The title of this post does indeed have the words in the right order – I intentionally wrote “Make great Christianity again.” I’ll explain what I mean by that, but let’s start with what that phrase is echoing and why I’ve changed it as I have. Those who use the slogan “Make America Great Again” have turned the hope that “the South will rise again” and tried to rebrand it as making American great again. The values that are being... Read more
One of the key topics I address in my new book Beyond Deconstruction is how so-called conservative Evangelical Christianity distorts the meaning of faith into something idolatrous. As we have been witnessing the transformation of that group from one that claimed the ethical conduct of a candidate mattered deeply, to one that claims their conduct is irrelevant, I found myself thinking about this unquestioning allegiance to a party, which mirrors their allegiance to their church or denomination. The same attitude that... Read more
I called this post “Paid AIgitators” because it seemed a good way to explore the topic that I want to address today. I know a lot of protestors. They are paid to be clergy, to be professors, to be any number of other things. If they were receiving money to protest, they would have told me how to get in on it. It isn’t just that those who repeat this ridiculous talking point have clearly not done the calculations. What is... Read more
I had grandiose ideas about what I might do to offer some music in connection with the release of my book Beyond Deconstruction: Building a More Expansive Faith. Having offered some piano music on Spotify, I thought maybe I could redo all the major songs I’ve written over the years and release them as an album. That didn’t happen, in large part because I wasn’t sure that there was a desire for that. I do have music to share, but... Read more
As someone who has been researching and writing about Jesus’ temple action for many years, there is a lot that I ought to and need to say about how the recent protest at a church in Minneapolis is being compared and contrasted to that event. For some reason, the Facebook algorithm decided to show me a post by Alisa Childers, someone I’ve avoided interacting with since her assumptions about the Bible and Christianity are so badly mistaken and skewed that... Read more
Whenever I have a new book, Jonathan Foye gets in touch and does an interview, and so I thought I would share our recent Beyond Deconstruction interview in its entirety. You can and should read his article, “‘I’m Not That Kind of Christian’ Rebuilding Our Faith after Deconstruction'” published in Insights magazine. “I’m not that kind of Christian”: Rebuilding our Faith after ‘deconstruction’ However, interviews are always longer than and different from the articles that utilize them, and so I thought... Read more
Martin Luther King Day 2026 is different from others during my lifetime. We are at a crossroads when it is becoming clear once again that the United States have always been held together by a slender thread. From the very beginning there have been different worldviews and values. We experienced a civil war that began and ended less than two centuries ago. Yet its end did not mean the end of the deep divisions over the full human dignity of... Read more
I am teaching a course about misinformation and the Bible this semester and Pilate’s famous question “What is truth?” has been in my mind, and what truth is in the era of bots that we find ourselves in. This blog provides not only a useful supplement to what I say in class, but a chance to talk with a larger audience. If you have ventured into online spaces and seen appalling comments responding in inhumane and inhuman ways to the... Read more
I was going to include “My Year With ChatGPT” at the end of my previous post, but in the end decided that that post was long enough and this should be a post of its own. “My Year With ChatGPT” is a summary that that chatbot generates. Here are a couple of images that it produced: Things like this are why there are people out there who genuinely feel understood by ChatGPT and consider it sentient and even a friend.... Read more
I have been wondering for a while, but especially in the past couple of days, about what to call those who tend to be labeled as “conservative Christians” and yet are neither conservative nor Christian in any meaningful sense. As a scholar of religion I am aware that labels are always problematic. In that capacity I am also convinced that labels and terminology matter even though they are always imperfect and imprecise. Categories always have blurry edges. As a Christian... Read more
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