Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

evangelicalism

The Incredibly Dark World of Fundagelical Christianity

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I grew up in a fundagelical church. We were Pentecostal and thus charismatic with a heady dose of dispensationalism and culture war conservatism. As I reflect back, it strikes me that the worldview I was given was incredibly dark and pessimistic. For example, we were raised to believe the following (either through explicit teaching or […]

The Fallacies of Conservative Christian Apologetics

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When I was growing up, the Christian apologists I read often claimed that biblical scholars and archaeologists who arrived at results at odds with conservative evangelical orthodoxy were driven by “naturalistic assumptions”. While there was a kernel of truth in the warning, for the most part, it was false. Often, these scholars were devout Christian […]

Looking to Disagree: The Problem of Pugilistic Evangelicals

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The other day, I posted the following tweet criticizing a t-shirt being marketed by evangelical apologist Frank Turek: “Frank Turek is selling a shirt that replaces the “Coexist” logo with one that says “Contradict” as if belief in the truth of Xianity entails that all the claims of other religions are false. That is wrong. […]

The Top Three Problems with William Lane Craig’s Apologetic

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William Lane Craig is widely considered to be the leading Christian apologist in the world and for good reason. The guy straddles two worlds like few others. On the one hand, he is head of a very influential apologetics parachurch ministry (Reasonable Faith), a fixture at church events and lay apologetics conferences, a podcaster and […]

Is Michael Brown a Bigoted Homophobe? You Decide.

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Michael Brown has responded to my subtly-titled article “If Hypocrisy were an Olympic Sport, Evangelicals would get the Gold” in which I argue that his support for Donald Trump coupled with his moral censure of Pete Buttigieg exhibits hypocrisy and provides evidence that he is bigoted and homophobic. Brown begins by quoting his tweet that […]

May the 33,000 Be One: Debriefing a Catholic/Evangelical Dialogue

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Last night, I participated in a dialogue between Roman Catholics and evangelicals at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton. The main speakers were Dr. Brett Salkeld (Catholic) and Dr. Jo-Ann Badley (evangelical). I was one of two respondents. In my comments, I echoed a point touched on by Salkeld, namely that while “Roman Catholic” is a clearly […]

My Monday Morning Rant Against Evangelicals Who Undermine the Bible

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This morning, a tweet from Fuz Rana got under my skin. I should begin by saying that he seems like a nice chap and Reasons to Believe is less bad than Answers in Genesis. However, being nice and less-bad cannot save one from the fundamental error of treating the Bible as a confirmatory textbook for […]

On Evangelical Triumphalism

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Evangelicals often take pride in the fact that they are growing and mainline churches are shrinking. But it is worthwhile keeping in mind that the reasons for expansion or recession are complex. I know many churches that grew because they conformed to the culture and many that shrank because they didn’t. I’m not saying that […]