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Correction: The SBC Does NOT Oppose Women’s Ordination… Just Women Pastors

By Caroline Matas

…pastor in any traditional sense of the word? One wonders whether the SBC’s rush to publicly double down on its prohibition of female pastors in the wake of Saddleback’s 2021 ordinations of three long term female employees belies even this small bit of wiggle room. Regardless, what we have here seems to be Olympic-level goalpost-moving by the SBC in an attempt to maintain their gender hierarchy without it, well, sounding too bad. Women can be leade…

Evangelicalism Thrived Because it Enabled White Christians to Avoid Civil Rights Movements According to New Book

By Eric C. Miller

…inline Protestant denominations, which have subsequently declined. Under scrutiny, however, Kelley’s argument—and Mohler’s endorsement—fall quickly into doubt. In his new book, Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular, historian David Hollinger turns the tables completely, arguing that evangelical churches grew during and after the 1960s precisely because they offered a less demanding alternative…

Meditation Sickness: Everyone is Talking About How Nobody is Talking About The Risks of Meditation

By Ira Helderman

…f unpleasant meditation experiences by describing it as, essentially, “old news.” They explain that centuries-old Buddhist writings tell stories of initiates undergoing difficult, unpleasant, and even terrifying experiences. (The phrase “meditation sickness” is itself a translation of the quite-old Buddhist concepts of zenbyō (Japanese) or chanbing (Chinese).) Some meditation teachers stress that, among themselves, the existence of difficult medit…

Reexamining the Shaky Theology That Gives Humans ‘Dominion’ Over All Creation

By Timothy Beal

…rees, and land, nor of the labor of other humans. It’s about godlike human rule, or rather attempted rule, over other animals. Nor can it mean killing and eating animals for food. God gives humans and other animals plants for food. After the flood, God will tell the human survivors to eat not only plants but also all other animals, who will live in fear of them (Genesis 9:1–3). But that’s later. Whatever subduing and dominating of the other animal…

It’s the Theology, Stupid: Why the Shocking SBC Report is Anything But Surprising

By Chrissy Stroop and Jessica Johnson

…n testimony or that of others speaking on their behalf. When I was reading Russell Moore’s response to the Guidepost report in CT, I was struck by the headline, “This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse.” The subheading reads: “The abuse investigation has uncovered more evil than even I imagined” (emphasis added). He continues in the opening lines, “They were right. I was wrong to call sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) a crisis….

Satanic Harmonies and Zoom Church: Readers Respond

By Daniel Schultz

…since Reagan’s ascension. Shorter Schultz: yeah, pretty much. A.R. from Jerusalem responded to the same piece: Immediately after reading your piece, I opened up the Israeli news website Maariv, and was confronted with the following article title: “Likud supporters attacked a Likud MK [Member of Knesset] who thanked Yair Lapid for his well wishes – and here is how she responded.” The article proceeds to quote a single tweet by a known religious ex…

Fact Check: Is the Evangelical Youth-Inspired Great ‘Awokening’ Just Around the Corner?

By Chrissy Stroop

…icals” themselves, like The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey and The New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias, both graduates of prominent evangelical college Wheaton, surely have their own reasons for painting an overly rosy picture of America’s most Trumpist demographic. In addition to pushing the narrative that evangelical youth are liberalizing, so that any day now—just wait for it, it’s right around the corner—evangelicals are going to be more or…

Unintended Consequences: Overturning Roe v. Wade May Endanger This Cherished Evangelical Practice

By R.L. Stollar

…cidence that the Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization leading the crusade to overturn Roe in the Supreme Court (and which is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) is run by evangelical homeschool advocate Michael Farris. Homeschoolers, who are overwhelmingly evangelical Christians, have long been forced-birth advocates. But on the cusp of victory, these forced-birth advocates might ironically be undermining the fou…

Who Killed Mars Hill Church? There’s One Suspect Evangelicals Simply Aren’t Prepared to Interrogate

By Cavan Concannon

…red a culture of abuse. Driscoll resigned when these allegations reached a breaking point for church leaders. Shortly after Driscoll’s departure, the church itself collapsed. In the new podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, host Mike Cosper, himself a former pastor, attempts to reckon with what happened to this megachurch: What made it grow? What made it fall apart? What contributed to its culture of abuse? The show doesn’t merely recount the st…

Setting a Low Bar: Religious Entities Praised for Treating Covid Religious Exemptions Responsibly

By Chrissy Stroop

…reby normalizing extremism and eroding the public’s ability to get at the truth. Civil society can’t function without easy access to good information. As I wrote recently here on RD, “Post-truth politics is a powerful tool for authoritarians.” By neutralizing damaging facts with bogus counter-narratives, corrupt individuals who already have power, money, and privilege can more easily exploit those advantages to maintain their ability to oppress th…