Reasonable Christianity?

Does the Bible teach that God is one Person, or one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? In Part 1 of Who Is the One God? , Roland Albertus examines the biblical doctrine of the Trinity alongside Oneness Pentecostalism and Modalism . Before asking whether Trinitarian theology is biblical, we define what Christians actually mean by being, nature, and person , and ask whether “one God...

How far should government go? Government is necessary. Authority is necessary. Justice must be administered, the vulnerable must be protected, and public order must be maintained. But what happens when government moves beyond its proper authority and begins taking responsibility for things God entrusted to families, communities, and individuals? In Episode 4 of South Africa Unmade, we examine the...

Am I my brother's keeper? The oldest question in the Bible explains why grievance becomes politics. When need becomes entitlement and grievance becomes politics, someone always steps forward to name the debtor. In this episode of South Africa Unmade, Roland Albertus opens the question beneath South Africa's politics of dependency, resentment and fatherlessness: how is a human being forme...

What happens when government becomes more than an instrument of justice and begins to become the answer to our deepest social problems? In Episode 2 of South Africa Unmade , Roland O’Neil Albertus examines the rise of the state as an instrument of transformation in South Africa, from the political philosophy behind cadre deployment to institutional capture and the crisis within state-owned enterpr...

What makes authority legitimate? Who gave you the right to rule? South Africa’s political problems are often discussed in terms of leaders, parties, policies and institutions. But beneath all of these questions lies a deeper one: where does legitimate authority come from, and to whom does it answer? In this episode of Reasonable Christianity, Roland O’Neil Albertus examines the foundations of auth...

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK In 1995, I was a child watching South Africa believe that something beautiful was possible. Years later, my own experience of university, bureaucracy, disappointment and interrupted opportunity forced me to ask a harder question: What happened to us? That question eventually became an investigation—not simply into what is going wrong in South Africa, but into why the same fai...

When a pastor falls, is he finished? Most people answer that question with either total leniency or total condemnation. Scripture does neither. Two reflexes dominate the way Christians respond when a leader falls into public sin. One says the failure changes nothing: a brief disappearance, a well-timed comeback, no real accountability. The other says it changes everything: one fall, and the door i...

Is divorce a sin? The answer is not as simple as either side wants it to be. One man kept his marriage vow and lost his marriage anyway. Another married in disobedience and welcomed the divorce he should have grieved. Same word. Two completely different stories. So which one is sin, and what does God actually require of the person left standing in the wreckage? In this episode of Hard Questions, F...

Why would a good and sovereign God allow a child to be born only to suffer and die? It is one thing to ask why suffering exists. It is another to look at a child who never had the chance to grow, choose, speak, or understand the world around them and ask: What was this life for? In this episode of Reasonable Christianity , Roland Albertus takes that question seriously. No easy answers. No sentimen...

One hundred episodes ago, this began with a microphone and a single conviction: that Christianity is not merely true. It is reasonable. But this episode is not a celebration of a number. It is an answer to the one question Roland is asked more than any other, and has never answered fully in one place until now. Why does Reasonable Christianity exist? Not why start a podcast. Why does an institutio...

For most people, "church" means a building, a Sunday service, or an organisation. But what if that isn't what Jesus meant? In this episode, Roland Albertus explores one of the most overlooked words in the New Testament: ekklesia . Drawing on Scripture, history, and careful biblical reasoning, he asks whether our modern understanding of "church" has drifted from Christ&apos...

If Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. But that raises another question that millions of people ask: Which Christianity? Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant? In this episode of Reasonable Christianity , Roland Albertus carefully examines the three historic traditions of the Christian faith—not as competing tribes, but as competing truth claims. Treating each tradition...

If God exists, has He spoken? In our previous episode, we followed reason to the conclusion that reality points to a necessary, personal, morally perfect Creator. But that discovery immediately raises a deeper question. If such a God exists, would He leave humanity to speculate about Him, or has He revealed Himself? In this episode, Roland Albertus examines the three great Abrahamic faiths, not th...

