Crucible of Thought

Have you ever realized you were really, seriously, badly wrong in a way that hurt other people? In 2022 I realized I had been incredibly wrong about gay and queer people and their acceptability to God. So I publicly and clearly repented. This Pride Month, I'd like to spend a few minutes retelling and expanding on some of my history that led to that decision.

It's a provocative question: do we believe that God guaranteed that all the human activity since the time of the writing of scripture has led the Church to a divine, perfect orthodoxy? Is today's definition of "Christian" more accurate today than it was in the early church? And how did we get here, anyway?

I spoke with Paule Patterson, who goes by the online moniker of Drunk Pastor, about Part 3 of the book he's writing about the ongoing formation of the Church, titled "The Coming of the Son of Man and Mystical Awakening," where he explores recent changes in the church and theology. In this episode, my third conversation with Paule, we actually look back in history at the early church, from about the second century up until the end of the Dark Ages, and consider the forces that shaped Christian thinking and led to our modern sense of orthodoxy. I've personally looked into Christian church history quite a bit in the last few years, but Paule brings some new light to the topic, with his background in philosophy, that helped me understand some of the higher-level thinking, and gave me some fresh insight into the forces of human nature that shaped history and drove a lot of the changes. It seems that as humans we either naturally want kings and we want certainty, or we want to be those kings and to be certain that those under us are well-controlled. Those themes show up again and again through history, and it seems to have driven Christian history as well.

And this leads to the question: are those all-too-human tendencies what created orthodoxy - which would imply that it probably isn't quite what God intended? Or did God superintend the process to ensure that we arrived at a truly holy orthodoxy today?

I think that's a very important question, and this discussion begins to shed light on it.

#sonofman #mysticism #christianmysticism #progressivechristianity #orthodoxchurch #orthodoxchristianity #churchhistory

I've been getting involved in addressing homelessness in my town, and sat in on a meeting about renovating a house into a women's shelter. I was struck by how *stupidly* hard it is to help people get affordable or even emergency housing. It seems like all the wheels of regulation are jammed against any real progress.

You can read this post in blog form:

https://crucibleofthought.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-address-homelessness/

Read about Ronald Reagan and the "welfare queen":

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/20/255819681/the-truth-behind-the-lies-of-the-original-welfare-queen

Read about reasons unhoused people reject offers of shelter:

https://brightenthecorner.org/2023/02/12/why-some-people-avoid-homeless-shelters/

Here's my interview from March 2025 with Kevin Nye, author of a book on the church and homelessness prevention.

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

You can also watch this blog in video from at

https://youtu.be/1vEpRUcQGTY

Today, a ton of people are talking about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even making a movie based on his life, but I had to wonder, what did he really think about nationalism and the Gospel, and more importantly to me, what would he think about what's happening in America today?

Today I get to share with you a pretty wide-ranging interview with two Christian ministers, Ben Marsh and Bonhoeffer’s Child of the "Sacred Shenanigans" podcast, discussing our theological backgrounds and political journeys, and spending some time reflecting on the limitations of modern Western evangelicalism.

We talked a lot about our evolving views, particularly the tensions between conservative theology and progressive political sensibilities. We also talked about our concerns about the rise of Christian nationalism. Ben and Bon emphasized a return to the self-sacrificial, Christ-centered faith exemplified by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spent the last few years of his life fighting against the Nazi regime, and calling the church to return to a holy and missional walk like Jesus preached, and to look after the marginalized.

Obviously, Bonhoeffer is one of Bon's heroes, and we kept returning to Bonhoeffer's ideas as we talked. We also spent some time discussing our modern online engagement, the limitations of church structures, and our mutual hope for an authentic Christian witness in a fragmented society facing increasing challenges from all sides.

#deconstructingchristianity #christiannationalism #bonhoeffer #dietrichbonhoeffer #churchreform #authenticfaith

This is a great conversation about the collective Christ, the Son of Man arising in the world, an appearing of the Body of Christ in a new way. For a couple thousand years the Church has been wrestling with division and strife, and although there's certainly no lack of that strife today, many people are increasingly aware of a new kind of oneness - as Jesus spoke about in John 17 - arising from the chaos. But it doesn't look like anything that has preceded it. This conversation touches on some of those ideas, considering Paule Patterson's book-in-progress "The Coming of the Son of Man and Mystical Awakening."

