One of the things that I stressed in my book The Jesus Driven Life was that Jesus deconstructed the three pillars of second Temple Judaism: Land, Temple and Torah. Jesus did not share in the views of his contemporaries that certain tracts of land were ‘holy’ (see John 4), nor were certain religious establishments ‘holy’ (see his criticism of the Temple in Mark 13 and his prophetic action in the Temple in Mark 11) and like the prophets before him... Read more

I began blogging on Patheos sometime in September of 2015. I had been successful at that time in drawing an audience on Facebook to whom I was writing lengthy theological posts. I particularly emphasized the sacrificial hermeneutic of Christianity and the alternative of a nonviolent peacemaking hermeneutic congruent with Jesus’ (or the Gospel writers appropriation of the Jesus story if you wish) hermeneutic. Kevin Miller, Director of the film Hellbound? was kind enough to not only interview me for the... Read more

Just an announcement that exciting new changes are coming to this page beginning February 1st!!! Stay tuned. Read more

Here’s how it works peeps. The oppressor (in this case Conservative Christianity) for the past three and a half decades here in America have been hounding and persecuting and in some cases encouraging the death and violation of marginalized peoples. Three and one-half decades since the Moral Majority morphed into The Contract for America and then again into the Millennial Bush/Coulter/Limbaugh/Hannity/Piper/Driscoll/K Street lobby/Huckabee/Romney/Warren/etc group. Now their reign of terror is coming to an end. Their leaders are falling from pedestals... Read more

The reason that Many American Christians and Christian leaders, pastors and teachers are angry at the SCOTUS decision has NOTHING to do with homosexuality and EVERYTHING with their view of the Bible coming under criticism, withering criticism. Every single post or thread I have encountered or read, every video I have watched comes down to “YOU MUST BELIEVE GOD’S INSPIRED WORD.”   Their theory of inspiration has taken a major hit not only from the historical-critical method, it has also... Read more

  This is simply the most articulate, balanced, rational piece I have read on the Duggar’s by a lawyer who was raised in the Bill Gothard system.  It exposes the sexuality problem and crisis in Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism. It is an education!     Read more

As I start this post I have no agenda, nothing specific to write about so I am as curious as you to see where my mind is at this morning.   I wonder why I find the Modern Devotion [in Holland] (1380-early 16th century) so interesting. I remember sometime in the mid 1980’s I discovered their work. I initially wanted to write a class term paper on The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempen. He was a member of... Read more

Facebook friend Benjamin Benjamin Hall asked me a good question (and he phrased it beautifully and kindly). He is seeking to understand what I meant when I said in yesterday’s post that the creation as we know it was a mistake on God’s part. When I was writing that yesterday, I was as surprised as Benjamin was when I wrote it. It was a purely ‘stream of consciousness’ post, as this post is and as all my posts are. I... Read more

Faith is a word we bandy around without too much thought. For many, faith is the opposite of using our minds. Thinking is seen as the enemy of faith. For folks such as this, thinking is not a gift of God but a curse of the devil. We need to revisit our understanding of faith. Faith has to do with trust. A child trusts their parents. They do not need to know all of the troubles mom or dad face... Read more

  In yesterday’s post I spoke of the crumbling of charismatic Christianity (which I will abbreviate here as CC also denoting the term ‘Charismatic Christian’). At the end of that post I mentioned that if there is to be any hope for this movement it has to have a different starting point in its theological model. CC takes as its current starting point the resurrection of Jesus and identifies itself through the use of the language of power. I will... Read more