Overdose Awareness: We are One Big Family

Last updated on: August 25, 2025 at 7:46 am By Gregory T. Smith

Has an overdose touched your community or someone you love? Overdose Awareness Day ends the stigma and saves lives. As a pastor, I used to view substance use and its related problems through the black-and-white lens of sin-versus-righteousness. People with addiction just needed Jesus, I thought. If they hadn’t gained victory, they just hadn’t prayed or obeyed enough. When I pivoted to my second career in social services, I came to see things differently. Overdose Awareness Day August 31, 2025,... Read more

I’m in the Lord’s Army: The AWANA Atrocity

Last updated on: August 24, 2025 at 9:18 am By Gregory T. Smith

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“I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery…but I’m in the Lord’s Army!” And AWANA is the bootcamp. If you grew up in the Evangelical church, no doubt you learned that song, complete with hand motions. If you missed out on that bit of Christian Nationalist propaganda, here’s a video, just for your own personal indoctrination: Militarized Religion If you raised your kids in an Evangelical church, they may have attended AWANA,... Read more

To Spank or Not to Spank: Between the Bible & the Belt

Last updated on: August 22, 2025 at 7:51 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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The Late James Dobson used to quote, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” On International Youth Day, love teaches better than spanking. Trigger Warning: The following article involves physical, psychological, and religious abuse of children. When I was young, my parents didn’t beat me. I wasn’t abused. I knew that I was loved. In many ways, my folks were model parents of the 1970s and 1980s. And, as Evangelicals who were the products of their times, they believed... Read more

Jesus & Lao Tzu: How to Make Yourself Content

Last updated on: July 28, 2025 at 7:55 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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We live in a high-pressure, commercial society that relies on making you discontent. How can you make yourself content, instead? I remember visiting an elderly widow in her home. When I knocked, she said, “Come in,” without rising to get the door. I let myself in and walked through her kitchen into her living room, where she sat with hands folded in her lap, facing a blank-screened TV. A closed book lay beside her. “Were you reading?” I asked. “No,”... Read more

Can Christians Rename God as “The Universe” and as “Nature”?

Last updated on: July 26, 2025 at 5:09 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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These days, you hear many people substitute the word “God” with “The Universe” or “Nature.” Can Christians justifiably rename God this way? In this series, “Renaming God,” I have addressed many of the fresh names believers have given the Divine. As part of their religious deconstruction, renegotiation, or disentanglement, many Christians have found it helpful to call God by new and creative names. Today, I will look at two names you’ve certainly heard people use as substitutes for the... Read more

Outdoor Worship: What if the Church Never Had Buildings?

Last updated on: June 27, 2025 at 8:22 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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What if, early on, the church had decided to always gather outdoors instead of in buildings? How would the church and world look different? Take a tour of Christendom, and you can visit beautiful basilicas and stunning sanctuaries dating back to antiquity. Go to church this coming Sunday, and I’ll lay you odds that you’ll step through the doors into an air-conditioned chancel that protects you from the elements as you lift your heart in song. Through the centuries,... Read more

Jesus & Lao Tzu: Beginnings and the Afterlife

Last updated on: July 26, 2025 at 6:01 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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Religions spend a lot of time contemplating the afterlife. But Taoism seems more interested in the foundation of things than the end of them. The Bible offers multiple creation stories about how the world came into being. The Tao Te Ching, however, offers no clear cosmology that could be interpreted as a creation story. It reflects on the origin of all things, from a philosophical standpoint. Here’s what verse twenty-five has to say: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching,... Read more

“Be Angry but Do Not Sin”—How to Cope with Anger

Last updated on: June 27, 2025 at 8:21 pm By Gregory T. Smith

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Ephesians says, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” More easily said than done! How can you cope with anger? Does watching the news make you angry? It should—anger is a natural response to injustice and harm. For example, millions of peaceful demonstrators at the recent No Kings rallies allowed their anger at Trump’s lawbreaking to motivate them to a positive protest. Yet, others permitted their emotions to turn to violence... Read more

Renaming God: Finding the God of My Understanding

Last updated on: July 3, 2025 at 10:21 am By Gregory T. Smith

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For as long has religion as existed, people have been renaming God according to their own understanding. This isn’t heresy. This is growth! Recently, when we spoke at our father’s funeral, my brother and I shared all the good things we remembered about him. And there was so much to say about a man who loved his family and served his country for decades. I was surprised at all the people that I had never met, who came out... Read more

What city did Jesus grow up in?