Reading Time: 11 minutes If you’re outside a tribe that holds absurd beliefs, their absurdity is patently obvious. But from the inside, such beliefs are resistant to corrective information because they play an important social-psychological function.
tribalism
Posted inReligious News
‘There is a payback coming’ as evangelicals dream of revenge and dominance
Reading Time: 9 minutes Let’s check out a recent gathering of authoritarian evangelicals. I’ll show you their plans–and the not-so-hidden desires of their hearts.
Posted inCulture
How stories made us human
Reading Time: 8 minutes One of the very most human parts of the human situation is our love of stories. It’s how early humans formed groups and stuck together, and it’s how we learn even today.
Posted inGeneral
How a Wingnut Perceives the Loss of Dominance
Reading Time: 8 minutes Today, let’s meet the toxic Christians who consider their loss of dominance to be literally a fate worse than death.
Posted inGeneral
QAnon Lies, and People Die
Reading Time: 7 minutes Hi and welcome back! News of the COVID-19 surge has been unrelentingly awful. One theme dominates that news, too: almost all of the people dying in this surge are unvaccinated. Sure, some of those unvaccinated folks just never got A Round Tuit. But a lot of others have turned out to be victims of the […]
Posted inGeneral
Why QAnon is attacking evangelical leaders lately
Reading Time: 9 minutes In the past, we’ve discussed QAnon — the new moral panic and conspiracy theory that has consumed white evangelicals in America. QAnon claims more white evangelicals than any other religious group. Mostly, these QAnon followers are the rank-and-file of white evangelicalism. Unfortunately, their religious leaders have no idea in the world how to deal with […]
Posted inReligion
Beach Reach: Training the Ingroup to Hate the Outgroup
Reading Time: 9 minutes So, what is the goal of Beach Reach? Today, I’ll show you. I’ll warn you, too: it’s dark, even by evangelical standards.
Posted inReligion
Sermongate: The Seriously Misplaced Priorities of the Evangelical Old Guard
Reading Time: 9 minutes In the various reactions to this mini-scandal that we’ve seen, possibly the worst hot takes of all come from his political enemies in evangelicalism: the Old Guard, whose members work to make the SBC even more regressive, racist, misogynistic, and cruel than it already is. Indeed, their reaction to Sermongate reveals a seriously misplaced set of priorities. Today, let’s check out their reaction — and see how they destroy their own claims to possessing a superior set of morals and ethics over all other flavors of Christianity.
Posted inUncategorized
How and Why Al Mohler Changed His Mind About Women Pastors
Reading Time: 10 minutes Hi and welcome back! We’ve been talking lately about the re-erupting squabble in evangelicalism about women pastors. In particular, the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) hate the idea — Al Mohler in particular. Long ago, he fully supported women pastors. But now he’s 100% against them. And today, I’ll show you why and how […]
Posted inReligion
Gospelbound Talks (Ineptly) About Deconversion
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! Recently, we covered a post by Brett McCracken on The Gospel Coalition (TGC) (archive link). In it, he slammed deconversion and ex-Christians in the most hateful and contemptuous ways imaginable. But at least he demonstrated nicely that evangelicals have finally begun to notice the process of deconstruction and the vast number […]