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Imagine you are a Hebrew living in the 2nd century BCE in Israel. You are currently under occupation by a foreign nation. The remnants of the former Greek empire had invaded the land of your forefathers a century earlier. Judaism was eventually outlawed, and an alter was erected in your temple to the Greek godRead more

I hope you have enjoyed the series on the atonement so far. In this final post, I want to answer some of the most difficult questions about the atonement that have come up in my journey over the last twenty years. Some of them came up while listening to sermons at church, some while doingRead more

Today’s blog post is my third in a new series on my evolving Christian faith. If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to read the first two posts introducing the series, I recommend first reading FaithRethink: A new series on an evolving Christian faith followed up by FaithRethink: Are you the same person you used to be?  Read more

Are you the same person? Grab a pad of paper and pen so that you can write things down, or get out an electronic device so that you can type out your responses instead. We’re going to take some time to compare and contrast our past selves to who we are now. In order toRead more

You remain a Christian. You’ve just changed. Perhaps your framework for understanding the Christian faith has changed. Perhaps your understanding and interpretations of various Bible topics and passages have changed. Perhaps some of your spiritual habits have changed. I too have changed. My understanding of my faith in Jesus has changed. To be clear, IRead more

The Secret What if Jesus and his message are far better than we currently realize? And what if so much of what gets passed on as the truth about Jesus and his message is actually a watered down version of it (at best) or a complete perversion of it (at worst)? And what if oneRead more

In light of the violent riot at the US Capital on January 6, 2021 and those who lost their lives, I offer this prayer.   Pray with me: God of creation, Our nation is in crisis. We are more polarized than ever. Neighbor is suspicious of neighbor. Hatred, aggression and violence have escalated. Even thoseRead more

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope you and your family are having a restful holiday season and New Year’s Day! A lot of us had to change our usual norms this year due to public health guidelines and restrictions, but we made the adjustments and found out that it’s possible to still have aRead more

Loss of vision One of the greatest challenges of suffering in our world is not just the existence of suffering but in how to deal with it. So many of our attempts at avoiding or eliminating personal suffering is not simply because of the pain involved but the crippling ability of suffering to wipe outRead more

Stories are incredibly important to us. As children, most of us learned the word “story” and we often attached that word to anything we read or heard that was fictional in nature. But later in life, the word story took on new meaning. Stories became ways or modes of talking  about experiences we had thatRead more