When you’re a Christian creative, and the culture hands you a hot mike, what do you say? That’s a question the creators of Christian satire site The Babylon Bee have been asking themselves in the past couple of years. It’s rare for a product conceived by Christians to penetrate mainstream pop culture. But the Bee is so popular that it’s toppled the Onion from its perch as the hottest ticket in the satire market, period—not just Christian satire. This has... Read more
Ho, ho, ho. Merry beginning of Christmas, you low Protestant plebs! In the spirit of the ongoing season, I’d like to update this little corner with some thoughts on that touchiest of evergreen third-rail topics: Santa Claus. Santa Claus has been enjoying some good press recently thanks to Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who made a heavily ratioed Christmas Eve tweet reminding everyone that Santa’s reindeer would have been vaporized into oblivion long before they could complete a delivery trip around the planet…in case... Read more
A little over a year ago, after thinking I wouldn’t go with the crowd and write yet another Kyle Rittenhouse take, I wrote a Kyle Rittenhouse take here on this blog. It had been a long time coming. It came from a place of anger at the cruel, slanderous things I was seeing people direct at a kid whose worst sin appeared to be getting lost in a crowd. It grated on me that even pieces offering “reasonable” takes had... Read more
Southern Baptist Convention president Ed Litton resurfaced on Twitter this past week after the release of a new interview where he discusses the fallout of his sermon plagiarism scandal. The accusations, which were originally limited to a single J. D. Greear sermon, quickly ballooned until it became embarrassingly apparent that Litton was stealing work verbatim on a mass scale, not just from Greear but from Tim Keller. So complete was the theft that original footage of Greear could be perfectly... Read more
Last week, National Religious Broadcasters caused a stir by allegedly firing spokesman Dan Darling for his choice to endorse the COVID vaccine on Morning Joe. The segment was short, transcribed here at National Review. Darling’s presentation was more earnest than inflammatory, careful to decry “dunking on” unvaccinated deaths and “shaming” those who chose differently. Still, he was convinced of the vaccine’s efficacy and wanted to use his platform to urge people to take it, especially other Christians. Religion News Service... Read more
I am definitely not the target audience for The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Christianity Today’s new hit podcast on the dramatic collapse of pastor Mark Driscoll’s megachurch empire. I didn’t grow up in a reformed church culture, didn’t even grow up in an evangelical church, and only ever followed Driscoll from a casual distance. When he imploded, I found it socially interesting, but personally irrelevant. My own faith was secure and grounded far from the madding crowd of... Read more
For months, now going on years, I’ve been trying not to talk about David French. Of course, I was aware of his work. I couldn’t not be in the circles where I run. These days, it seems every other week someone asks me the same question: “What happened to David French?” By which they mean “What happened to the David French we used to know? What happened to the culture warrior, the free speech guy, the guy who went to... Read more
There has been a stir in recent days around the Presbyterian Church in America’s latest General Assembly, where two new overtures were passed to address the fraught issue of homosexuality and the pastorate. Overture 23 amends the constitution to state that in addition to practicing homosexuality, the use of “identity language” such as “gay Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or “same-sex attracted Christian” can bar a man from ministry. This leaves it up to individual presbyteries’ discretion whether this can bar men... Read more
Full disclosure: I am a Protestant, and as such I am on the outside looking in on the past week’s stir in Catholic/ex-Catholic circles over the public spiritual wrestling of trad Catholic apologist Steve Skojec. While Steve hasn’t exited the faith or the Church, his raw outpouring has generated a wide range of responses. It’s a very long, very angry blog, weaving together specific grievances about Skojec’s current priest with his past history of getting burned in trad Catholic circles,... Read more
For long-time fans of the Unbelievable? radio show, the evolution of the program has been fascinating to watch. It first emerged in the golden age of the contemporary Christian vs. atheist debate, arranging high-profile matchups between apologists on both sides. Through the years, it’s tackled all manner of hot-button religious and political topics. But not every program has been framed as a debate per se, particularly in recent years as more Christian-friendly non-Christian public figures have emerged. One of these... Read more
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