Okay, one more post about evangelical identity. At least until my next post. Some of us in the evangelical world were masochistic enough to follow the aftermath of the 2016 election. For we unhappy few, one number stands out: 81. That’s the supposed percent of white evangelicals who voted for[…]
I have a confession: I like reading genre fiction. I also have a confession about the confession: I feel ashamed about it. And I shouldn’t. Mostly-true story I was on the phone with a college friend–the type who makes his own cheese and wants me to read more Bertrand Russell.[…]
I’m a youth pastor connoisseur. Between high school chapels, youth groups, and special retreat speakers, I’ve seen every type imaginable. Some were good–even when I was a sneering cynic, I still liked my high school youth pastor1. Others youth pastors were…less good. Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching a lot[…]
Wild at Heart ruined college for me. Actually, it was one phrase from the book. I’ve been turning it over in my head for a decade, and I still can’t make sense of it: “He’s dangerous, but in a good way.” John Eldridge claimed this is what every woman wants[…]
When I was a cynic, I loved talking about the “evangelical bubble.” It was a constant topic at my evangelical college, John Brown University1. Cynics tell themselves that evangelicalism survives by hiding in its own cocoon. When exposed to the outside world, it shrivels in the light of reason and[…]
You may think I’ve been ragging on parents lately. That’s totally unfair. All I’ve done is write three consecutive posts (here, here, and here) detailing every single thing that parents can do wrong. Why so sensitive? But seriously. I don’t mean to blame parents. For many evangelical cynics, their cynicism[…]
My last two posts (here and here) were about things parents should NOT do when their kids are becoming cynics. Now, I want to be more positive. Here are four things parents SHOULD do.1
In my last post, I gave three tactics parents use that (unintentionally) drive their children to cynicism. Here are three more things parents should NOT do. Don’t fling half-baked arguments.
In my last post, I argued that some people become cynical jerks to stick it to their parents. Because I’m assuming most evangelical parents would prefer their kids not become cynical jerks, I have six pieces of can’t-fail advice which I just made up. But first, one giant caveat–I’m not[…]
At first, this looks like the opposite reason from peer pressure (the subject of my previous post). The peer-pressured become cynics to be like all the other cynics. Today’s post is about the people who become cynics because everyone else is sincere, and they want to be special. When I[…]