Jim Henderson is the man who “bought my soul” on eBay a few years ago. The reason he bid on my auction in the first place is because he loved the idea of “unchurched” people going to church and sharing their experiences.
Jim would take those filled-out surveys and share them with the pastors of these churches, explaining what visitors liked and didn’t like about their visit.
Jim has created a full-blown version of his brainchild, ChurchRater.
“We say it’s our mission to reach out, including to nonbelievers,” Henderson, 62, says. “So why would we not want them to tell us what they think of our efforts to influence, change or even convert them?”
One reason might be that it can be brutal.
His Web site is free and open to believers and doubters alike, to say whatever they want. You can post reviews and one- to five-star ratings of churches, much as Yelp or Urban Spoon rank restaurants.
A church in Everett got one star because someone found the pastor too self-absorbed.
“All his stories are centered around his perfect life,” it says, citing a “perfect blonde wife” and Hallmark kids. “And if we sign up for Jesus, we’ll be perfect, too. Uhhhh … is this really what Jesus told you to do?”
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So far only 40 churches in Washington have been rated on the Web site, not enough for it to reach a critical mass. Henderson says 30 more have expressed interest in his paid ratings services, which can range from $250 (for two visits by raters plus a written report) on up to $2,950 (for a weekend-long focus group between “outsiders” and church members, moderated by him).
I wouldn’t be surprised if more churches subject themselves to “mystery worshipers” before long — they’re businesses and they want to do what they can to bring in new customers.
These churches could just hang on to the money if regular churchgoers had the guts to tell their pastors what they didn’t like about church — what they found offensive or untrue or disingenuous.
But they almost never do, so I guess it’s our job to tell the truth.
A. Hughman has made a video that is a plea to young believers.
It doesn’t ask that they become atheists — he has a different goal in mind:
I love the video. My worry, though, is that many young Christians will say they have no problem with expressing doubt.
They question plenty of things:
Evolution.
Sex education.
And, yes, in some cases, certain things their religious leaders say.
But they have no doubts whatsoever about things like the resurrection of Jesus, or the existence of an afterlife, or that a god listens to their prayers. They won’t bother ever questioning those beliefs, and nothing that others say will get them to reconsider.
Over the weekend, I stumbled across the cover of the new issue of People on a library table:
19 kids…? My eyes wanted to bulge at the sight of that number, but they stopped doing that when the number hit double digits.
It’s just not a surprise anymore.
The question on the cover is “How Many Kids Are Too Many?” (Really, People magazine, it took you 19 kids to ask this question???)
It’s really easy to bash the Duggars for their reproductive fortitude. I know I’ve done it in the past — just because you can have so many children doesn’t mean you should have so many children — but I’m starting to change my mind.
I’ve heard people go after the Duggars for a number of reasons:
They have too many kids.
It’s unhealthy for the mom.
It’s bad for the individual children.
The media glare (from their TV show) is bad for the little kids.
The overpopulation aspect — If other families did what they did, this world would go haywire in a matter of generations. It’s irresponsible of them to have so many children!
They instill (brainwash) fundamentalist Christian values into the children.
The children are forced to give up their own youth to care for their younger siblings. (Though none seem to mind.)
They’re ruining the letter J for the rest of us.
If my math is correct, in a few generations, all of us will have a Duggar in our family.
But the Duggars are not like the Octomom, who is trying to raise 14 children as a single mom while unemployed and on public assistance. They’re not desperately trying to hog the spotlight. (Really. I mean that. Despite their level of publicity, the Duggars don’t strike me as media-whores in the same way that Jon and Kate do.) The family’s health also seems to be pretty good overall (the most recent child was born premature, but I don’t think the age of the mother or the number of previous births has anything to do with that.)
There are some arguments to silence the critics:
They’re not in debt. (No doubt their TV show helps with that.)
