This week’s curiosities: Steve Shives calls out Sam Harris, Melissa Wilson writes powerfully about leaving the Evangelical World, and Hail, Satan? documents the rise of The Satanic Temple.

On Walking Away From Evangelicalism

My dear friend Melissa Wilson wrote a moving article on why she left the Evangelical Christian world. She writes of her conversion to Evangelicalism:

I was 16, growing up in the height of the nineties near Los Angeles, and someone presented the evangelical “gospel” to me, “Admit that I was not always right, believe that Jesus had a better way, and commit to living my life in a beautiful and pure way”. My teenage mind found the message intoxicatingly counter-cultural and I followed with reckless abandonment. I went to Christian camp, enrolled in Christian college, and found a new life across the country in the heart of Billy Graham’s hometown. My life became wholly devoted to two primary aims– loving God and loving others. I messed up daily and was caught in my “sins” by a community that I thought loved me. I married at 21 and went to Church every Sunday. Our life was not simple or easy and our prayers felt rarely answered, but we loved so deeply that place and community in the mountains of Montreat, North Carolina.

And then it all fell apart. I had the honor of watching some of Melissa’s process, and she carried herself with inspiring integrity and truthfulness. She recounts how, after being asked to sign an affirmation of “biblical truth” as a professor at Montreat College (my alma mater), she started to question what was true. She writes, with gut wrenching honesty,

I loved my gay friends and I longed to go to their weddings. I sometimes wished that abortion was legal, because I had worked with hundreds of sexually abused foster kids that were never adopted by the Church. I had watched a colleague make fun of hispanics, women, and environmental concerns with no reprimand. I watched my former pastor addicted to opioids and alcohol go on missions trips to purchase more pills. I watched the elders of my Church mock women, environmentalists, hispanics, and gay people openly on Facebook with hundreds of likes streaming in. I heard an administrator state that he would not accept my Harvard University credits because he did not know that Harvard had a credible hybrid program. I listened to my girlfriends proclaim that Trump was the only answer, because Hillary was the anti-Christ. I cried as my closest friends ridiculed me and my adopted daughter in the Women’s March, because Franklin Graham had led Trump to Christ and endorsed him.

Please read the rest of the article. It is convicting, inspiring, and should incite all of us working against theocracy to further action.

Waking up to Sam Harris Not Making Sense

Atheist YouTube Steve Shives released a diatribe about how Sam Harris is a dangerous douchebag.

I was once an adoring acolyte of Sam Harris. He was instrumental in my religious deconstruction, and he has helped me immensely in thinking about God, consciousness, and spirituality. But then, in 2017, Sam Harris had professional racist Charles Murray on his show to promote the fallacious and racist notion that black people are genetically predisposed to have lower IQs than white people.

Sam Harris was my gateway drug to the alt-right. Just when I was about to fall off the alt-right cliff, he defended Charles Murray, and I woke from my trance. I then understood that he is an arrogant, frequently unkind, and thoughtless “public intellectual” who takes his presumed magisterial intelligence for granted. Watch Steve Shives’ video for all the details, and it’s a good explanation for why I broke up with Sam Harris.

Hail, Satan?

Last night I had an advance screening of the documentary Hail, Satan? which chronicles the meteoric rise of the Satanic Temple. I won’t spoil anything, and I plan on doing more shows and posts about the film, but for now I will simply say this: I was deeply and unexpectedly moved by the film. It is a beautiful, cleverly made film about societal underdogs asserting their rights. Stay tuned for more content about Hail, Satan? For now, my friend Jack Matirko over at For Infernal Use Only has written a review of the film:

I think for people in the larger secular and Atheist world who frequent the blogs here at Patheos there’s still a lot of misconceptions about what TST is and does that the film does a great job of clearing up. It also makes the point very clear that the organization isn’t going anywhere and that Satanism continues to be a growing component of the larger discussion on religious freedom, Church/State separation, and free-thought. It’s as in-depth as one can possibly pack into 90 minutes and gives TST the fair shake I think is long overdue.

Obligatory Cat Picture

Eli and Luna being adorable af:

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