Send us a text In this heartfelt and affirming year-end homily, based on Titus 2:11-14 and Isaiah, we explore themes central to affirming Christianity and the inclusive nature of God's salvation. As a PCUSA ministry, this sermon emphasizes that the love and salvation offered through Jesus Christ is meant for everyone — not just a select few. The bi…

Send us a text In this episode, we dive into Mary’s central but often misunderstood role in Christianity, exploring the themes of affirming Christianity and inclusive faith perspectives. While traditional views focus on Mary's purity, both Catholic and Protestant interpretations often miss the deeper significance of her story. Struggling with the d…

Send us a text In this insightful episode, I welcome my longtime friend and mentor, Rev. Jeff Sievert, a respected leader within the PCUSA ministry known for his commitment to inclusive Christianity and affirming worship practices. Having been my pastor and guide for 25 years, Jeff shares his extensive experience designing beautiful, liturgical wor…

Send us a text In this episode, we explore the trajectory of the Emergent Church movement within modern Christian faith, examining its promises, challenges, and ongoing relevance. As an affirming Christianity and PCUSA ministry perspective, we discuss influential voices like Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, and Phyllis Tickle, alongside the rise o…

Send us a text All major religions explore the concept of ego death, or transcendence, with Buddhism being a clear example. Within the context of affirming Christianity and inclusive Christian theology, this idea is foundational and deeply present in the writings of Christian mystics over centuries. In this episode, we delve into the concept of ken…

Send us a text In this episode, we deeply explore the challenges of systematic theology and the problematic aspects of Calvinism. As an advocate for affirming Christianity and inclusive Christian faith, I share my skepticism about traditional theology, especially how it can sometimes be used to control rather than uplift believers. Drawing on influ…

Send us a text Explore the importance of the temple in the biblical narrative and its impact on modern Christian faith in this episode of the Affirming Christianity Podcast. Discover how the temple's role shaped Judaism and how Jesus' prophetic words in Luke 21:5-8 reflect the spread of the Jesus movement beyond Jerusalem. As a Presbyterian USA min…

Send us a text Affirming Christianity invites us to explore the true meaning of love through the lens of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This episode unpacks how Bible interpretation of this key passage reveals the heart of an inclusive Christian spirituality that often contrasts with exclusive or manipulative understandings of love. We discuss the impact of…

Send us a text Welcome to the Real Bible Rob podcast. I am delighted to welcome Charmella today. She speaks on TikTok about American history, religion, race, and politics in such an insightful way. What really caught my attention was her realism about our moment coupled with a sense of optimism. With all the terrifying changes we are going through,…

Send us a text I have been shocked at how Jesus has been used in recent years to cover hate. I recently said, "The Jesusing of Charlie Kirk is neither about Jesus nor Charlie Kirk." His assassination and raising him to be a martyr is completely genuine for some and completely cynical for most. And we know this by how Christian nationalists have lat…

Send us a text The "gospel of peace" in Ephesians 6:15: How can this sit in the midst of descriptions of weapons and warfare? This is the paradox of Spiritual Warfare. It is not against flesh and blood but it is against rulers and principalities. It is ideas over brute force. I go in and out of love for various scriptures. I spent years fighting ag…

Send us a text The best antidote for a nightmare is to turn the lights on. When you screamed in the middle of the night, nothing was more comforting than mother coming in cradling you in her arms. We’ve been living with a 2400 year long nightmare of Satan and devils. It’s time to turn the lights on and dispel the myths that have propped up religiou…

Send us a text There's a common question among pastors: "What's the most unbiblical thing your congregation believes is biblical but isn't?" Some are quite funny, but I think the most harmful one is the Rapture. It is a theology developed by John Nelson Darby in 1833 based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Greek word "harpazo." Modern dispen…

Send us a text Einstein famously said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." This is a topic I am comfortable with. Why? Because I studied Thermodynamics and Randomness in college and I have been pondering it ever since. If you know how these work in biology and nature, then you quickly realize that all the arguments o…

Send us a text One way to tell how people approach religion is to express your admiration for another belief. I certainly admire Judaism, not just in the way of supersession like more Christians, but as a way of getting to know God. Over the years I have become much more aware of Islam and more recently Hinduism. But none of these impacted me like …

Send us a text I'm excited to welcome Rev. Rebecca Craig to the Real Bible Rob podcast today! Rebecca is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, an Artist, and an Author. She has a terrific new book called "Through Her Eyes" telling the stories of women in the Bible in a creative new way. It gives a narrative of 26 different women f…

Send us a text My New Testament professor Dr. Nijay Gupta has written much about Galatians and is endlessly fascinated by Paul's letter. I didn't exactly understand why this angry letter was so important. Like many Christians, I usually favored Ephesians and Philippians, maybe Timothy, but Galatians? Why? It is pivotal as an early window into the f…

