Religiosanity

Genesis Pastor Andrew takes comments from Mike Huckabee, the US Ambassador to Israel, on Tucker Carlson's show as a jumping off point to spotlight the various levels of either willful blindness or astounding stupidity at work within the fundamentalist community and greater Israel regarding a desire to use a promise in the 15th chapter of Genesis to delineate modern borders. We also mentioned why s...

Jeffrey Epsxxxn was a despicable person—but let’s leave the ancient god Baal out of it. Baal re-entered public discussion this week after reports revealed that Epstein named a bank account after the ancient deity, triggering a wave of misinformation about Baal’s character and role in ancient religion. In this episode, Pastor Andrew—an expert in the ancient Near East—works to clear up the confusion...

If causing the last Pope to slip faster into the afterlife wasn't enough, now U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has an audience with the NEW Pope, and presents this Augustinian scholar with an English translation of St. Augustine's "City Of God." What's behind J.D.'s lame gift? Pastor Andrew breaks it all down for us.

Pastor Andrew returns from his study leave/vacation with some anthropological discoveries made in a surprising place--the playgrounds of the Czech Republic!

Pastor Andrew makes the case that the MAGA movement that elected a convicted criminal for a second term is not merely brainwashed, but is rather under a form of demonic possession, a kind that is very self-defeating.

Pastor Andrew breaks down the back-and-forth between Vice President J.D. Vance and Pope Francis. Vance invoked ordo amoris to defend his general approach to immigration and refugees, and the Pontiff (without naming him directly) "corrected" him, in an inspiring statement placing the teachings of Jesus over church dogma.

Trump's offer of refugee status to "persecuted" Afrikaans prompts Pastor Andrew, as a way to shed light on the racist dogwhistle that policy move is, to lay out the origins of apartheid in South Africa, religions' role in those origins, and also its role in apartheid's collapse.

Pastor Andrew takes us on a deep dive into one of Jesus' last words on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and encourages us to take it in via its literary context, seeing it as "an early church attempt to preach to itself about the meaning of Jesus’ suffering."

When well-meaning leaders, anxious to adhere to the separation of church and state, lean too far in to the “zero religious education” stance, instead of calling on academia to sift through standards and material and come up with a curriculum, we get the current situation we are in—a public at large more susceptible to bad theology at best and fundamentalism, fanaticism, and conspiracism at worst....

Pastor Andrew is back from vacation with a report on the phenomenon that is called "Christian Radio" but under a thin veneer it is actually "Christo Fascist Radio." On a surface it is saccharine sweet but it only hides and masks sinister dangerous American pseudo-christianity.

Recognition of the deep human history and prehistory can have a profound influence on our spirituality and religion. Humans like us (with same capacities of thinking and feeling have been on our planet for roughly 200,000 years. History starts with writing in Summer and Egypt just about 6,000 years ago. Christianity is only 2,000 years old and Judaism in its biblical format perhaps half a millenni...

Pastor Andrew returns again to the topic of the state of Louisiana making it a law to have the 10 Commandments on display in all schools. He posits "Tell me which 10 Commandments you read and I'll tell you who you are." By censoring the very first commandment, they are showing exactly what kind of Christians they are, namely ones interesting in enslavement rather than setting their people free.

A moment in France's olympic opening ceremony was deemed blasphemous and mocking of Jesus and the Christian religion. The outcry was so loud and vast that the Olympic officials had to give press conferences about it, and eventually removed the clip from view online. The fervor has finally died down. Now we need Pastor Andrew to weigh in on this most potent form of "Religio-insanity." He says, "we...

Birds in the New Testament - and some less known mythical antecedents of well known Jesus' logia (sayings and parables)

Public displays of the 10 Commandments are back!!!!!! And Pastor Andrew is more angry about it than ever. On this episode, he discusses how this phenomenon is offensive on many different levels, not just with fundamentalists pushing their religion on others, but also theologically frustrating being that there isn't just one set of 10 Commandments, not even in the Hebrew bible itself!

An offhanded remark about the salvation of birds prompts Pastor Andrew to come to this episode with some examples, from the Bible and ancient texts, of the wisdom, cunning, and dare we say, faith of our winged friends, which leads to a larger discussion of what has led humans to feel a superiority to animals, and the Christian implication in this.

Biblical scholarship is slowly replacing the discipline of Biblical theology. More and more biblical scholars find themselves outside of the straitjacket of church dogmas and practice. Their lack of dogma yields a richer and robust understanding of the deep roots of religious history and thought.

Pastor Andrew is back LIVE with host Peter Rinaldi for the 2nd edition of ASK THE PASTOR ANYTHING (about the Bible of Ancient Times). Favorite theologians, Do pets go to heaven, Christianity in the days of Slavery, miracles as myth, and much much more! This event was recording live at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on Tuesday March 5th.

On this episode, Pastor Andrew describes, and begins to process, a spiritual crisis, or a personal spiritual realignment, that has to do with the Old Testament.

A headline reading “Breakthrough in Biblical Archeology: Israeli researchers developed a groundbreaking method using the earths magnetic field to verify events in the old testament” prompts Pastor Andrew to do a deep dive into the oxymoron of Biblical Archeology, highlighting two figures, Yigael Yadin and William Foxwell Albright, who played key roles in this phenomenon, and why it has always been...

Deeply problematic, ugly, satanic texts about biblical jihad (passages from the Hebrew bible that no serious theologian would ever cite without significant, careful assessment of the context), are suddenly surfacing among the ranks of Israeli politics to seemingly justify what appears to be a war campaign hell bent on elimination. On this episode, Pastor Andrew reads his letter to his representati...

On this final episode of 2023, Pastor Andrew posits that, the longer a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict seems more and more unattainable, the more Martin Buber's vision for a single state of two nations will be the only option.

As promised, Pastor Andrew breaks down the various geographic terms of the areas surrounding and including what we nowadays refer to as Israel and Palestine, explaining how these terms were formed, what is contested, and why it matters.

A hot button topic sometimes needs to be discussed in order to bring some sanity to it, especially if it's related to religion. Pastor Andrew carefully lays out the differences between Ant-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Anti-Zionism, and goes on the record, unequivocally, regarding where he stands.

The worst conflict between Israel and Palestine in recent memory sparks a hypothetical question for Pastor Andrew: If there were a button that would erase all the organized religions from the planet, would you press it? His answer leads into a discussion about the broader reaches of fundamentalism, which certainly does not leave Christianity unimplicated.