This cartoon has been making the rounds. It is a pity that some are treating it as a condemnation of Christians, when it clearly is a condemnation of a group that I think ought to be labeled CINA: “Christians in Name Only.” If you fear others, hate others, judge others, and fail to hold yourself [Read More…]
Fundamentalism is a Lack of Self-Awareness
October 24, 2015 by 11 Comments
The quote comes from Richard Beck’s blog post “Emotional Intelligence and Sola Scriptura.” Here is another excerpt from the post: [W]e all have a hermeneutic. The only question is whether you are consciously vs.unconsciously using a hermeneutic. Fundamentalists are interpreting the text unconsciously. Fundamentalists are interpreting the text right and left, they are justunaware that they are doing so… When your [Read More…]
Christian Meteorology
October 2, 2015 by 9 Comments
I had been meaning to blog about “Christian meteorology” again well before Westboro Baptist Church announced their plan to picket the National Weather Service. While the Bible contains not a single reference to picketing, it is clear that God controls the weather. And so if one is going to object to the practice and the teaching [Read More…]
The Disinterment of Jesus?
April 5, 2015 by 30 Comments
Having blogged on Friday about my book The Burial of Jesus, which talks not just about the crucifixion and the burial but also the rise of resurrection faith, let me share another quote from the book, one more relevant for today, Easter. Certainly an empty tomb is not crucial to the Christian faith, since it has [Read More…]
Banning God from Schools and T-Shirts
February 6, 2015 by 34 Comments
It is interesting that an atheist could apparently see that the theology on the t-shirt on the left above is idiotic, while the conservative American Christian who made it, and those who wear it, apparently could not. Someone did their own version, making the t-shirt on the right above, which they shared on imgur. But the [Read More…]
The Harrowing of Hell House
October 12, 2014 by 2 Comments
Fred Clark has come up with a response to the phenomenon of conservative Christian “hell houses” for Halloween. His post literally made me laugh out loud. Here’s how it starts: Hell Houses are an irredeemably bad idea — a combination of the very worst forms of evangelism with the very worst forms of community theater. The [Read More…]
The Word You Are Looking for is “Moderate”
July 3, 2014 by 9 Comments
Michael Patton shared the diagrams below. What strikes me about them is the attempt to define “Evangelical” as the stance between liberal and fundamentalist. The word that he is looking for, where there is a balance between the essential, important, and non-essential, is “moderate.” Some Evangelicals are moderates, but most are conservative, in between the [Read More…]
“Liberty” Church
June 24, 2014 by 20 Comments
Stuff Fundies Like and Bruce Gerencser both pointed out this self-description from a fundamentalist church here in Indiana: The thing that struck me most was the incongruity of the name. Does “liberty” really seem to them to best sum up what their church is about? [Read more…]
Just Following the Bible
October 5, 2013 by 4 Comments
Stuff Fundies Like posted the following gem: I just follow the Bible. I just follow the obvious meanings of a 400 year old translation of a document written originally in languages I don’t speak, influenced heavily by cultures I don’t begin to understand, and by people who I mistakenly assume looked, acted, thought and dressed [Read More…]
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