Beatitudes Radio

Ever find yourself in an awkward situation? A moment when your actions didn’t align with your heart? When the pressure is on to perform or behave in a prescribed way, it’s not always easy to remain true to self and take the road less traveled. Join us as we continue our worship series, "JOSEPH." This week, Rev. Tony Minear, Ph. D. examines the life and experiences of Joseph as told in Genesis acco...

Our nation is divided. Divided by racism, by ideology and by party lines. Our recent election cycle has proven such. Although, you may think we’ve got the market cornered on division and polarization, the story of Joseph as told in Genesis tells an equally compelling saga of humanity in need of reconciliation and forgiveness. Join us as we begin our new worship series, "JOSEPH: King David's Doppel...

**THIS SERMON WAS RECORDED ON OCTOBER 6TH**   Do not be anxious about anything. Anything. But wait! Isn’t it Election Sunday? And isn’t our nation just days from a major election? Sure, you’ve carefully reflected on the five moral foundations of care/compassion, fairness, loyalty, authority/subversion, and sanctity over the past weeks, but will you accept the outcome of the election? Join us this...

We all want to “fit in” and feel accepted. Think back to your early school yard experiences. No one wanted to be the last kid picked for foursquare or dodgeball. Although we may have blamed others for making us feel as though we didn’t measure up, it is innately human to feel inconsequential and unimportant; perhaps, even unclean. The human condition is to repeatedly explore and determine what cor...

What does your moral foundations profile look like? Elections offer us the perfect opportunity to reflect upon our morals and intuitive ethics that shape our narratives and virtues. While the culture wars and populist movements are beginning to gain momentum, where do you stand? Join us this week for our continued worship series, Moral Foundations, as ellie Hutchison, our Member In Discernment, ex...

What does your moral foundations profile look like? Elections offer us the perfect opportunity to reflect upon our morals and intuitive ethics that shape our narratives and virtues. While the culture wars and populist movements are beginning to gain momentum, where do you stand? Join us this week for our continued worship series, Moral Foundations, as Pastor Tony examines the third of six moral fo...

What does your moral foundations profile look like? Elections offer us the perfect opportunity to reflect upon our morals and intuitive ethics that shape our narratives and virtues. While the culture wars and populist movements are beginning to gain momentum, where do you stand? Join us this week for our worship series, Moral Foundations, as Pastor Tony examines the second of six moral foundations...

What does your moral foundations profile look like? Elections offer us the perfect opportunity to reflect upon our morals and intuitive ethics that shape our narratives and virtues. While the culture wars and populist movements are beginning to gain momentum, where do you stand? Join us this week for our new worship series, Moral Foundations, as Pastor Tony examines the first of six moral foundati...

Black Lives Matter. This often-divisive civil rights movement has reshaped the ways in which we practice justice for our black and brown brothers and sisters. Christianity, too, has had its fair share of controversial shakeups dedicated to overturning the structures of societal inequalities. Take Liberation Theology. Although founded on the tenants of applying Christian faith to social action, it...

What is “Fearless Sunday”? This is a Sunday dedicated to the openness and honesty of all things theological from the pulpit. Several of you submitted your questions surrounding issues of Christian theology & belief for Pastor Tony Minear, Ph. D. to answer. Join us this week as your questions are presented to him to answer fearlessly, honestly and with no prior knowledge of their content (he di...

We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. Conformity. Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera and film “The Wall” addresses the consequences of conformity through art and song. Founding member, Roger Waters, describes the narrative as showing us “the self-isolating barrier we build over the course of our lives, and the "bricks in the wall" are the people and events that turn us inward and...

All of us tend to think of ourselves as sensible and balanced with most of our good deeds outweighing the bad. Abraham, Christianity’s Old Testament patriarch, believed the same. However, in The Testament of Abraham , a part of the apocalyptic literature, Abraham is reluctant to die and face God’s impending judgement without first seeing the world. On an epic and mystical journey, Abraham discover...

