Most of the time that conservative Christians encounter the doctrine of universal reconciliation, they usually describe it with a bunch of caricatures, and I thought it would be useful to discuss those caricatures and contrast them to the truth about this doctrine.

You can also read this in blog form at https://crucibleofthought.com/why-many-evangelicals-misunderstand-universal-reconciliation/

A video version can be found at https://youtu.be/PYjql3T3VQA

What do we do when our government becomes untrustworthy?

I've been wrestling with this question for a while now. And everything I see coming convinces me that we're in for a REALLY rough ride in the near future. So what do we do about it? I have some ideas that won't fix any of our nation's problems - but they will give us a roadmap for bringing the love of God to those around us, even as the darkness grows.

You can watch this episode at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IXpfeZ-wnE

This week we watched another George-Floyd-like expression of extreme injustice by a government official take place in front of, and despite the obvious presence of, multiple cameras. In fact, that official was even captured on camera recording his actions on his own personal cell phone camera.

The horror and outrage that so many are feeling today is understandable. But I'm wrestling with the definition of justice that I inherited from my evangelical upbringing, and my personal expectations of what God will do about the injustice, and how I was raised to think and pray about events like we see unfolding today.

And the long and short of it is, God seems to expect us to do a lot more about the injustice, than we are comfortable admitting to ourselves.

You can also watch this episode at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcFdo_U4_c

What if the thing Christians call "hell" was effectively just a welding torch, designed to join us all into one? What if we could become one, without all that heat and fire and pain? Let's talk about becoming one, and how it relates to something the aerospace industry calls "cold welding" or "vacuum welding."

You can watch this in video form at https://youtu.be/Teaf6POYL50

I'm joined by Paule Patterson and Andy Luiten to discuss the state of the American church, and her relationship to prophetic voices calling her to account. How did the church get here? What factors are at play? Can we learn anything from the counseling professions as we think about whether the church can recover from its challenges?

You can also watch this at https://youtu.be/-cL9POzUh5k

Paule Patterson and I talk about awakening and enlightenment, then the very opposite: the idea of kenosis, of dying to self, of ego death. What does it mean for the Son of Man to experience a mystical awakening? How do we need to die to self, to experience a death of our "ego," to become truly alive? Is this an individual thing, or can it only be experienced in community? Paule and I explore these questions together.

You can also watch this episode at https://youtu.be/7CllsdnY9oc

In my fifth conversation with Paule Patterson about his book "The Coming of the Son of Man and the Mystic Awakening", we discuss ways that the Bible adopted language from the empire around them, but subverted that empire in the very adoption of that language.

You can also watch this as a video at https://youtu.be/HR9cRpFCxQQ

Life and death are impossible to separate. And inevitably, life itself springs from death. It doesn't ease the pain of loss, but we can take comfort in the rebirth inherent in the process of life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXlIvBgsYmY

The MAGA propaganda machine is powerful and dangerous. More than anything I've seen in my lifetime, I've watched it successfully weaponize the human soul, taking the worst primal human emotions and using them to wound and even kill our neighbors and fellow citizens and the most vulnerable among us.

How dangerous a thing it is to claim a mantle of being God's chosen people living on God's promised land, and not scrupulously following God's laws! The land itself will spew them out.And yet, that's exactly what a massive number of American evangelical Christians are doing - even as they celebrate the horrible injustices being carried out by their government, violating the single most emphasized commandment in the Bible.

You can also watch this in video form at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6JCqc63Qwk