get downright annoyed when we respond to their earnest and tedious sales pitches by saying we’re glad that Christianity works for them. My goodness, a whole bunch of them just hate that phrase! Today, I’ll show you why–and the pity party a lot of Christians are throwing for themselves lately over it.
Posted inUncategorized
Keeping Up Appearances in the Cult of Family
Reading Time: 9 minutes Lately, we’ve been talking about authoritarian Christians’ new marketing push: the Cult of Family. Only these Christians know how to create and maintain happy families. Didn’t you know? But as we saw last time, these same Christians despise the values that go into that wondrous and rewarding task. They follow very different values. And they accidentally reveal, constantly, how those values turn out for them. Today, let me show you how toxic Christians let slip what their family lives really look like, and why they do it.
Posted inGaming, Religion
The Cult of Family Despises Family Values
Reading Time: 6 minutes Not only do authoritarian Christians not know how to create and grow happy families, but they actively despise and fight against the values that go into that delightful and rewarding task.
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 inReligion
Leaving Nothing to Chance in the Cult of Family
Reading Time: 7 minutes They promise their followers that, by following their orders to the letter, happy, harmonious marriages and families become all but inevitable. Those followers will likely never even realize that their orders contain nothing that actually produces happy, harmonious relationships of any kind. Today, I’ll show you what I mean.
Posted inReligion
Achieving a Happy Family, Sort Of, in Christianity’s Cult of Family
Reading Time: 7 minutes Like all marketing hype, though, this promise is largely imaginary, and fails far more often than it succeeds at its goal. Here is how these Christians tell their flocks how to achieve happy families–sort of.
Posted inReligion
The Cult of Family and Its Failure to Launch
Reading Time: 7 minutes Do the most extremist, authoritarian flavors of Christianity really have a monopoly on the best marriages and happiest families? We’ll see. Today, let’s start with the belief itself–and why it’s so important to those who hold it.
Posted inReligion
Abuse of Faith: The SBC Continues to Circle the Wagons
Reading Time: 9 minutes Generally speaking, he and the entirety of the SBC’s top leadership knew. They simply avoided the topic till they simply couldn’t anymore. Their goal now appears to be getting a handle on the public-relations nightmare that this report represents, not making tangible changes to resolve the issues it uncovered.