This is my second recording with Paule, who goes by the online moniker of Drunk Pastor - a reference to his personal journey of recovery. This conversation covers Part Two of his book. Well, actually, I can't say it COVERS Part Two. Rather, it bounces off Part Two. Even after speaking for about an hour about this section, we barely touched the surface of a few of the concepts he's raising. I guess you'll have to wait for him to finish writing so you can read it too!You can find his website and blog at https://drunkpastor.com/

You can also watch this in video form at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSgBie8Ok9w

This is a fun and wide-ranging conversation with Paule Patterson, and we talk about the intersection of philosophy and religion, and specifically the ideas about collective versus individual identity - what IS "The Church," this thing that Christianity has been discussing for two millennia? It's a topic he's been writing about in his book-in-process "The Coming of the Son of Man and Mystical Awakening." I think it's very important for Christianity, as we wrestle with division and sectarianism and so many people abandoning traditional institutional religion.

This is my first recording with Paule, who goes by the online moniker of Drunk Pastor - a reference to his personal journey of recovery. He's a really neat guy and has done a ton of hard thinking about the nature of our faith and how it's expressed, and I knew I needed to talk to him. So we had a conversation a few days ago to just get acquainted, and I realized we could have some amazing conversations on camera about what we discussed. And it turns out he's been working on a book of sorts and he let me have an advance look at it, and so this first video covers Part One of his book.

You can find his website at https://drunkpastor.com/

The video version of this episode can be found at https://youtu.be/XqVUbMXQaaM

While I mourn many things that are being lost in the last few months here in America, one that grieves me the most has been the absolute shredding of many markers of equality in our culture. As I watch what is happening, it's now clear to me that this equality was a lot less solid than I had thought.

You can watch this on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEOOzOFQYQQ

Also available in written form at https://crucibleofthought.com/a-shallow-veneer-of-equality/

If you're like me, you're feeling very unhappy and unsettled by what's happening in our country right now. The changes are overwhelming, the flood of negative news is unrelenting, and there's a sense of loss as I watch what's happening. In some real sense, it requires grieving, as I realize that things are changing rapidly and those changes might be permanent. So the real question in my mind is this: How do I respond? How can I process these changes, and will we ever get back to normal? I suggest that the five stages of grief offer a model for how to proceed.

You can also watch this in video form at https://youtu.be/1OhmLioWr78

"Too big to fail." We've all heard that saying, and it usually refers to the idea that once an organization gets a certain size, and becomes important to culture or society, it's too big to be allowed to fail; the life of the organization must be preserved at all costs. But that doesn't account for the problem that sometimes, the harm that the organization is doing is so bad that perhaps it ought to fail, for the very good of society.I was thinking about that problem with large organizations, in light of a potentially abusive leadership situation that recently came to light. Because I think that in some cases, it's the very size of the organization that is what causes the problems.And I think that applies to churches just as much as secular organizations. And recently, a situation with a large religious organization got me thinking that, sometimes, organizations actually get too big to succeed.

You can watch this video on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/2yP_L8gJ_QIRick Pidcock's two articles:https://baptistnews.com/article/allegations-against-tim-whitaker-and-the-new-evangelicals-show-how-hierarchy-transfers-to-progressive-ministries/https://baptistnews.com/article/that-time-i-got-an-angry-call-from-the-subject-of-an-article-about-anger-and-abuse/GRACE report:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZXa0sCk9lzmZ_xylztf8fQ995ebmoLFo/viewTNE response to the GRACE investigation:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHT4jgFvLIU/

Today I'm really pleased to bring you an discussion with Kevin Nye, the author of "Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness." He wrote the book a few years ago, and I read it about a year ago, and I've been increasingly interested in what can be done about the problem of homelessness. A lot of the things I grew up believing about homelessness have been proven false, and more importantly, a lot of the things I grew up believing about the PEOPLE experiencing homelessness were also proven false. So when I crossed paths with Kevin on social media, he seemed like a person that was really worth having a conversation with. I hope this is useful to you.

You can find Kevin's book here:https://amzn.to/49zX6tI

This is Kevin's website:https://kevinmnye.com/

And his Substack:https://kevinmnye.substack.com/

You can watch this on YouTube too:

https://youtu.be/VHeMMmYdCUc