The BIGGEST ARTICLES FROM THIS WEEK
Here are our five biggest stories this week:
1 - I Eavesdropped On An 'Evangelicals For Harris' Zoom Call. Here’s What I Learned.
by Mathew Vroman
Last week, I joined a Zoom call hosted by a group calling themselves "Evangelicals for Harris." For those who don’t know, this group aims to swing the votes of "on-the-fence" conservative evangelicals in swing states, and includes such figures as Rev Jim Ball, Jemar Tisby, Jerushah Duford (granddaughter of Bill Graham), Ekemini Uwan and Dwight McKissic. They’ve gathered over 200,000 ‘evangelical’ signatures so far pledging to vote for Harris in November.
As a Baptist pastor with a Doctorate in Religious Studies and over thirty years of experience studying the Bible, I was intrigued but ultimately troubled by what I witnessed. This organization, which purports to represent evangelical believers, left me seriously questioning whether they truly understand the term or believe anything that could remotely be considered evangelical at all.
2 - The Twin Demons Destroying The West
by Anonymous
God meets his prophets on mountaintops, but the devil meets his in caves.
It was in one such cave, a hole in the rock in the middle of barren desert that The Manifest One was waiting.* He had lurked there since the Flood, spinning a thick-layered web of lies from the truths he had witnessed before the Fall and scattered reports of what had happened since his banishment, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
One day a man came into his cave seeking spiritual guidance. He was not seeking The Manifest One himself, but confused with the way of the world, having heard half reports of a prophet who seemed to have died but returned and something about three gods, and frustrated with the tribal conflicts around him, he came to reflect and to meditate. Now was the time.
3 - Go For Multigenerational Gold
by Adam Page
As a 39-year-old husband and father, a pastor for the last 15 years, I have heard many different responses after promoting the necessity and privilege of being a part of a multigenerational church; a message ringing awfully loud within the framework of a church culture where communications pastors are assigned the task of flooding Instagram with pictures of their worship services, aimed at appealing to specifically “younger generations.” The reels of “Kaboom Church’s” dynamic welcome team rarely contain seasoned saints intermingling with the less seasoned, but rather focus more on young adult “friend groups” dawning Urban Outfitters as if the Kendrick Brothers christened Degrassi for TBN. If any given family, new in town or away from home, checks the socials looking for a likeminded, local church to attend, they will most likely find posts exemplifying the cool kids table in a local high school cafeteria rather than imagery of unified, faithful generations mentoring one another and developing strong relationships built on lessons of endurance and perseverance for what inevitably lies ahead.
4 - Hey Christians, if the world doesn’t think you’re weird, you’re doing it wrong
The Democrats recently demonstrated the sophistication and self-awareness for which they are known by attempting to brand Donald Trump and J.D. Vance as “weird.” And it says a lot about how confident they are in their control of the culture that they now feel comfortable defining the boundaries of normality.
Supporters of course sprang to the defense of Trump and Vance, what with “weird” being kind of an insult and all, and explained that if Democrats wanted to know what weird looked like they could check out the reflection in their men’s room tampon dispensers. So, where once political disputes inspired the Lincoln-Douglas debates, this presidential race has given us a month of “I know you are but what am I?”
5 - The Falsehood of the Second Victim Narrative
Many evangelicals have likely heard about the incident two years ago in which dozens of pro-life organizations shockingly opposed a bill in Louisiana that would have fully abolished abortion.
Christians in the state had labored to earn support for the proposed abolition bill that would merely have applied the same homicide laws which already protected born people to preborn people, and were thrilled as legislators enthusiastically advanced the bill out of committee.
Yet days later, on the same morning that the bill was to receive a vote in the Louisiana House, those leading national pro-life organizations wrote a letter addressed to “all state legislators in the United States of America” encouraging them to oppose that bill and similar efforts. The very pro-life legislators who approved the bill in committee then opposed the measure on the floor.