What were the most important stories of 2023? I review those and offer commentary. Also tell the story of enduing medical-industry-chaos in the midst of all that. And yet, I recognize the medical industry is both overwhelmed and underpaid. So I begin the show with a prayer of blessing. Come reflect, laugh, and think with me about the year we just survived!
Like a classroom where a substitute teacher fills in for the regular, I am, here on the holidays, interrupting my series. How should believers go about our Christ-given mission? Maybe it is 33%, each, with an eye to the past, present, and future? Maybe it is a balanced 50%-50% mix of indigenous and ancient Jewish culture? Using my recent trip to Costco to fill my truck and the recent Roman Catholic Synod on Synodality I think aloud with you about how we ought to frame mission. Along the way I also describe the work of some of my Christian heroes: Mother Theresa, John Wesley, Phil Keaggy, and John Wimber. How did they go about Christian mission? Come laugh and think with me!
No one is born with diakrino, a Jesus-y street smarts. It has to be developed and trained. Last week I offered goodness as a telos for discernment. This episode tracks with truth as a guide for discernment. To contemporize the topic of discernment I ask the questions, "are you a racist?", and "are all whites racists?" Along the way we see what the Bible means by truth, and what history and empirical data have to say about racism. The show begins with a holiday reflection from the Bible, "it doesn't have to be like this." Come laugh and think with me.
Western Civilization is cracking and creaking. There are obvious signs—educated people celebrating rape, slaughter, and genocide—and there are subtle signs—someone being sent to prison for 10 years for posting a snarky meme. But we will miss both signs if we are lacking discernment. In order to catch nuance and practice discernment (a Jesus-y street smarts) we need a telos—a path that guides us toward a target—that informs the whole of our lives. The Bible holds out goodness for us as just such a telos. Come think and laugh with me.
Two thousand years ago a Roman centurion observed yet another Jewish rable-rousing "messiah" being crucified. Compared to the many taunting passersby, that soldier discerned that something unusual was transpiring. Seeing it all, he uttered an epic historic statement. Truth is, discernment takes time. Catching the nuance takes practice. In this episode I begin building out several ways by which we can build our discernment. How can we recognize political propaganda? My aim is to help us develop a Jesus-y street smarts. I also work through rhetorical self-defeaters: phrases that are commonly uttered which, supposedly, are show-stoppers. What can we do and say when we hear something like, "well, there are no absolutes"? Come laugh and think with me.
Jesus said, "do not judge lest ye be judged." And that settles it: we should never judge, right? Well, actually, no. In the same chapter—Matthew 7—where Jesus starts out by forbidding judgment he positively calls us to make several judgments: bad vs. good fruit, wolves vs. sheep, wide vs. narrow gates, bad vs. good fathers, foundations of rock vs. foundations of sand. So the notion that he banned all judgment is simply silly. In this first-of-a-series episode I unpack Jesus' teaching on good judgment: discernment. We also clarify the bad judgment he was banning.
Christianity is not first the study of a book, or a new ethic, or a set of doctrines, as important as all those are. It is, instead, a lived experience. Or more carefully? Christianity is a felt telos: a orientation to life that filters and orients all our other experiences (even going to football games!). More specifically still, Christianity is (or can be) life in the third member of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. And that is because the Spirit is a person, not a forcefield, not an it. In this episode I think pastorally and personally about life in God's Spirit. During the show's opening I reflect on the pastors—the Black Robed Regiment—who helped to foment the American Revolution. Would that revolt have occurred if it were up to today's pastors and priests? Why does that question even matter?
Election is a thoroughly biblical doctrine. Among many—Protestants especially—election goes to the matter of who is eternally saved, or not. But that's not where the Bible begins with the doctrine of election, and it's not even where Jesus began in his practice of election. No, instead? Election has to do with mission, being called to mission, and sharing in the mission of God's redemption of creation. With that formulation as a foundation, why then are the Jews so globally hated? Why, across all of written history, have the Jews been so targeted for pogrom, genocide, and Holocaust? And with that, why are the Jews so deeply hated and targeted for massacre today?
Immediately after an episode (last week) where I explained why governmental power (because it is too commonly insidious) should be slow-walked? Hamas invaded Israel. After I narrate some of the horrors of that, I explain my initial reactions to this heart-breaking event. What do we do to mitigate the "cycle of violence"? Or, is "cycle of violence" even the accurate way to assess what's going on? Then I frame our catastrophic-feeling era in light of both history and theology. Many Christians today—Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox—sense how apocalyptic this all feels. So, are we in THE end times?
