The Uncensored Unprofessor

Christianity is not first the study of a book, or a new ethic, or a set of doctrines, as important as all those are. It is, instead, a lived experience. Or more carefully? Christianity is a felt telos: a orientation to life that filters and orients all our other experiences (even going to football games!). More specifically still, Christianity is (or can be) life in the third member of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. And that is because the Spirit is a person, not a forcefield, not an it. In this episode I think pastorally and personally about life in God's Spirit. During the show's opening I reflect on the pastors—the Black Robed Regiment—who helped to foment the American Revolution. Would that revolt have occurred if it were up to today's pastors and priests? Why does that question even matter?

Election is a thoroughly biblical doctrine. Among many—Protestants especially—election goes to the matter of who is eternally saved, or not. But that's not where the Bible begins with the doctrine of election, and it's not even where Jesus began in his practice of election. No, instead? Election has to do with mission, being called to mission, and sharing in the mission of God's redemption of creation. With that formulation as a foundation, why then are the Jews so globally hated? Why, across all of written history, have the Jews been so targeted for pogrom, genocide, and Holocaust? And with that, why are the Jews so deeply hated and targeted for massacre today?

Immediately after an episode (last week) where I explained why governmental power should be slow-walked? Hamas invaded Israel. After I narrate some of the horrors of that, I explain my initial reactions to this heart-breaking event. What do we do to mitigate the "cycle of violence"? Or, is "cycle of violence" even the accurate way to assess what's going on? Then I frame our catastrophic-feeling era in light of both history and theology. Many Christians today—Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox—sense how apocalyptic this all feels. So, are we in THE end times?

A Christian engagement with politics is idealistic, right? I mean, don't Christians want both a righteous messiah and an earthly Nirvana? Not me. I explain why I do engage politically, noting my historical and theological reasoning. In the show's second part I work through the topic of hell. Can we say God is loving if he sends people there? Can we say God is just if he sends people there? Well, actually, I believe there are profound reasons to suggest that hell is morally good. Let's be more nuanced.

The show starts with me praying for my listeners' provision: interest rates and the cost of living are soaring. Then I discuss how a NYT email news-feed hit me like a bolt of lighting. The story read, "2020 was driven by a righteous spirit and legitimate moral demands." How did that spirit and its moral demands shape the hearts of ten millions of good-hearted Christians? Can an emotional response be legitimate if the perceived event was based on a lie? Come think with me about why we are now experiencing another 16th century Reformation, but this time around it is entirely to the bad.

Which is more influential, the culture or the Church? Man, it's not even close! How do we know? One crisp way: examine what church leaders are doing. Take Pope Francis, for example. Conservative life-long Roman Catholics are beside themselves with how Francis is either working around or apart from Church tradition. The reality is we are living in an era that mirrors the 16th century Reformation for its significance. I also suggest an approach for when you're in a debate. Finally I examine the a priori assumptions and methodology of the Jesus Seminar. Just who was Jesus as he was?