Episode 1: Why I Believe in God Why is there something rather than nothing at all? That is the question this episode will not let you set down. In the opening instalment of Following Truth , a four part journey from reality to ekklesia, Roland Albertus takes on the most basic question a thinking person can ask, and follows it wherever it honestly leads. Starting from the plain fact that the univer...

There is a quiet assumption running beneath modern life: faith belongs in one room, reason in another. Faith handles meaning. Reason handles truth. And if the two ever meet, reason does the talking. This episode challenges that arrangement — not with sentiment, but with argument. The Reasoning God puts the Christian worldview through every major mode of human reasoning. Deductive logic: can Christ...

Jesus the Activist? | Responding to Penuel (Part 4) Many people admire Jesus. They see Him as an activist, a revolutionary, a moral teacher, a champion of the oppressed, or simply an inspiring figure whose story continues to shape the world. Penuel the Black Pen is one of them. But admiration raises a deeper question: Which Jesus are we talking about? In this final episode of the Responding to Pen...

Christianity, Colonialism, and the African Question Crusades, Apartheid, Empire, and Historical Complexity In Episode 3 of our Responding to Penuel the Black Pen series, we tackle one of the most difficult objections to Christianity in Africa: colonialism, apartheid, the Crusades, and the historical abuses committed by people who called themselves Christians. Penuel raises a question that millions...

Did Constantine invent Christianity? Did the Council of Nicaea vote Jesus into being God? Were the "real" gospels suppressed by the early church? In Episode 2 of Responding to Penuel the Black Pen , Roland Albertus examines one of the most persistent claims in modern skepticism: that Christianity was created by the Roman Emperor Constantine and formalized into a political religion centur...

I Don't Like the Christian God God, Evil, Suffering, and Moral Revolt Penuel the Black Pen recently made a statement that resonated with many modern skeptics: "I don't like that guy. The Christian God is so personified and has some of the worst traits of human beings." It's an honest objection. And it's one that deserves more than a slogan or a dismissive answer. In t...

What do the Western Cape floods and Pentecost have to do with one another? In this special devotional episode of Reasonable Christianity, we reflect on the striking symbolic contrast between the recent floods in the Western Cape and the meaning of Pentecost. Pentecost is the celebration of first fruits, fire, divine presence, and life. The flood confronted us with opposite imagery: coldness, displ...

What do you do when the waters rise and God does not stop the storm? In this deeply personal episode, Roland reflects on the recent floods that devastated parts of Wolseley and the Western Cape, including the night floodwater entered his own home. But this is not merely a story about disaster. It is a theological meditation on suffering, providence, fear, sovereignty, and the God who was already p...

Millions of Christians have been told that their bloodline may contain spiritual curses, that demons pass through families the way disease passes through DNA, and that before they can walk in full freedom they need someone with the right prayers to break what their ancestors left behind. But here is the question this episode refuses to let go of: why do the apostles never teach Christians how to b...

Description: Most Christians have been taught that spiritual gifts happen on a stage. Someone with a microphone calls out a word. Someone falls. The atmosphere is engineered and the gift is performing. That is not the Spirit's work. That is an institution simulating the Spirit's work. In this episode we do something the church has rarely done with spiritual gifts: we examine them careful...

For generations, one sentence has shaped how Christians think about money: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” It’s been taught as obligation, reinforced by guilt, and treated as a test of obedience. But what if it’s being misapplied? In this episode, we return to the text in its context. Tithing in ancient Israel wasn’t a general principle of generosity—it was a structured, covenantal sy...

In Episode 1, we exposed the man of God myth — the structure that concentrates authority in one person and quietly produces dependence instead of discipleship. In Episode 2, we sat with the consequences — real harm, protected wolves, and the environments that make it all possible. Now the harder question: what is supposed to replace it? In this episode, Roland draws a direct line between everythin...