On Wednesday, September 18, I flew to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend the annual conference of Religion News Association, an organization that has been around since 1949. https://twitter.com/C_Stroop/status/1174050109606129664?s=20 Some time back, ex-evangelical journalist Liam Adams invited me to be part of a panel on religion reporting and social media along with him, Aysha Khan, and Sophia … Continue reading Reflections on Religion News Association’s 2019 Conference
We are Not a Crisis: Lament the Problems of the Church If You Must, but Stop Erasing Ex-Evangelicals
Anyone other than an editor of a major centrist media outlet might have decided that in July 2019, the jeremiad-over-evanglelical-hypocrisy think piece should be considered passé. So of course Peter Wehner recently published just another such lament in The Atlantic. Don't get me wrong; I'd rather have pundits criticizing conservative, mostly white evangelicals for their hypocrisy … Continue reading We are Not a Crisis: Lament the Problems of the Church If You Must, but Stop Erasing Ex-Evangelicals
Setting the Record Straight on #ExposeChristianSchools: Why the Media Must not Cede Coverage of Ex-Evangelicals to the Right
On January 18, I launched the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools on Twitter as a response to Vice President Mike Pence and conservative commentators like David French lambasting liberals over legitimate criticism of Second Lady Karen Pence for choosing to teach art at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Virginia—a K-8 school that explicitly discriminates against members of the … Continue reading Setting the Record Straight on #ExposeChristianSchools: Why the Media Must not Cede Coverage of Ex-Evangelicals to the Right
The Last Temptation of American Journalism, or, Michael Gerson is Not a Hero
If there's one temptation America's major newspapers and magazines seem unable to resist, it's the temptation to normalize America's white Christian extremists--including traditionalist Catholics, yes, but especially Evangelicals. On the whole, this 81% Trump-voting population represents a clear and present danger to American democracy and the future of human rights, but time and again The … Continue reading The Last Temptation of American Journalism, or, Michael Gerson is Not a Hero
A Few Words on #ChurchToo: Evangelical Abuse Scandals, Hashtag Campaigns, and Ex-Evangelicals in the Media
On November 21, Hannah Paasch launched a new hashtag campaign that she and Emily Joy had come up with together. #ChurchToo, as Hannah noted in the first tweet with the hashtag, is about a much needed "day of reckoning for the church." Evangelical Protestantism is, as a rule, intensely patriarchal, and the numerous Evangelical abuse … Continue reading A Few Words on #ChurchToo: Evangelical Abuse Scandals, Hashtag Campaigns, and Ex-Evangelicals in the Media
The Washington Post and the Kaepernick Controversy: A Tale of Normalizing Toxic Christianity
Yesterday, amid continuing white Evangelical freakout about a black man who refused to stand for the national anthem in order to protest racial injustice--a dog bites man story in and of itself, of course, or at least it should be--The Washington Post published Michael Frost's "Colin Kaepernick vs. Tim Tebow: A Tale of Two Christians on … Continue reading The Washington Post and the Kaepernick Controversy: A Tale of Normalizing Toxic Christianity
Not Your Mission Field 