Old places have always beckoned me to enter. Maybe it’s the historian in me. I love the past more than I appreciate the present. Old places make us better humans. They hold our memories; they connect us to the people who came before us, and they serve as meeting points between what was and what is to come.

I stopped talking about politics and religion with my family because I believed it was the only way we could remain in a relationship. I’m now questioning that decision. Without talking about hard things, people never change. Without confronting lies, people remain programmed. Intervention is difficult, but it is necessary.

The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) recently announced the creation of The Center For the Study of Evangelicalism. The Center is the first of its kind in the world and will act as a think-tank to research and explore the cultural, political, religious, and social impact of evangelicalism.

He was a man of no reputation
And by the wise, considered a fool
When He spoke about faith and forgiveness
In a time when the strongest arms ruled
But this man of no reputation
Loved the weak with relentless affection

Westerners have exchanged our indigenous stories for stories of colonization, capitalism, imperialism, and greed. These stories have consumed our consciousness, shrunken our hearts, and deadened our imaginations. Progress is our highest virtue, accumulation our greatest desire.

Leaving religious fundamentalism requires a new relationship with the Bible. Once the unquestioned, authoritative, and ideological center of your faith, now you have the freedom to ask life-changing questions about this big, black book. Where did it come from? Why are some books in and others out? Is it really inerrant?

Season 5 of Holy Heretics drops October 15th!

Summer is my season. It’s the point of my beginning, and will probably be the time of my end. As a July baby, I’m most at home in midsummer.

I want to see the world through Jo’s eyes, dark, yet brimming with beauty. I want to live in peace regardless of my circumstances.

Before you dismiss this as yet another progressive crying wolf, hear me out. I was an evangelical’s evangelical. I worked in leadership at Focus on the Family for ten years. I’ve been in meetings with the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, and Family Policy Councils. I heard the private parts out loud.

Posturing, virtue signaling, and forcing religious beliefs on others while not lifting a finger to help the other in daily life is Republicanism, and sadly, defines large swaths of American Christianity.

The Supreme Court just gave Donald Trump immunity for being Donald Trump. But, who is he? Better yet, WHY is he?

I’m going to guess that a lot of us get stuck in the rage stage of faith deconstruction. It is a trauma response. Without recognizing it, we are grieving the loss of our former faith, friends, and family. The anger masks the overwhelming and often debilitating feeling of loss.

Imagine how different the world would be if Christians simply decided not to kill another human being. When the American military kills her enemies, odds are a Christian pulled the trigger.

If you seek to restore relationships with those you’ve lost, start with these four questions: What do you love? What have you lost? Where does it hurt? What do you dream?

We must change the container of our spirituality before filling it with something new. Pouring progressive ideas into a dualistic, ego-driven, fundamentalist operating system is spiritual malpractice. Or, as Albert Einstein quipped, “No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that caused it.”

If you want 2024 to be different than 2023, start today by taking an inventory of the last twelve months. Be honest with yourself about the good and the bad.

We need a new voice to awaken us to our planet’s cries for survival. We need someone brave enough and strange enough to cut through the madness of normality to tell us our culture is insane.

There is a direct link between the recovery community and the exvangelical community, and that link is trauma.

This is my queer body, broken for you.