Christianity IS Humanism

July 13, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

“Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. He was a sacrificial offering that smelled sweet to God.Sexual immorality, and any kind of impurity or greed, shouldn’t even be mentioned among you, which is right for holy persons. Obscene language, silly talk, or vulgar jokes aren’t acceptable for believers. Instead, there should be thanksgiving. Because you know for sure that persons who are... Read more

What Evangelical Leaders (& The Rest of Us) Can Learn From Glenn Beck

July 11, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

On Wednesday, Glenn Beck, the uber-conservative, tea party-ish, Mormon political commentator and personality took to the airwaves to announce that he was going to be making a “potentially lethal” career move that would put his new television network and non-profit in jeopardy. But with tears in his eyes, he looked directly in to the camera and said, “I have never, ever taken a position that is more right than this.” Following the emotional build up, Beck announced that he would... Read more

8 Encouraging News Stories to Reignite Your Faith

July 8, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

It’s easy to get discouraged about the state of the Church if you spend any amount of time on social media. Over the past week alone, I’ve read posts about leading evangelical pastors excommunicating fast food restaurants, celebrities copyrighting Christian catch-phrases, secular businesses acting as Christian entities on issues of health care and birth control, and seemingly endless infighting among factions of Christians on a wide range of minute issues, just to name a few. As a blogger, I feel... Read more

Living As Functional Atheists

July 7, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

Guest Post by Duane Beachey, Author Reading the Bible As If Jesus Mattered I read Sam Harris’ book, Letter to a Christian Nation. Harris is among contemporary atheists who have authored books to convince people of atheist beliefs. It’s an interesting book. He’s right about some things. I’d have to say that I couldn’t believe in some of the descriptions of God he offers either. He highlights the worst abuses of people of faith and blames the religion itself for... Read more

Reading the Bible As If Jesus Mattered…

July 5, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

Every once in a while I will get asked by a publisher to endorse a book. A few months ago, Cascadia Publishers reached out to me about endorsing a new book by Duane Beachey, a Mennonite Pastor from Kentucky titled Reading the Bible as if Jesus Mattered. When I received the manuscript of the book for review, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. As I began reading through the chapters of this book, I was struck by how truly... Read more

Churches Should NOT Celebrate Independence Day

July 3, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

I love America. I really do. I am proud to live in the “land of the free and the home of the brave”. I have been to a number of other countries and in my humble opinion, none compare to the United States of America. I also see no problem with being a Christian and having a healthy sense of national pride. But there is a big problem when the two get intertwined. As Christians, we believe that we live in... Read more

A Beautiful Atheism…

July 2, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

Last week I had the honor of continuing a three year tradition of sitting down and chatting with my friend, the artist and prolific author Frank Schaeffer at the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Every year that I have sat down with Frank, I have been blown away by his compassion, spiritual fervor, and honesty. Every year, I walk away from our conversation filled with hope and a renewed energy to continue pressing in to my mission... Read more

Brandan Speaks on Liberating Evangelicalism at Wild Goose 2014

July 2, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

Hey friends! I literally just pulled in to my apartment in Chicago after spending a week traveling from Chicago to Maryland to North Carolina to Tennessee to Southern Illinois and back to Chicago on my annual trip to the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs, North Carolina. I have attended Wild Goose for the past three years and the festival has become more of a family reunion than a conference for me. This year I spent hours sitting around and... Read more

Out of Many, One: An Exhortation for Unity from John 17

June 25, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

In today’s postmodern, post secular, post Christendom world, there is a growing movement among the faithful adherents to our world’s religions to fragment off from one another based on doctrinal, traditional, liturgical, and a wide variety of other reasons and create individual communities that represent unique and organic expressions of their religious faith. This fragmentation has affected no community more than the Church of Jesus Christ as she continues to divide and diversify in her expressions around the world. While... Read more

“Cast Out those who willfully sin…”

June 24, 2014 By Brandan Robertson

I just wanted to share a thought. Please understand my heart and intention behind this post is not to condemn the person who wrote this comment but to simply address what I think is a deadly stream of thinking among reformed evangelicals. A month or so ago, I posted a survey about what types of churches young evangelicals desired. Pretty consistently for about a month, I have gotten posts offering various critiques and dreams for the way we do church.... Read more