In the summer of 2001, I risked getting expelled by Bob Jones University for the chance to watch Michael W. Smith in concert at a Franklin Graham crusade at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. This was just one year removed…
How bad theology has set us up for sexualized AI deepfakes
Given the research I conduct for writing, the ads my algorithm sends me can be all over the map. Nothing ever surprises me. But after looking into the recent story about 62 million visits to a website that contained instructions…
When it comes to religion, question everything
Surrounded by FBI agents attempting to coax them into their vehicles, five of Samuel Bateman’s underaged wives huddled tightly. With trembling arms around one another, they sang, “And he will come again, and one by one we’ll rise, to praise…
Why was the AI image of Trump as Jesus the last straw?
The AI image President Donald Trump posted of himself as Jesus is a sobering reminder not of how much Trump is obsessed with himself, but of how white evangelicals serve a higher power than Trump, and what that higher power…
The GOP has a transgender fixation, and Democrats aren’t helping
While the man in charge of the most powerful military in world history threatened to blow an entire civilization into oblivion, “never to be brought back again,” many of us wondered how his Christian followers would respond. Back in 2016,…
What happens when fools are elevated into highest power?
April Fools’ Day is a time for jokes and pranks and hoping your kids, partners or coworkers don’t take things too far. The goal is to have a few laughs while making it through the day relatively unscathed. There are…
One thing complementarian ministries share with Epstein Files
One of the most disturbing revelations of the Epstein Files is how similar the power dynamics of the men at Epstein’s Little Saint James Island were to the men in mainstream complementarian ministries. Of course, most pastors aren’t actively assaulting…
Why are evangelicals freaking out over James Talarico?
He’s being called “Pastor Pornhub” and “the living embodiment of Satan on earth” by Christians on the religious and political right. So who is this terrifying figure? Is he a Dallas megachurch pastor who had to step aside for a…
SBC influencer William Wolfe wants an America of white people
“My boys all look like me. And I want my children to grow up in a country where they’re not minorities,” William Wolfe said out loud in a video now posted online. “I want my boys to grow up in…
Are US military commanders really talking about Armageddon?
Are U.S. military commanders really telling the soldiers fighting in Iran that President Donald Trump has been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”? In a piece published…
‘And lead us into laughter … ’
“I’ll get real big hair, marry a man, let him lead, write a book called, ’Submissive Wife, Submissive Life,’ adopt a Southern accent out of nowhere,” comedian Taylor Tomlinson joked while imagining what it might look like for her to…
Forget empathy, the new war is on lament
Ever since Joe Rigney released his book about empathy being a sin, the TheoBros of conservative evangelicalism have been piling into his bus, demonizing empathy for those they run over as “the greatest rhetorical tool of manipulation in the 21st…