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Deconstruction Recent Posts

It’s OK to Be Exasperated and Confused (Lesson #2: Deconstructing Faith on the Road to Emmaus)

For those who need to hear it, It’s OK to be Exasperated With, Frustrated By, and Not Understand this thing called Christianity, this thing called Faith, even this person called Jesus.  Angry. Sad. Frustrated. Bewildered. Let down. Downcast.  These are honest emotions and honest reactions when the church, theology, the Bible, and God gives you […]

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Things Progressives say…about “Meaning”

This is from the file of “Things progressives say.”  This sounds enlightened and freeing. But it actually isn’t.   Giving up on “why” is ultimately a commitment to the status quo—there is nothing revolutionary about it.   Gungor is opting for a more Hindu-Buddhist view of the world (meaninglessness) rather than a Judeo-Christian view (meaningfulness). […]

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Things Fundamentalists Say…about the Bible

I really need to start a file. A bit ago I commented on John Piper talking about how “worry is mild form of atheism.” You, know, basically this is a totally messed way of understanding our relationship to emotions, and therefore a messed up view of how Jesus saves us from sin. That would go […]

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Pentecost Recent Posts

What does it mean to “wait” on the Spirit?

We Must Wait Cover photo by Tom Morel on Unsplash In charismatic circles—especially around Pentecost—you’ll hear a lot about waiting on the Spirit.  And of course this is a good thing.   As “the wind blows where it pleases”, so too with the Spirit (John 3:8).   We can’t control the Spirit. We only receive. We […]

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Why There Is No Such Thing as Religion

Is Marxism a religion?What about capitalism?Is psychotherapy a religion?What about science?Is Critical Race Theory a religion? I’ve heard all of these. And more. But if all these are a “religion”, then has the word lost all meaning? Maybe it has.   So we need a quick history.   And that is what we are going […]

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3 Reasons Why Christianity IS a Religion

Did Jesus come to start a new religion? Is the Kingdom of God a religion?Did Jesus even think in that category? People on the right and the left might claim (for different reasons) that Christianity isn’t a religion. And last time I took the side that “Christianity ISN’T a Religion.”  But there are flaws with […]

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Faith Recent Posts

3 Reasons Christianity ISN’T a Religion (with responses)

Recently I asked “Is Christianity a religion?”  And, wow, did I get a bunch of responses.   So I only thought it fair to share what I think…and it will take a couple posts—so be on the look out, or subscribe on the sidebar so you don’t miss anything….right. over. there. on. the. right. sidebar. […]

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Twelve Lies that Hold America Captive

Jonathan Walton, in Twelve Lies that Hold America Captive and the Truth That Sets Us Free, delivers an honest—and many times, brutal—examination of the lies the American (Evangelical) Church has believed about America, and the disastrous place it has led us. Walton starts this way: Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama claimed that the […]

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The One Things We Forget about the Fruit of the Spirit

And how it leads to real growth Do you find your spiritual life disappointing?  We are promised new life, abundant life, eternal life. But all you’re feeling is the humdrum of ordinary life. All that “love, joy, and peace”, all that spiritual fruit stuff doesn’t seem to be growing in you. Maybe your spiritual life […]

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The Evangelical Preaching of the Cross—Redemption

Is Jesus’s death on the cross a substitution for our death? And if so, is it a penal substitution, where Jesus takes the punishment demanded by God? These are the kinds of issues at stake when we think of the typical evangelical preaching of the cross. And few books have been more influential than Leon […]