Senior editor of The Dispatch and constitutional attorney, David French, and Holy Post co-host, Skye Jethani, discuss why the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention should waive their attorney-client privilege in the ongoing abuse investigation. Then, French explains why the increase in self-identified evangelicals between 2016 and 2020 isn’t good news, and why he now puts “evangelicals” in three different buckets. Finally, they examine claims from some neo-fundamentalists that empathy is a sin. French says the problem in America isn’t too much empathy, but selective empathy.
SBC Executive Committee review [1:17] https://religionnews.com/2021/09/21/sbc-executive-committee-agrees-to-pay-for-abuse-review-stalls-on-waiving-privilege/
Defining “evangelical” [15:28] https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/did-donald-trump-make-the-church
“The American Crisis of Selective Empathy” [33:26] https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-american-crisis-of-selective
I have to share the alternate name for Evangelicals that a few of us in Colorado Springs started using. We are calling that political group "White American Christians"... but we use the term WAC.
For example: "Who are those people storming the Capitol?" "They are WAC."
or "You have to be WAC to inject your body with that instead of an approved vaccine."
or... "I am a Christian... but not WAC"
Great observation about "seeing through a glass darkly." Thanks for the reminder.
https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/future-of-evangelicalism
https://www.google.com/amp/s/rachelheldevans.com/blog/evangelicalism-neo-fundamentalism%3fformat=amp
Reading these articles from 2011-2012 after listening to "Buckets of Evangelicals"🤯
Skye, hope you are well.
I want to trust you but your episode with David French makes it really hard. After listening to Rigney, Wilson and your podcast again today, it's really hard for me not to believe you are either dishonest in your assessment of Rigney or so biased you are unable the real Rigney. Your misrepresentation of him is appalling. Rigney is not on the spectrum and is perfectly available for others emotionally and he does not think cognitive knowledge is all that's needed for a flourishing life. He mentioned in the video that feeling for others in pain is good! Quote "There's a place for allowing the grief to come and just be present in the pain....…
I enjoyed this episode! However...I thought that statistically more regular churchgoers than "nominal Christians" were Trump supporters, per Pew Research Center and other reputable sources? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/30/most-white-americans-who-regularly-attend-worship-services-voted-for-trump-in-2020/ Also, didn't the interview with Robert P. Jones on last week's Holy Post also indicate that "regular churchgoers" scored higher (worse) in terms of "racial resentment"? Thus, I was genuinely puzzled by what Mr. French seemed to be saying about "nominal Christians" unfairly skewing statistics to make regular churchgoing evangelicals look bad in this regard.
I also appreciated your discussion of the "sin of empathy" issue, as that's been on my mind a lot. I find it especially frustrating that Mr. Rigney's stance seems to be (openly) a reaction against the writings/research of Brene…