Is it possible to make love real for another person, even when that person is deceased? For centuries, cultures have venerated the dead, especially one’s familial ancestors, out of a deep love and respect for the deceased. For many, this veneration stems from a core belief that the dead have a continued existence and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. According to the...

Most Christians can agree that perhaps one of the most difficult Old Testament stories to understand, justify and share with the next generation is that of Abraham being asked by God to bind his son, Isaac, on an altar of sacrifice. There are many interpretations of the story, as well as parallels offered to Jesus’ own passion story. But what if there were a different way to interpret it? What if...

Unfulfilled promises. We’ve all experienced them. When someone makes a declaration or a commitment to do or give something to us then fails, the consequences can send us in a tailspin. But what happens when it’s God who doesn’t fulfill a promise? Is God accountable or is it conditional upon you not holding up your end of the bargain? Do you become resentful and walk away from God? Is your belief a...

Be careful how you answer this! If you’re like most people, you believe that you have an above average sense of morality and are generally more trustworthy and honest than everyone else. But how does one develop this sense of morality? And what does it look like to be immoral? These questions have vexed mankind for centuries. The ancients tackled this moral versus immoral dichotomy through story....

Brace yourself. What you’re about to hear may be unsettling. It may make you uneasy, hesitant and a tad uncomfortable. Most likely you’ll want to fall back on old answers, but hang for a moment and consider that the God in our world is still evolving. Or, perhaps, our understanding of God. Join us this week as Pastor Tony Minear, Ph. D. examines the evolution of humanity’s relationship with nature...

This month we’ve been focusing on humanity’s relationship with the Earth and Environment. We’ve taken a hard look at the differences between a biblical point of view and that of a 21st century point of view shaped by science and postmodern reasoning. But what exactly is our relationship with nature itself? Is it harmonious or adversarial? Natural systems may have been transformed by humans but tha...

If you want to draw a line in the sand, ask a Christian their view on climate change and global warming. Since the early 2000’s, this politically and economically divisive topic has managed to polarize Christians like few other topics. Do you believe we must act now to change our carbon footprint, or is it out of our control and a matter of God’s design? This week, Pastor Tony Minear, Ph. D. conti...

William Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” But what of the animals and creatures of the Earth? Join us as we begin a new worship series examining humanity’s relationship with the Earth and our environment. Throughout the Old Testament and wisdom literature, we find references to nature itself as an actor on the world’s stage and a rich trad...

Black and white. Light and dark. Good and evil. This binary way of cataloging and compartmentalizing our thoughts and experiences is useful when it comes to categorizing much about life. But what about gender identity? When it comes to one’s sexual and/or gender identity, culture has shifted from a simple binary classification, male or female, to include a number of varied identities on the LGBTQI...

Most of us strive to live a life of honesty and integrity. Our scripture verses this week from Proverbs reflects this very idea and tells of a father speaking wisdom over his children to live a life of integrity. But in a modern framework, what exactly does a life of integrity look like? In a society where living a life of integrity seems to run counter to culture’s ethos of every person for thems...

Outrage. Recent events and protests across America have reignited our nation’s outcry for justice and racial equality with the nation’s police force once again in the hot seat. With a current statistic of 1 out of every 1,000 black men being killed by a police officer, the narrative looks all too familiar and undeniably systemic. Our continued silence in this matter is problematic and an egregious...

This week America again reached a civil rights tipping point following the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement. And while his death was indeed tragic sparking an unprecedented movement of protest against inequality and systemic racism present throughout our society, for many of us, the civil unrest and angst accompanying the protest seemed more a natural consequence of wee...

Human dignity. Events of the past week in the United States over the suspected racially-charged death of George Floyd have caused every citizen to re-evaluate this basic quality of life. But what does human dignity look like? From what source can one derive dignity and value as a human being? And what does it mean to attribute value to another person? One of the greatest NBA basketball players of...