Cover by Rafael Polendo Several years ago, I went through what most people call a deconstruction of some of my religious beliefs. It started as moving from a fundamentalist, evangelical system to a more Christ-like, less retributive view of God. I first compared my beliefs about God to my experience as a parent. I wrote a book called Apparent Faith: What Fatherhood Taught Me About the Father’s Heart. It became a journal of my journey through deconstruction, and I was... Read more
Photo by Ryutaro Tsukata: https://www.pexels.com/photo/small-jizo-on-grassy-ground-6249742/My personality is easily frustrated. I imagine things could be better than what they are. I hope for people to treat me better, and when they don’t, I often become disappointed and/or angry. I long to accomplish things, and even before I finish one project, I’m thinking about the next. I’ve written about seven books in the last 5 years, two of them are not even published yet. I think I had somewhat of a breakthrough... Read more
As much as we would hate to admit it, most of our lives are totally governed by fear. We also know that, because of this, people are easily able to sell us what they want to sell us. The two primary avenues they take are through religion and politics. Like a good salesperson, preachers and politicians play on our fears to sell us who we should vote for and where we should send our money. Before you dismiss it as... Read more
(This is a guest post by my friend, Kyle Butler) About a year or so ago, I started the incredibly difficult work of going within myself, to not only find myself, but to also heal myself. I also wanted to gain an understanding as to why certain unwanted behaviors had become prevalent in my life. This was hard. It was very hard. There were many, many very dark days and very dark nights. Many moments of feeling as if “what’s... Read more
First of all, I’m not sure if disabled is the right word, I’ve been busy the last 6 months trying to recover from my stroke. They tell me I’m doing very well, but it doesn’t feel that way. I have no speech issues or cognitive impairments, but I don’t move so fast and my left arm is still quite impaired. Overall, people have been encouraging. They have donated money, called us regularly in some cases, and were generally encouraging. As... Read more
Laura and I wrote a book a couple of years ago called, Out into the Desert: Thriving Outside Organized Religion. One of the topics we explore in this book, that will be released soon, is the idea that religion creates an addiction. Religion is designed to appeal to our emotions and make us feel “good.” If you told me “I like going to church,” I wouldn’t have a problem believing you. Worship services are designed to make you feel good,... Read more
Bullies don’t always look like the chubby kid with the low self-esteem that tries to steal our lunch money. Sometimes the bully looks like a grandmother with a southern drawl that says “bless your heart” in front of a lot of people to shame you for doing something she disagrees with. Sometimes bullying looks like a pastor that ends an impassioned sentence with “Amen?” or “wouldn’t you agree?” to force you to comply. Sometimes it’s the person at the farmers... Read more
I try to keep my writing as succinct as possible. So this blog is an attempt to take it to a new level. I’m not a fan of organized religion. As succinctly as possible. I will try to explain. 1. Religion has no room for our grief. It promises to help us, it intends to help us, but because it’s an organization, it cannot. 2. Most of the money and resources are wasted. 70% of its income goes to building... Read more
Yesterday, We drove up to Omaha to watch the Storm Chasers, a minor league team, and also watch the fireworks. We have done this many times over the years. It’s one of our favorite things to do on the 4th. In many different ways, on Independence Day in the United States, we are prompted to cheer for America and celebrate. Anymore, all of that just falls a little flat. It’s not that I hate America, I love America and I... Read more
(Afterword from our book, Out into the Desert) – releasing August 15th It has been a couple years since we wrote the original manuscript for this book. In that short amount of time, things have changed. As we mentioned in the beginning, some of our views have evolved over time. We anticipated this would happen–and it did. One of the reasons organized religion fails is that it wants to write its dogma and beliefs in stone. We all know from... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In