Send us a text Something’s seriously wrong with America and we all know it. What was the long path toward equality of men and women, of the races in civil rights, of religious people integrating progress into theology has faced ever-increasing headwinds. In many ways we can rejoice especially when we remember how women and minorities were treated i…

Send us a text Let's talk about 17th century England. Why? Because so much about American Protestant beliefs and culture come from it. The King James Bible was a political stake in the ground. The Westminster Confession was an Act of Parliament during the English Civil War. It was a compromise between Anglicans and Presbyterians to oppose radical P…

Send us a text Does God express emotions? This is a more central question than it seems. It’s a significant clue to how you see the sovereignty of God, whether God changes, and whether God is affected by prayer. If God shows the emotion of regret, does that mean God is weak? To illustrate these differences, I do a deep dive into two verses that fea…

Send us a text Today I am excited to welcome Elle, who goes by @LiterallyTheBible on TikTok and YouTube. She is reading the Bible from cover to cover as a non-religious gal. Her approach to Bible reading chapter by chapter is so insightful and refreshing. I've been really impressed with her analysis, her questions, and her response to comments. I t…

Send us a text I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Lynn Huber, Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University and an expert on the Book of Revelation. I have been following her on TikTok, and I was intrigued by her commentary about queer perspectives on Revelation. She brings a sense of excitement and love for the book, which many people approach with …

Send us a text Christians love Replacement. Replacing Judaism with the New Covenant. Replacing the Jewish people as the Chosen people of God. Replacing Islam in the Holy Land during the Crusades. In America, replacing indigenous people with white Christian people. Replacing native religions around the world with missionaries. Lately, replacing the …

Send us a text People use the narrow gate metaphor that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount to feed their persecution complex and to exclude others. I frequently come across egregious misrepresentations of these passages. Often spoken with cult-like intentions, it is always meant to instill fear. Was this Jesus's intent? Was he using fear to enco…

Send us a text I am delighted to welcome Jeremy Steele to the podcast today. I love his content on TikTok so much. He reached out to creators with podcasts. I jumped at the chance to interview him, and he graciously agreed! Church attendance statistics are notoriously difficult to decipher, but people latch onto the latest reports as signs of a tur…

Send us a text How can you justify cruelty as a Christian? It has a very long tradition, from the Crusades to Slavery and Jim Crow to Mass Deportations today. These were all and are still perpetuated and justified by Bible believing Christians. This justification and hypocrisy is the main critique of Christianity. How can a religion that exhorts lo…

Send us a text The Church is in desperate need of Reform. Which direction should we go? Rediscovering doctrines of the past? Reforming our doctrines for a new era? There is a lot of disagreement about what is needed. I argue that we must do both. The motto of the Presbyterian Church USA is "Ecclesia Reformata Semper Reformanda" which is Latin for "…

Send us a text Whenever you ask whether God changes or that God learns, It is usually met with a resounding "No!" But then you must ask, what is the point of prayer? When you look at scripture, it says explicitly many times that God changes. "But God knows everything" goes the reasoning. So most people have to do logical backflips to make omniscien…

Send us a text For many Romans 8 is the essential chapter for understanding God’s purpose in the Gospel message. While I don’t think that was necessarily Paul’s purpose to be all-encompassing, it can be a great guide for us. N.T. Wright has said, that if he had only one chapter of the New Testament to take with him, it would be Romans 8. Unfortunat…

Send us a text The book of Romans carries so much theological weight that it’s hard to see Paul’s reasoning and technique through it. Fortunately, there’s been a wealth of new scholarship and research on it that it’s freeing the text from its Lutheran and Calvinist shackles. You can spend a lifetime diving into details but I will focus on three are…

Send us a text Today I have a special guest Maria Hearing. Maria is a dear friend, classmate, teacher, Hebrew reading partner, and leader. Maria has done deep research on the book of Esther, and she has written scholarly papers on the narrative and genres of the story. The story is foundational to the myth of the Jewish nation, but it also tells us…

Send us a text Do you have an image of a traditional past that was better? Kids respected their parents. People had manners. They respected the law. Neighbors watched out for each other. Not like these wicked times, so the reasoning goes. It seems harkening to a mythical part is an innate part of being human. Since religious people strongly tend to…

Send us a text Slavery drives Christian thought far more than you realize. It has never left us. Imagine for a moment being on a plantation as a child. Slavery requires the crushing of empathy. Much of what we’ve seen in the last 400 years in the west was the use of theology to excuse the massive brutality and hypocrisy of colonialism. Presbyterian…