As far as I can tell, they’re supporting themselves. (Jim Bob Duggar was a state representative in Arkansas for a couple years, and I’ve heard this entitles his family to free health care for life, but I can’t find a credible citation for this. Their house is paid for, too, partly because it was previously incorporated as a tax-exempt “church” — again, I can’t find a credible citation for this.)
The kids seem to be good citizens, not getting into any trouble with the law.
The parents seem to care for the children as much as you would want any parent to — it would be easy to find examples of one-child parents who don’t have the connection to their kid as much as the Duggars do to each of theirs.
The Duggars are in a committed relationship (unlike this dude with 19 kids).
While some Quiverfull women have left the movement, Michelle Duggar appears willing and able to be giving birth to so many kids.
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So what’s the problem?
I doubt anyone would ever want our government instituting some law about how many kids a family should be allowed to have.
We argue that women should have the right to do as she wishes with their bodies… and this is a woman doing just that.
The best argument I’ve heard has to do with the older children having to give up their lives to take care of the younger children, but this doesn’t strike me as too awful. The kids are happy to be helping out their family in this way.
You can argue they’re giving up their individuality, or giving up a social life, but even with a couple kids, this isn’t too far off from what “regular” Christian homeschooling families do. Don’t like it? That’s an argument against Christian homeschooling, not this particular family.
Don’t like that they’re raising the kids with their particular brand of religion? That’s an argument against fundamentalist Christianity, not this particular family.
Is Michelle just brainwashed into doing all this? Again, it’s an argument against faith, not specific to just this family.
Maybe we should just salute the Duggars for (ironically) winning the game of evolution…
Pam Tebow: I call him my miracle baby. He almost didn’t make it into this world. I remember so many times when I almost lost him. It was so hard. Well he’s all grown up now, and I still worry about his health. Everybody treats him like he’s different, but to me, he’s just my baby. He’s my Timmy, and I love him.
Tim Tebow: Thanks mom. Love you too.
The most controversial thing there?
At the end of the commercial is a message to go to Focus on the Family’s website for more information.
Atheism is a trending topic in the world and it won’t be long before a politician or celebrity coming out as an atheist just won’t be a big deal anymore. I don’t know how long it’ll be before that happens, but I am optimistic that it could happen in my lifetime.
When that happens, atheists will go from having our own unique subculture to being part of the mainstream.
I think a lot of us would love for that to be the case, but there would be a slight wistfulness about it. For all we would gain, we would also be losing a lot.
What would you miss when atheism goes “mainstream”?
Claudia writes in an email:
My initial first guess is that I’ll miss the intellectual debate. As atheism becomes more widespread, it will become an assumption, not something people come to through reason. As such we can expect the correlation between education and atheism to blur, and the conversation amongst atheists to become less stimulating.
I can add to that:
We would miss getting any attention when we fight for our rights.
We would miss the instant “connection” we make when meeting another atheist.
We would miss the joy that comes from being able to speak your mind for the first time (without worrying that someone is going to attack you for it).
We would miss the major life change that comes from telling people that you’ve lost your faith (and have no desire to “find” it).
We would miss conferences, local meetups, campus groups, and rallies.
Some of these things will linger even when we are part of the everyday culture (it’s not like Christian groups have faded away, and they’ve been mainstream for forever), but it won’t be the same thing.
I’m sad I can’t be there, but it’s only because of work obligations, not because I don’t want to go. These conferences are a fantastic place to network with other college atheists and get motivated to do more with your group back at your own school. It’s a terrific experience!
Foundation Beyond Belief has two sides — a humanist charitable giving program, and an education and support program for secular parents.
The intrepid and talented Ute Mitchell (of CFI Portland’s outstanding secular parent program) has signed on as our Foundation’s Parent Community Coordinator. Her first task is taking the pulse of the secular parenting world — finding out just who we are and what parents need who are raising their kids without religion in a predominantly religious world.
If you’re able to take a 10-minute survey, it would help us gather some very useful data. Thanks in advance!
