Today’s conversation on Back Porch Theology is the first episode of our sizzling summer series called If God Is Perfectly Good Then Why Did ______ Happen? We’re going to dive deeply into the biblical truism of theodicy – which is the vindication of our Redeemer’s absolute goodness and providence in view of the existence of physical and moral evil. The term theodicy was coined by a brainiac German dude named Gottfried Leibniz almost 300 years ago when he combined two Greek words theos – which refers to God – and dee-kay – which is the name of the Greek goddess of justice and therefore represents a sense of moral order. So the etymological scaffolding of theodicy is the framework through which we justify our Heavenly Father’s divine mercy in a human milieu that includes horrific immorality and cruelty. And since Alli - my five-foot-twelve spiritual wing-woman – is in the middle of moving to a new house, we’ve recruited some really spectacular guest hosts to ride shotgun because hers are big shoes to fill! And today’s guest host – my friend Chaplain Kyle Herbert – is uniquely equipped to testify how to hang onto hope during an especially long and dark night of the soul because he did 31 years of hard time – 22 of those at Angola, the infamous maximum-security prison in Louisiana. My spiritual brother Kyle’s joyful story of restoration - of learning to lean fully into God’s absolute goodness despite being incarcerated for over three decades - will leave you gob-smacked by divine grace. If your heart isn’t rejoicing by the end of this episode, you need to get an EKG, baby! So please grab a cup of iced coffee and your Bible – unless you’re picking a banjo at a summer bluegrass festival, of course – and come hang out on the porch with us! 

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