To tea-party Republicans in Maine, Episcopalians are dangerous "anti-Christian bigots." Plus: An inspiring conversion narrative from Libby Anne; Scarlett Johansson reads the Bible; Mansonite white terrorists; and the red-cup guy battles imaginary Satanists while real Satanists take "GetReligion" to school. Read more
Al Mohler is not saying anything Southern Baptists haven't said for 170 years. He is only taking their argument and altering a handful of words in five paragraphs to apply it to a new subject. By restoring his op-ed to something more like the original ca.-1845 template Mohler is copying from and re-applying we can see not just how and why Mohler's argument is wrong. We can see how and why Mohler himself has to know that it has been wrong all along. Read more
Here the travel narrative becomes difficult to follow. Jerry Jenkins is as obsessed as ever with the logistics of planes, trains and automobiles, but the rest of Buck Williams' journey seems to take place in an alternate geography in which the subway goes all the way across New Jersey and the island of Manhattan is 30 miles long. Read more
What I’ve pieced together from all these stories sounds unbelievable, and I certainly cannot prove any of it. But there are more things in heaven and earth than I can prove. All I can tell you is what I believe. And what I believe is this: Somewhere in America, just before midnight on every Friday the 13th, the ghost of Frederick Douglass appears at the bedside of some racist wretch. Read more
This is America. We don't need kings. "When in the Course of human events ..." and all that. We shouldn't be allowing some would be double-reed monarch to assume a triple-throne atop our online religious humor best-selling lists. That's the same kind of royal sense of entitlement that led to the Stamp Act and the execution of Anne Boleyn. Read more
It's more than just the temptation to give our stories, as Burke writes, "a little stretch" with an eye to make them more compelling calls for "winning souls for Christ." That idea -- that exaggerations are acceptable because they serve this higher purpose of spreading the gospel and saving souls -- is a key to the rationalization that defends the tendency toward dishonest conversion stories, but I don't think it's the cause of that tendency. Read more
Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, The Anti-Christ Handbook, Volume 2 is now available for your Kindle, smartphone, and awkward desktop e-reader perusal. Just $3.99 at your local (not actually local) Amazon.com. Read more
The evangelical conversion narrative encourages -- maybe even requires -- exaggeration, which is to say that it encourages or requires dishonesty. It compels/induces/rewards/expects/elicits a two-fold dishonesty -- one that exaggerates our wickedness prior to the moment of conversion and then exaggerates our transformation after that moment. Read more
A legitimate apology needs to express regret, responsibility, and remedy, says author Beverly Engel. Without all three elements, any apology will seem hollow, inadequate, and insincere. That's why, I think, neither "Thank you for your service" nor "Happy Veterans Day" can ever express what they're attempting to convey. Read more
So at first, it's all sort of exciting and encouraging. You're compiling all these things you wrote years ago and revisiting them and everything that's good about them just sort of jumps out at you. "This is good stuff," you think. "I'm proud of this." But then you've got to do some more careful copyediting and proofreading. You've got to format the thing and then double-check the formatting. ... Read more
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