Religiosanity

The recent evangelical longing for the time of Billy Graham makes Pastor Andrew reflect on the historical tone-deafness, and downright insanity, of Graham's (and many other evangelicals') use of the word "crusade" in various titles of events and organizations.

On this episode, Pastor Andrew proposes the idea of taking ON a practice for lent rather than the now cliché, tired, often obsessive compulsive idea of giving UP something for lent, and details the "Five Daily Prayers" exercise that Rutgers Church is taking on for this spiritually significant season.

Pastor Andrew talks with Peter about one of the darkest taboo of religious human sacrifices, difference between a know story of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of Isaac and Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter and its similarity to classical parallel in the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

And some remarks about the origins of sacrifices.

In 2017, Trump announced the United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and ordered the planning of the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On this episode, Pastor Andrew talks about the religio-insanity of justifying such a recognition by citing mythology and legend as if it were history, and fills us in on the historical fact surrounding this issue.

Pastor Andrew once again takes us on an unexpected journey. This time we learn about an ancient (and at that time most trusted) form of divination called haruspicy, which is basically the "science" of inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals.

Pastor Andrew pays tribute to Terry Jones, from "Monty Python's Flying Circus," who died this week, by talking about the theological gifts the great movie he directed, "Life of Brian," has to share. The movie got a beating from "church folk" when it came out, but, as Pastor Andrew says, only people who don't understand the Bible would take offense to this marvelous film.

The assassination of Qasem Soleimani prompts Pastor Andrew into a discussion on Zoroastrianism and its influence on Judaism and Christianity.

On this episode, Pastor Andrew answers a listener question: What does Jesus mean by "The Kingdom of God?"

A preposterous assertion from Republican congressman Barry Loudermilk that "Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded [Donald Trump]" during his current impeachment, prompts Pastor Andrew to talk about the trial of Jesus and place it in some historical context. Plus he tells us about the interesting arc Pilate traveled in some legendary stories from early Christians that puts him just shy of sainthood.

Pastor Andrew has one more chapter in the Sane Christmas series to share wit us. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts the early childhood of Jesus, and it hilariously plays out like a young super hero not aware of his powers. Plus the Pastor explains how these stories help to put the gospel stories in context for him and why that's important.