I went to Cedar Point last week. Growing up in Northwest, Ohio, I’ve been to Cedar Point hundreds of times. I love the place. I love almost everything about it. I could ride roller coasters all day. ...  Read More

What troubles me most about Bible readers is when they don’t question content they clearly should. People raised in certain types of Christian subcultures often express feeling badly when they questio...  Read More

I acknowledge that my teaching and preaching often has a polemical edge to it. So does my writing. In fact, I chose to publish my first book directly through Amazon because while several conventional ...  Read More

I returned to the office today after a two-week vacation. Beyond just getting to spend quality time with friends and family and some healthy rest from work, this time of year, and specifically the cha...  Read More

Following his resurrection, Jesus asked a couple of his disciples, “Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”[1] The question sound...  Read More

In my pastoral experience, people struggle with the topic of prophecy. Either they struggle to accept that earlier biblical writers were precisely predicting future events (which I think they are righ...  Read More

Today is the first post in a little three-part series on a topic that’s been coming up lately in my life different ways in: prophecy. Traditionally—that is, how people in the Old Testament understood...  Read More

In my current teaching series, “Think Again,” I’m critiquing popular views of salvation in light of Easter. Jesus rising from the dead forced his disciples to think again about what it meant to be sa...  Read More

Last week I began working on my next book. I’m sharing a bit about it in this post mainly to hold myself accountable to keep working on it. Feel free to ask me about it if/when you see me next. Like ...  Read More

In his book Unconditional Love, John Powell, S.J. asks, “Is loving really the way to human fulfillment? If I choose love as my personal life principle, will I find satisfaction and true gratification?...  Read More

This will be my final post reflecting on Christian Smith’s book Why Religion Went Obsolete. If this is a topic that interests you, I would highly recommend you pick up a copy. Smith’s explanation for ...  Read More

Christian Smith argues that traditional religion in America is suffering from “cultural mismatch,” a discordant relationship with general culture that is pushing it into a state of unplanned obsolesce...  Read More