The Uncensored Unprofessor

The number one reason people don't make decisions? Fear. Fear fogs our discriminating processes in a number of ways. I work through those painful ways in this episode. Then, as we all know, naming is powerful. I recently came across the name for a 50 year old social strategy: Cloward-Piven. With uncanny accuracy it describes the constant patterns we see at work in American society. Naming that strategy also helps us to realize, again, that we wrestle not with flesh and blood. Come think and laugh with me!

Jesus lived life in beautiful ways. He treated all people as images of God, respected their agency as full persons, never spoke down to them, and never treated people as though they were children. In this fifth episode on making necessary discriminations I talk about how beauty has been important in my own life: my marriage, my vocation, the art in my home, my church attendance, and even how I vote. Beauty—one of life's transcendent qualities—suggests more and therefore calls for more. Beauty doesn't play by the strict transactional rules of today's World Spirit. Come laugh with me as we think through the necessity of making decisions.

Most Christians worship a binity: Father and Son, and that's when their binity isn't merely Jesus and the Bible! The Holy Spirit routinely gets boxed up, put away, and ignored. Functionally, He is the Cinderella of the Trinity: only brought out on special occasions, like a baptismal service: "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." But the Scriptures, Old and New, have much to teach us about the third person of the Trinity. I expore how the New Testament builds upon but then expands what the Old Testament revealed about the Spirit. I also work through 5 different ways the Church (and culture) box up the Holy Spirit, keep him on the back shelf. Let's prayerfully welcome the dynamic, creative, and beautiful work of God's Holy Spirit into our lives!

This is a blast from the past, a least-worst, UU episode originally recorded for my premium subscribers. Why are fences and hierarchies and boundaries necessary? After all, they fly in the face of a raw democracy-style way of doing life, fly in the face of perfect equality. So how and why would a loving Christian ever embrace hierarchies and boundaries? I aims to explain their matter-of-fact nature and then explain how Christians should, because the Bible does, prioritize their own hierarchies and boundaries. Come think and laugh with me.

Mindful of how she and her husband raise their kids a listener and Patreon supporter of mine, Danielle, e-d me with a great question, are Christmas and Easter pagan holidays? After all, they both had pre-Christian pagan origins. I answer her great question by working through the way that God works, taking pre-existing forms and transforming them to his glory. Come and think with me in this least-worst blast-from-the-past.

On Saturday 12/16/23 my Dad died after a four-month long battle with acute Crohn's. What was that all like? What happens to us in death? In this personal episode I share some fun memories I have about my dad, experiences we shared, and even the funny obituary instructions he left behind. This is no systematic episode, just a mish mash of theological, existential, and biographical reflections. What was amazing about how Jesus went through death? Why do I seem surprised by the grief of death? What kind of tatoo does my son think he might get? What was interesting about my Dad and alcohol? What kind of service will my Dad get? What are some existential takeaways I have ensuing this experience? Come laugh and think and grieve and hope with me.

We can't always be serious, especially during the holidays, so I'm changing things up. I realize that on a theology and culture show it is easy to come across as having a resolute grasp on reality. Truth is, there are many things I do not know, do not understand. In this reflective, but light-hearted, episode I work through different elements of life: church configurations, mundane daily realities, the Bible, culture, politics, and history. Come laugh and think with me here in Advent!

What were the most important stories of 2023? I review those and offer commentary. Also tell the story of enduing medical-industry-chaos in the midst of all that. And yet, I recognize the medical industry is both overwhelmed and underpaid. So I begin the show with a prayer of blessing. Come reflect, laugh, and think with me about the year we just survived!

Like a classroom where a substitute teacher fills in for the regular, I am, here on the holidays, interrupting my series. How should believers go about our Christ-given mission? Maybe it is 33%, each, with an eye to the past, present, and future? Maybe it is a balanced 50%-50% mix of indigenous and ancient Jewish culture? Using my recent trip to Costco to fill my truck and the recent Roman Catholic Synod on Synodality I think aloud with you about how we ought to frame mission. Along the way I also describe the work of some of my Christian heroes: Mother Theresa, John Wesley, Phil Keaggy, and John Wimber. How did they go about Christian mission? Come laugh and think with me!