CrossCurrent Podcasts

Permission To Turn Up The Volume

Read Luke 19:28-40

It is more likely that inanimate objects like rocks would cry out to Jesus in worship than for the King of kings to enter his capital city without honor.

Jesus encouraged the joyful praise of the people, He didn't suppress it. But how quickly things would change in less than a week, as many of these same people would yell, "Crucify!"

Human beings created in God's image make much better worshippers than mere rocks.

- Line in the movie Troy by Achilles when fighting Hector.

A few other instances of inanimate objects crying out in praise:

"Why, mountains, did you skip like rams? Why, hills, like lambs? Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. He turned the rock into a pool of water; yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock." - Psalms‬ ‭114‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

"You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!" - Isaiah‬ ‭55‬:‭12‬ ‭NLT

"Praise him, sun and moon! Praise him, all you twinkling stars! Praise him, skies above! Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!" - Psalms‬ ‭148‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

"mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven! He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones— the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!" - Psalms‬ ‭148‬:‭9‬-‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

As Kingdom Writers, may our written words give others permission to turn up the volume and burst into cheers with the joyful praise that our King Jesus is due. Let's not give rocks any reason to cry out.

Our joyful praise and worship now is practice for the future coronation of our King in that same city of Jerusalem

Resources:

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The contentious life and times of the most widely cited book of the New Testament. Written some two thousand years ago, the Gospel of John is the only Christian Gospel to place Jesus at the creation of the world, and the only one where we find the stories of the raising of Lazarus, the woman taken in adultery, and the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. The Gospel of John also points an accusing finger at Jesus’s Jewish opponents and has been used by medieval crusaders, Protestant reformers, and white supremacists to legitimize antisemitic violence. In The Gospel of John: A Biography (Princeton UP, 2026) Kim Haines-Eitzen traces the legacy of this complex, beautiful, and at times deeply troubling work, from its composition in the late first century to its enduring power today. Haines-Eitzen sheds light on the book’s reception by early Christian gnostic and patristic commentators, its use in the Crusades and Reformation, its revered status among American evangelicals, and the many ways it has inspired novels, films, music, and art. The earliest papyrus fragment of an identifiably Christian Gospel is a fragment of John, and John is the only canonical Gospel that depicts Jesus as a savior who teaches openly about his divinity. Haines-Eitzen shows how John simultaneously carries a message of inclusion and intolerance, and how its story teaches us about the nature and enormous influence of scriptural religions. Compelling and provocative, The Gospel of John reveals how this dynamic, malleable biblical work has both unified and divided Christians over centuries of translation, interpretation, and creative reimagining.

Kim Haines-Eitzen (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1997) is a Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions with a specialty in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and Religion in Late Antiquity in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Her most recent book is Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks and What It Can Teach Us (Princeton University Press, 2022), a project that traces how desert sounds shaped early Christian monasticism and includes field recordings she has made in desert environments. She is the author of Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford University Press, 2000), a social history of the scribes who copied Christian texts during the second and third centuries; and The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity, which deals with the intersection of gender and text transmission (Oxford University Press, 2012). She is a member of the programs in Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, Medieval Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell. For the 2024-25 academic year, she is a Fellow at the National Humanities Center where she is working on a new project, tentatively entitled Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Field Guide to the Apocalypse. To learn more about her recent work and her media appearances, visit her website: http://kimhaineseitzen.wordpress.com

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Conflict in marriage can often feel like an all-consuming and explosive cycle that eats away at peace. It’s essential to acknowledge past experiences that contribute to these negative cycles. Ron (a licensed marriage and family therapist) and his wife Nan describe how self-regulation and retraining the brain's triggers can help bring restoration and healing in a marriage. The couple shares their own journey through the tragic loss of their young son and how these principles impacted that difficult process.

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Another First Amendment case is on the docket from the increasingly progressive Rocky Mountain state.  

__________

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Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most scholars, journalists, and observers have accepted this account; in Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity (Princeton UP, 2026) William Stell upends it. Arguing that the antigay majority in evangelicalism has been less dominant and more vulnerable than previously thought, Stell describes a network of authors, ministers, and professors—all veterans of major evangelical institutions—who worked in the 1970s and 1980s to persuade Christians that their churches should affirm the relationships and ministries of gay and lesbian members. By the late 1970s, some even thought that these activists might shape the future of evangelicalism.
Of course, that speculation proved mistaken, and the antigay evangelical majority eventually overpowered the gay-affirming minority. Stell’s history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism shines a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, Stell documents the work of four prominent activists: the founder of a predominantly LGBTQ+ denomination called the Metropolitan Community Churches, the leader of a gay advocacy organization called Evangelicals Concerned, and the evangelical feminist coauthors of the influential book Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? By recovering the successes of evangelical gay activists and the struggles of their opponents, Stell’s account transforms how we think about evangelicalism, how we talk about the culture wars, and how we approach both religion in queer movements and queer activism in religious movements.

William Stell teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at New York University.

This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com

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Conflict in marriage can often feel like an all-consuming and explosive cycle that eats away at peace. It’s essential to acknowledge past experiences that contribute to these negative cycles. Ron (a licensed marriage and family therapist) and his wife Nan describe how self-regulation and retraining the brain's triggers can help bring restoration and healing in a marriage. The couple shares their own journey through the tragic loss of their young son and how these principles impacted that difficult process.

Receive a copy of The Mindful Marriage and an audio download of "Building an Emotionally Healthy Marriage" for your donation of any amount!

Get More Episode Resources 

If you enjoyed listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, please give us your feedback.

Grinding harder shows up as progress…until it starts creating the very problems founders are trying to solve.

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