What matters most is the legacy we leave behind. It’s how we’re remembered and what we learned and shared with others. It’s what we’ve built that lasts and makes a positive difference.
Toxic Christians
Posted inCulture, Deep Dive, Leaving Religion, News, Psychology, Religion, Religious News, Your World, Your Life
The ‘Christian Love’ Flows for Deconstruction
This past year, toxic Christian leaders have finally come around to viewing deconstruction as a very serious threat to their power. (And it is.) They’ve been responding to that threat in the only way they know: with ‘Christian love,’ which as usual looks like cruelty, false accusations, and endless hateful screeching.
Posted inBiology, Culture, Evolution, Latest research, Psychology, Research, Science, Your World, Your Life
Semantic paraphasia: The things we can’t help
I often mis-say specific words. I know the word I want and I’m thinking of the right thing at the time, but the wrong word consistently pops out. It turns out there’s a term for this situation: semantic paraphasia. Today, Lord Snow Presides over our brains — and the stuff we literally can’t help sometimes.
Posted inCulture, Deep Dive, Leaving Religion, Religion
Intentional Ministries: When Congregations Are Pastors’ Worst Problem
The natural inclinations of awful people tend to be awful. And such people can make an innocent visit to a neighborhood church into a horror story those guests will remember for years.
Posted inCulture, Deep Dive, Ethics, Leaving Religion, News, Religion, Religious News, Your World, Your Life
The Endtimes Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
It’s nice that he accepts the science around climate change — and about humans having brought our planet to the brink of utter ecological disaster. That’s definitely nice to see from a Christian. But he’s trying to use that potential future as a way to terrorize people into accepting his religious claims.
Posted inCritical thinking, Deep Dive, Ethics, Religion
Substitutionary Atonement for Decency
Toxic Christians have a lot of similar methods of easing their consciences and keeping themselves feeling smugly superior to others. In a lot of ways, we could even call their self-soothing methods substitutionary atonement for their real-life behavior. Today, let me show you what I mean.
Posted inGeneral
How a Wingnut Perceives the Loss of Dominance
Today, let’s meet the toxic Christians who consider their loss of dominance to be literally a fate worse than death.
Posted inGeneral
Toxic Christians Try Hard to Set Terms for Everyone Else
role in their encounters with people outside their tribe. The more toxic the Christians, the harder they try.
Posted inGeneral
How Toxic Christians Are Destroying Christianity From the Inside
Hi and welcome back! Recently, I ran into a few different articles on Christian sites that all discussed a common problem. Namely, Christians themselves drastically influence their groups’ recruitment and retention rates. It made me laugh, though, because I know that the Christians who need to clean up their act the most have the least […]
Posted inGeneral
The SBC’s Big Plan: Sowing Division to Poach New Members
Yesterday, we talked about how strange Ronnie Floyd’s VISION 2025 initiative seems. He wants the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to put into place all this expanded room for more members, but doesn’t include any specific plans to get more members. I theorized at the time that maybe he planned to poach regressive evangelicals from other, more sensible denominations during this pandemic. Well, today we’ll see that this does indeed appear to be exactly what the SBC’s top leaders are counting on. They’re deliberately sowing division to bring vaccine denialists and QAnon- and Trump-addled Christians to their very regressive banner.