Religion writer Rick Pidcock once said, “It’s funny how I’ve always heard the ‘slippery slope’ argument as a warning for becoming more liberal, but have never heard it as a warning for becoming more conservative.” For example, some might warn that if you begin to understand the genre of Genesis…

Genesis 1–4 tells the story of a man and a woman in relationship who have three sons. These chapters tell us a lot about human nature, family dynamics, how we relate to God, how we relate to creation, and much more. From these stories, we can make theological claims about…

“Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Hebrews 9:22 This verse has been used to justify a bloodthirsty view of God. That God had no choice but to punish Jesus on the cross in order to forgive sins. But this is a pagan view of God…

Let me tell you a Bible story. In this story you’ll hear why you think the Bible is backwards and xenophobic; but is more progressive than you’ll ever be; why we need to listen to our Jewish cousins when we study Scripture; and why chronological Bibles suck. Ezra 9 tells…

It’s clear that White Christian Evangelicalism (WCE) is diseased. Wherever you look, you find symptoms of its chronic illness: it’s support of Trump; the steady moral failings of its leaders; its embrace of conspiracy theories and rejection of history; denial of contemporary science; embrace of nationalism; denial of systemic racism…

Stats — Fiction vs. Non-fiction. My natural tendency is to read more non-fiction than fiction. It didn’t always used to be this way, but college and grad school got me out of the habit or reading fiction. I now read fiction much more slowly than non-fiction (weird, I know). But Emily challenged…

Hello Friends, Family, Loved Ones, and Distant Admirers. We hope that you are finding moments of joy in the midst of this unique holiday season. How do you even begin to summarize a year like this one? How do you do it with any sense of honesty without becoming morose…

Capital punishment is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus. You cannot simultaneously believe that God is the God of redemption, forgiveness, and transformation and believe that the best response to certain kinds of crime is execution. I mean, I guess you can -people clearly do. In the U.S., executions happen…

Most people believe two foundational things. One, that there is such a thing as Reality. And Two, that we can know things about that Reality. In other words, there are such things as Facts and Knowledge. There are lots of facts that we can know just by experiencing them. If…