A Christian engagement with politics is idealistic, right? I mean, don't Christians want both a righteous messiah and an earthly Nirvana? Not me. I explain why I do engage politically, noting my historical and theological reasoning. In the show's second part I work through the topic of hell. Can we say God is loving if he sends people there? Can we say God is just if he sends people there? Well, actually, I believe there are profound reasons to suggest that hell is morally good. Let's be more nuanced.
The show starts with me praying for my listeners' provision: interest rates and the cost of living are soaring. Then I discuss how a NYT email news-feed hit me like a bolt of lighting. The story read, "2020 was driven by a righteous spirit and legitimate moral demands." How did that spirit and its moral demands shape the hearts of ten millions of good-hearted Christians? Can an emotional response be legitimate if the perceived event was based on a lie? Come think with me about why we are now experiencing another 16th century Reformation, but this time around it is entirely to the bad.
Which is more influential, the culture or the Church? Man, it's not even close! How do we know? One crisp way: examine what church leaders are doing. Take Pope Francis, for example. Conservative life-long Roman Catholics are beside themselves with how Francis is either working around or apart from Church tradition. The reality is we are living in an era that mirrors the 16th century Reformation for its significance. I also suggest an approach for when you're in a debate. Finally I examine the a priori assumptions and methodology of the Jesus Seminar. Just who was Jesus as he was?
This episode's content in order: a Sawtooth mountain campfire conversation; a from-the-future newscast; recognizing patterns; prayer to wake and shake; how to play it when you're outmatched in a conversation; carefully defining the meaning of faith; faith as Holy Spirit-ual attunement; the Jesus Seminar on Gospel manuscripts; and, the bulk of textual evidence behind the New Testament. Please, come think and laugh with me!
Had a grand talk with my mom last week. Turning philosophical it was about the organ of vision, the sensus divinitatis, that characterizes human nature; we cannot help but spectate about transcendence. This episode's latter half touches on ancient copyists errors in the process of biblical formation; concerning truth it's better to be frank than pompous (re. covering up embarrassments). I also variously muse about politicians who go vacant in front of cameras, what to do when you're outgunned in a conversation, and how the Dems might play 81million's next roll out. Come laugh and think with me.
Reasons for You to Believe, #2. Is the version of the Bible we have in English accurate? In ancient history was it, as some scholars assert, ever taken and manipulated? I begin working through the process—the canonization process—of how we came to have our Bible. Also tackled in this episode: a) is it okay to have some doubts about the Christian faith? b) what is the perfect argument that precedes faith in God? c) what was Jesus' own Bible? and, d) a new election season UN-song!
What are the good reasons, if any, through which one could believe in Christianity? In this first episode of a series I work an apophatic argument, one by negation: the existence of evil. Evil is so common as to be empirically beyond question. But the Christian worldview goes further: it calls evil by the name sin. Why? I also consider more questions one might ask one's dialogue partner when it comes to conversations about life. Are opinions arguments? Are emotional stories legitimate arguments? Oh, and then, what about Trump's mugshot? Come laugh and think with me!
The global church has seen its fill of horrors: pastors and priests betraying their call by sinning and deflating congregants' attitudes toward Christianity. And yet the broader culture still makes evident a hunger for transcendence: spirituality is on the rise. So what, respectively, do religion and spirituality take as their focus and their telos? I compare spirituality and religion in this episode. Along the way I also share more strategic questions one might ask in thoughtful conversations. Come think and laugh with me!
What does it mean to be human? The orthodox Christian worldview teaches we are embodied souls; not souls trapped in bodies, not spirits doomed to earth, but integrated, each valuable. The Postmodern secular worldview now holds we are consumers; choice is the exercise of willpower and nothing—especially others—should interfere with the exercise of one's own choice. The body, with all its appendages, is thus the both vehicle of consumer-choice and something to be used up, at will. In the first 12 minutes I talk, from Psalms 106, about the continual presence of God. Come think and laugh with me!
Significant to our culture's secular quality has been the presence and role of feminism. I offer a historical overview of family-and-public life, noting how the Industrial Revolution did things to women, men, and the family that the Feminist movement was right to protest and critique. Along the way I also note some of the shortcomings of the Feminist critique. At the show's beginning I reflect on the legalization of drugs in the state wherein I grew up: Oregon. Come laugh and think with me.
A recent experience at the Oregon coast: an unknown woman walked into our camp and began to visit with us. When, after ten minutes, the pleasant conversation turned to the cultural-shift she went on a verbal tirade. It made me think, what are some good questions to ask in an honest conversation? Why are questions disarming? Why do questions make for space? Oh, and this episode has a "special" advertiser joining us. Come laugh and think with me.
