Aaron Schultz

“According to Jesus, the gospel can be contaminated by at least two common attitudes, which can spread throughout the church and ruin the whole batch of dough. Some of the Pharisees were judgmental and hypocritical. Their religious instruction was heavy on control and rules and legalism and hoop jumping, and had a convenient way of overlooking the log in its own eye while barring entrance to God’s kingdom for others. For example, a gospel contaminated by such a yeast might condemn a gay, married, and monogamous person for sexual immorality, while simultaneously saluting a twice-divorced, thrice-married, unrepentant serial adulterer and sexual assailant who sleeps with porn stars while his wife is home tending to their infant son. This is the type of hypocrisy Jesus can’t stand.”
― Amy Hawk, The Judas Effect: How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power

“There is no greater distortion to the true gospel of Christ than to hold up a leader who bullies, lies, threatens, and promotes violence, and assert that God appointed him. A church that exalts any leader—political, religious, or otherwise—who regularly stirs up division and violence, unleashes anger and hatred, lies incessantly, threatens reporters, and belittles women, is not a church. It’s a cult.”
― Amy Hawk, The Judas Effect: How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power

“The contradiction of a belief, ideal or system of values, causes cognitive dissonance that can be resolved by changing the challenged belief yet, instead of effecting change, the resultant mental stress restores psychological consonance to the person, by misperception, rejection or refutation of the contradiction, seeking moral support from people who share the contradicted beliefs or acting to persuade other people that the contradiction is unreal” Hence a mob if you are familiar with social media. You know how this goes … you post some new belief or idea that you are contemplating. Rather than discussion or addressing the belief itself, often those responding just simply turn to attacking your character, your background, or just overall ganging up on you to tell you that you are wrong. Rarely will someone engage in actual discussion of the idea itself. You know what I am talking about. We have all had someone tag in their friends or maybe we have done it ourselves. Hmmmm …”
― Keith Giles, Before You Lose Your Mind: Deconstructing Bad Theology in the Church

“Biblically speaking, if my fervor for the first nine months of life isn’t matched by equal fervor for protecting and advocating the years after, I’m not truly pro-life. I’m just pro-pregnancy.”
― Amy Hawk, The Judas Effect: How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power