Crucible of Thought

Considering Israel and Gaza in light of Isaac and Ishmael, peace is not gained through superior firepower, but superior love.

You can also read this post at https://crucibleofthought.com/peace-through-superior-love/

I've been in an interesting place for a while now, trying to come to grips with a God who turns out to not meet my old expectations, and watching a lot of people who call themselves Christian act rather unlike the Jesus I read about in the Gospels. So I've been thinking hard about the nature of truth, and the nature of the Bible itself.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/subjective-truth/

The Bible portrays a complex, changing view of God. To find the Truth of who God really is, I need to follow the trajectory of God's self-revelation to humanity.

You can also read this as a blog post - and find the graphic I referenced during the episode - at https://crucibleofthought.com/trajectory/

This is the image: https://crucibleofthought.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Trajectory.jpg

When we learn to release what other people think of our doctrine or politics or God, there's a real joy and freedom. I may be feeling betrayed, but I'm also feeling released and freed.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/there-is-joy-in-disconnection/

Betrayal causes a trauma response in humans. Institutions, not just people, can be the source of betrayal. A normal human response to betrayal trauma is to disengage completely from the institution. That's where I am in relation to several institutions I previously trusted and depended on for my identity.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/betrayal

Papers quoted:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796709002848

https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/articles/sf2014.pdf

As my religious understanding changes, I'm discovering that so does my language about religion. But to "be all things to all men, so that I may save some," I have to become multilingual - fluently speaking the native language of whatever tribe I am with.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/becoming-multilingual

The current trend of avoiding issues by using fear to cause division and boundaries and othering is incredibly problematic: it fundamentally opposes the very first two original purposes of God towards man: being a single unified body made of many individuals, and ruling faithfully over the creation that God gave to us. And that failing is causing deep harm to the Kingdom, by chasing people away from our God.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/preaching-fear-instead-of-taking-action/

A transformative moment for me recently was realizing that my compulsive need for labels to figure out how to treat people was harming my relationships, and keeping me from truly loving people who are very different than me.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/labels

Did God stop speaking at the end of the first century AD? Did He tell us literally everything we need to know in the Bible? I've been thinking about the various basic approaches to reading and understanding the Bible. It seems to me that there are at least two related methods of Bible interpretation, and their interaction results in some rather different outcomes depending on your assumptions.

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/is-the-bible-the-final-word/

What is an enemy? Do we Christians really even HAVE enemies? For that matter, are we supposed to?

You can also read this episode at https://crucibleofthought.com/whos-your-enemy/

The book I reference, Faith After Doubt, can be found at https://amzn.to/3PfDKCx