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I've seen this going around with some commentary of "Yes, critical thinking is what's missing from our society" and I truly do not think that's a good diagnosis of the problem. People who use critical thinking in their business lives and are perfectly capable of "thinking for https://twitter.com/Frank_Schaeffer/status/1352338883678265345
themselves" still got swallowed up in Q or stormed the Capitol. None of this is a failure of intelligence. But I still think Frank is basically correct that there are some particularly malignant thought-viruses that have infected Christian spaces, and none of them are solved by
being smarter. When I think about large evangelical spaces I've been in, I think about spending a lot of my teenage years with doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and teachers who were completely scared out of their minds. All minor shocks were a predecessor of a coming disaster.
The Antichrist was immediately right out the door. All politicians wanted to kill us. Most new media could hurt you. The problem wasn't we were stupid, it was that we were terrified. Scared people aren't morally courageous and they make bad leaders.
So I think Step 1 is that Christianity needs to be led in the direction of being a religion of hope and courage, not a religion of terror and anxiety.
I have a Step 2 in mind but I need to think about it some more.
