Reasonable Christianity?

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...

Abuse within Christian environments is not just a moral failure—it raises deeper questions about God, truth, and the structures meant to protect His people. In this episode, we move beyond surface-level reactions and confront the issue at its roots. Why does evil exist? Why does it sometimes go unchallenged? And what happens when systems meant to uphold truth begin to protect what is false? Drawin...

In many Christian spaces, the phrase “man of God” carries unquestioned weight. It shapes how people understand authority, how they hear God, and even how they see themselves in relation to Him. But what if that framework is not rooted in the New Covenant at all? In this opening episode, we examine a foundational question: Who actually speaks for God under the New Covenant? Tracing the pattern from...

When Experience Becomes Authority How Charismatic Christianity Can Undermine Truth Itself What happens when experience begins to carry more weight than revelation? In this episode, I examine a growing pattern within certain charismatic and prophetic circles where what is felt, perceived, or encountered starts to function as the highest authority. The issue is not spiritual hunger, expressive worsh...

Examining Scripture Before Calling It Revelation If God exists… has He spoken? That’s the question we step into in this episode. After exploring the case for God’s existence in Episode 3, we now turn to the Bible — not as a sacred assumption, but as a historical claim. Before calling it revelation, we ask a more foundational question: Can the Bible be trusted as history? In this episode, we take a...

The Case for Theism in a Skeptical Age Many people today assume belief in God is psychological — a comforting story humans tell themselves to cope with fear, suffering, and death. In other words: we believe because we want to believe. But does that explanation actually address the real question? In this episode, we move past motivations and ask the deeper philosophical issue: Does God actually exi...

We live in a moment where phrases like “live your truth” and “that’s true for you” have become common language. But what happens if truth itself becomes fluid? In this episode of Reasonable Christianity, we step back from debates about religion and start with something even more foundational: truth itself. Before asking whether Christianity is true… Before discussing Scripture or the resurrection…...

What happens when a simple question exposes the fragility of your faith? In this opening episode, I tell the story of a university conversation that forced me to confront something I didn’t know how to admit: I believed — but I couldn’t explain why. A friend’s objection about Adam, Cain, and the population of the earth didn’t destroy my faith. It exposed that I had never examined it. What followed...

In this final episode of the series, we move from clarity to conviction. Jesus said, “I will build My ekklesia.” But over time, what Scripture describes as a living congregation has often been reframed in our imagination as something institutional, event-based, and contained. Not through rebellion — through drift. In From Institutions to Oceans , we revisit the analogy of the pool, the dam, and th...

Is shared Christian life merely a biblical command — or is it also God’s mercy toward our humanity? In Episode III, Designed This Way , we move from theology to anthropology to hope. If Episode I recovered the word ekklesia , and Episode II recovered participation, this episode asks something deeper: What if the assembly is not only right — but necessary for human flourishing? Walking through Acts...

The Spirit Distributed, Not Centralized If ekklesia is more than a word… what does it actually look like when it comes alive? In Episode I, we rediscovered the word Jesus used — a people called out and gathered under His lordship. But a question remained: How did that reality function in everyday life? In this episode, we move from language to lived experience. Walking carefully through key texts...

Relearning the Word Jesus Used What if the tension many Christians quietly feel isn’t a lack of faith—but a mismatch between Scripture and experience? Jesus said, “I will build my ekklesia.” Not a building. Not a service. Not an institution. A people. In this opening episode of Called Out, Gathered In , we slow down and sit with an uncomfortable question: What if the word Jesus used no longer fits...

This final episode brings the series to its theological center. After examining Scripture’s teaching on immortality, hell, and judgment, we now face the defining question: What kind of God emerges from this vision of justice? This episode argues that conditional immortality does not weaken God’s justice—it completes it. Drawing from Romans, Isaiah, Psalms, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation, Scripture...

If God is the source of all life, then hell raises a disturbing question: Who is keeping the damned alive? In this episode, we slow down and ask whether the Bible really teaches eternal conscious torment —or whether we’ve inherited assumptions Scripture itself never makes. Building on the biblical claim that human beings are not immortal by nature , this episode examines a tension few are willing...