Religiosanity

Jerry Falwell Jr. resigned as head of Liberty University amid a personal scandal involving his wife, the pool boy, and others. Pastor Andrew talks about the hypocrisy of Falwell imposing strict fundamentalism on his followers while he lives a secret life, and how one can find the basis to the ultra right-wing conservative's kinks in the Bible.

An article in the New York Post called "NYC moms fleeing Upper West Side amid crime and chaos" causes lots of chatter on social media, and prompts this discussion with Pastor Andrew about the problem with sweeping poverty, homelessness, and mental illness under the rug, and why it's always been the church's job to be out front in facing these issues head-on and challenging "not-in-my-neighbourhood...

In a special episode, Pastor Andrew graciously agrees to answer questions Peter tosses at him. The discussion revolves around understanding Hermeneutics and using mathematics to explain how the gospel and other religious teachings can be powerful and transformative even if not defined in a conventional "reality."

“The stupidest thing we can do is take what we have been given by prior generations, as something they found important for themselves, and dismiss it outright.” - Pastor Andrew And here is a short YouTube video about the same https://youtu.be/_Nfkrmm3emg Exodus is not a singular historical event, it is ongoing. It is about liberation from slavery, many different aspects, from different periods, bu...

The first hand experience of dealing with our current pandemic has opened Pastor Andrew’s mind to what people, especially indigenous people, were dealing with in various government inflicted (or neglected) pandemics of the past. He reflects on a few of them and expands our awareness of disasters hard to imagine, culpability hard to fathom, and resilience of a people that is awe inspiring.

On July 6th we commemorate Jan Hus, the important Czech theologian and early reformer. Pastor Andrew, who is himself Czech, takes us through the events that led to his execution at the stake, the uprising in its aftermath that became know as the first reformation, and how we can honor him by our commitment to justice and truth.

“Who endowed the ibis with wisdom and gave the rooster his intelligence?” Job 38:36 On the 50th episode of ReligioSanity, Pastor Andew’s week spent bird watching prompts a talk about the strange insecurity in monotheism in regard to cosmotheism, and he makes a plea for a better understanding of nature coming from the deeper layers of our faith.

The New York Times published a disturbing article titled "Send In The Troops" on their opinion page last week, written by Republican Senator Tom Cotton. The paper has since apologized for printing it, saying it did not meet their standards. Pastor Andrew talks about the dangers of a lack of curation with pieces like this, how certain adjectives can clue the reader in to a certain mindset in the wr...

The President of The United States used military police to forcefully clear the area so he could have a photo op in front of a church awkwardly holding the Bible in the air in a way that revealed he likely never held one before in his life. Pastor Andrew vents about the blasphemy of this event, the disrespect and disregard of the message contained in the pages of that book, and the distance betwee...

Pastor Andrew does a deep dive into what lies at the heart of the typical mega-church leaders’ and mega-churchgoers’ passionate desire to re-open. He opines that the same thing that draws people to mega churches are what draws many to high energy political rallies. There is certain proclivity in these folks to seek and like the validation and confirmation found in large crowds, who find it energiz...

The concerning situation at nursing homes during the pandemic prompts Pastor Andrew to call for a reexamination of the way we treat the elderly in this county. He cites the story of Tithonus and Eros as an example of our lack of myths in our Judeo-Christian tradition that warn us and help us to deal with the idea of growing old and the cherishing of our elders.

An opinion piece in the New York Times by Annalee Newitz triggers the ire of Pastor Andrew due to its oversimplification of ancient history (particularly in regard to the city of Ugarit), in its overzealous attempt to tie together a well-intentioned point about inequality and its connection to modern times. His rebuttal to their piece also serves us by filing in some blanks with pertinent details...

Pastor Andrew lays out for us of what worship in a Ugarit temple would have been like like more than 3000 years ago, including description of the temple both inside and out, and even a nearby business connected to the temple. It's fascinating to learn that many of these details are not as far from ours in current times as we may have thought.

Christians know well the story of Jesus touching a leper and healing him, but few realize, despite it being spelled out in the gospel, that Jesus was basically forced into quarantine following the encounter. Pastor Andrew sheds light on this episode, leprosy in general in the Bible, and makes a plea for caution AND humanism at this time of our own quarantine.

A viral video of a Ohio church parishioner claiming that she can't catch the Coronavirus because she's "covered in the blood of Jesus" prompts a conversation with Pastor Andrew about the anthropological, ethical, and theological insanity and downright blasphamous mis-use of this metaphor. Also the sparse history of blood use in rituals of ancient times and in the Old and New Testaments, plus what...

Pastor Andrew addresses the popular misconception that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, which leads to a larger discussion about the women, both named and unnamed, of the gospels, the patriarchal approach to their representation, and how that only got worse in the years after its writing. A short video about the same theme https://youtu.be/NcN4NySJ7JA

Peter reads the passage from the Gospel of John where Mary Magdalene can't find the body of Jesus and asks the gardener for it, not knowing that the gardener is Jesus. Pastor Andrew fills in the eyeopening ancient stories John is hinting at here that add so much to interpretation of this story, right down to the pairing of Jesus and Adam, each with their gardens, one old and one new as can be.

Peter asks Pastor Andrew if Jesus ever got REALLY angry, which prompts a discussion of the story of Jesus cursing a fig tree in the gospel of Matthew. Understanding this story in the proper context of the time brings about reflection on the symbol of oppression that fig tree represented, and a greater understanding of the parable brings us to connect it to other such symbols in our own time.

Another senseless, and now potentially dangerous, statement from Trump about the proposed "resurrection of America" on Easter prompts Pastor Andrew to tell us about the ways the word "resurrection" is used differently than it is in its meaning in the gospel. For one, there is a justice dimension to resurrection that is important to its Christian meaning, one that reconciles martyrdom with a larger...

Pastor Andrew joins Peter remotely to discuss what might be labeled the equivalent of "satanic verses" in the Bible, in particular the way Jesus dismissed being called out for not washing before eating, which leads into a conversation of our current worldwide crisis, and how we are dealing with it.

Did you know Kings used to be likened to gardeners? Anyone who wants to run for office should be required to take care of a garden for 10 years, after which, if they have done a sufficient job, they should be allowed to run. This is an idea Pastor Andrew proposes in this episode where he calls on us to celebrate divine gardens as a spiritual achievement, and recognize the religious dimension of pa...

As a global pandemic intensifies in our nation, and anxiety and confusion envelop us, Pastor Andrew thinks it's a good time to look at the many biblical and extra-biblical revelations and apocalyptices, and see them within their context of heightened anxiety, written by people living in unstable times, but with the purpose not to bring fear, but hope.

Pastor Andrew highlights some passages from the Bible that ridicule other forms of worship, showing us that not all humor in the Bible has the same intentions. He calls us out on our hypocrisy in this regard, with our own wasteful and bloated forms of worship, and asks us to approach those who worship differently with empathy.

With the COVID-19 hysteria ramping up, Peter asks Pastor Andrew to talk about the Egyptian plagues of the Hebrew bible. First revelation: "plague" is a strange mistranslation. "Hit" or "Blow" are more proper. They also discuss the interesting origins of the use of Leprosy in the New Testament, and what happens if the "hits" keep coming.

An article by medievalist Lynn Townsend White Jr. on the historical roots of our present day ecological crisis sparks a conversation on the widespread prevalence of religio-insanity, sparked by perversion of religious thought and ignorance, infecting our spiritual institutions.