My desk has a drawer full of free address labels, pens, and other cheap gimmicks sent by charities who hope that sending a gift would make the recipient of their letters feel obligated to give something back. (It doesn't; I plan my giving in advance and never respond to solicitations.) But a letter I got in the mail this week was a new gambit:This mailing came from an evangelical Christian charity (I know - bad targeting on their part). Enclosed with the letter, as you can see, was a $2 … [Read more...]
Book Review: A Year of Biblical Womanhood
December 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Summary: A personable, good-humored example of the liberal-theist cherry-picking ethic. I recently wrote about the evangelical writer Rachel Held Evans and whether her book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, can undo Christianity's entrenched ideals of patriarchy. I still don't think that's likely, but I've read the book now, so I'd like to offer some more thoughts. Evans lives in Tennessee and describes herself as an evangelical Christian, but as evangelicals go, she's hardly typical. She belongs … [Read more...]
Phone-Spam Evangelism
August 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
On Friday afternoon, I got a call on my cell phone from an 800 number I didn't recognize. I let it go to voicemail, and I'm glad I did, because that means I had a recording of this wonderfully bizarre call so I could transcribe and share it with you:God bless you, this is [unintelligible, but sounds like "Tom from NASA"]. I'm calling you because I know that you are going through one of the most toughest times of your life [sic], and this is why I'm calling you because prayer does bring … [Read more...]
The Blinding Fog of Religious Moderation
October 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The author Sam Harris was, to my knowledge, the first of the New Atheists to make a novel and important observation about the way religious privilege operates in our society. Religious moderates talk a good game about peace, democracy, freedom of conscience, equal rights for women and minorities, and so on. But when push comes to shove, they almost always side with their fundamentalist brethren in arguing that faith is a good thing and shouldn't be criticized, even when faith is directly … [Read more...]
The Evangelist’s Funnel
June 20, 2011 by 11 Comments
Through some odd stroke of coincidence, when I was in San Francisco earlier this year, I encountered more than the usual amount of religious nuttiness. I've already written about the woman who gets divine communications in God's actual handwriting. There were also Scientologists handing out pamphlets on a street corner, advertising something called the "Purification Rundown":One or two of these questions, like the one about drug flashbacks, would only apply to people with genuine … [Read more...]
The Necessity of Hell
March 28, 2011 by 24 Comments
After my earlier post on this subject, Slacktivist has written several follow-up posts about the evangelical freak-out over the news that one of their own may not believe in Hell:For Mohler, as for most of Team Hell, we can see that there are two distinct categories. On the one hand there is what is "clearly revealed in the Bible... teachings... doctrine." And on the other hand there's this evasive, fuzzy-wuzzy, extra-biblical, anti-biblical notion of "the character of God."...this is not … [Read more...]
Yes, Virginia, The Bible Does Teach Hell
March 3, 2011 by 33 Comments
Slacktivist, my favorite progressive Christian blog, has been reporting on how the religious right has been in a tizzy over the news that prominent evangelical pastor Rob Bell may no longer believe in eternal damnation. (I know, I know - he doesn't believe that God will torture billions of people in a lake of fire for all eternity? Horrors!)This is a view Slacktivist himself holds, and to defend Bell, he quotes three passages commonly used to support belief in Hell, Luke 16:19-31 (the parable … [Read more...]
The Religious Right Hates Women
February 14, 2011 by
Last month, I wrote about the awful callousness of Catholic hospitals when a woman arrives needing an emergency abortion. As long as there's a fetal heartbeat, the clergy-run ethics committees of these hospitals often deny doctors permission to operate, even if the woman is hemorrhaging and dying before their eyes. Some doctors end up struggling desperately to keep their patient alive until the fetus dies, so they can operate and save her life. Others send these women to the nearest secular … [Read more...]
Book Review: Trusting Doubt
February 11, 2011 by 9 Comments
(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.)Summary: An outstanding analysis of the flaws of evangelical Christianity, written from an insider's perspective by a former believer. My only complaint is that I wish she'd provided more information about what the next step is!Although there are lots of atheist books that present a compelling case for atheism or against religion, there are relatively few that I'd … [Read more...]
The Case for a Creator: Spiritual Wisdom
June 26, 2010 by 22 Comments
The Case for a Creator, Closing ThoughtsAfter spending over a year on this project, we've come to the end of The Case for a Creator. Before bringing this series to a close, I have some closing thoughts on the overall message and tactics of the book.First: Although Lee Strobel tries to pass Case off as a dispassionate examination of scientific findings that just happen to support the existence of an intelligent designer, the obvious truth is that it's a Christian apologetics book dressed in a … [Read more...]
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