Send us a text Asking "What is the gospel?" is surprisingly controversial in some quarters. Most people believe the gospel is the radical love of God in the person, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But that’s not enough for many others. They insist that Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory defines the Gospel. This was not true for the majority o…

Send us a text "If you know Jeremiah, you know the Old Testament" is something I like to say. Because it is the most political book of the Bible. It is the backdrop of King Josiah's huge political blunder in fighting against Pharaoh Neco in 2 Chronicles 35 that shows us why. King Josiah was the beginning of the distinctively Jewish state. The Deute…

Send us a text I said "Apologetics is Circular Reasoning" in a video last year. It garnered a lot of hate, cheers, and hundreds of thousands of views on Instagram. The response was fascinating because what should have been a philosophical argument turned into a test of faithfulness. Modern Apologetics, meaning the use of the scientific method to pr…

Send us a text There is no more painful label for women than being called a Jezebel. It contains all the condemning, cursing, and slut shaming you can imagine. "Jezebel Spirit" is a frequently used racial slur in some churches. Jezebel was a foreign woman, likely forced into a royal marriage with a weak husband, which was bad enough. Still, she bec…

Send us a text The answer is neither. Economics is all over the Bible, but modern labels have so much historical and cultural meaning that it is dishonest to label anyone in scripture as capitalist or socialist or communist. Instead, we must talk about commerce and the common good. The Bible has a lot to say about fair measures and honest business …

Send us a text Many people, especially in America, are waking up to the fact that our freedom is on the line. While this has been the norm for most people in most of history, it is a surprising development for many privileged white people. Our views often mask how radical the Gospels really are. There was provocative, yet non-violent, resistance th…

Send us a text If you are a woman, you have likely heard the story of Martha and Mary. Martha is hurried and busy in the kitchen at the big party she threw for Jesus. But Mary sits down at Jesus's feet, anointing him with ointment. Martha complains to Jesus, saying that he should tell Mary to get busy and help her sister. But Jesus says Mary chose …

Send us a text Have you been puzzled by the dissonance of Palm Sunday? How can people seem so happy at the start of the worst week of Jesus's life? Why do we think Hosanna is offering praise? What made the people throw their cloaks down and wave branches? These are pivotal questions. Looking at the volatile political and cultural dynamics at play, …

Send us a text Correction! Jezreel Valley goes from Haifa to the Jordan River. Kidron Valley is next to Jerusalem. I am sorry for the error! No word is more polarizing than "woke" but the people who get really angry about usually can't define it. To them, it just means anything liberal they don't like. Instead, the term arose in the black community…

Send us a text Pastors always walk a fine line when it comes to politics and current events. Healthy congregations have people with a variety of political persuasions. Being a true pastor means you should never abuse the privilege of power to push partisan political positions. But we are also compelled to preach the gospel, so we should not be comp…

Send us a text What does Newton and Darwin have to do with God? A whole lot. Newton represents the height and triumph of determinism, the idea that all things have a cause and effect. If you know all the inputs and processes of a system, you can determine every outcome. Calvin's writings underpinned this by saying that God has absolute control of t…

Send us a text What is Biblical Marriage? That is a hard question to answer because there are many biblical marriages. There is Israelite marriage in the time of the Patriarchs, there is Judean marriage in the Second Temple period, there is New Testament Jewish marriage, there is New Testament gentile marriage, there is sacramental marriage as the …

Send us a text I welcome special guest Gabe Gordon who is the author of his recent book "The Fundamentals of a Recovering Fundamentalist." We went to seminary together and he was my TA for a historical theology class. Now he is a grad student at Marquette University specializing in historical theology. His interests are early Greek and Syriac speak…

Send us a text "Born Again Christian" is a label you wear proudly or are very leery about it. This dichotomy is intentional and says a lot about how you see scripture and salvation. Most people think of evangelical Christians being Born Again. So why do some Christians, like myself, bristle at the label. It all has to do with a pun, that you only r…

Send us a text The Lord’s Prayer is a central feature of Christian worship. Why? There’s a long history and it’s part of a bigger question of why the Sermon on the Mount is so crucial. This is critical in today’s Christianity. Many Christians are openly disdainful of the central message of the sermon and the prayer. I think a better understanding o…

Send us a text Wait a minute, I thought Jesus was sinless, in Hebrews 4:15! If you ever want to smoke out religious bullies, this is one of the best ways to do it. Most people understand that strict application of the law and being faithful to the intent of the law are not the same thing. According to the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus was a big law …

Send us a text It's heartbreaking how transgender people are being targeted as political pawns by Christians. What does the Bible have to say about gender? Is transgender against God's plan for humanity? Why are 1% of the population so threatening to many Christians? I deal with the commonly used verses against trans people and the biblical concept…