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Send us Fan Mail Ephesians 5: Wives, Submission, and the Problem of Reading the Bible Too Literally One of the most debated—and most weaponized—chapters in the New Testament is Ephesians 5. "Wives, submit to your husbands..." For centuries, those few words have been used to justify unhealthy marriages, reinforce patriarchal power structures, and silence women. But is that actually what t...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric friend talk about a poem called Strong and Kind, and explore the opportunity for growth that discomfort affords those with eyes to see and ears to hear. But it is important to grow intentionally: strong and kind. This poem is why. We hope you love this episode! (We felt we owed you some studio time! haha)  Heart,  Mark and Eric For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and an old friend talk about what to do with Paul when he drives you crazy. Mark gives an overview of Paul's world of growing up in Tarsus and training in Jerusalem, and then we walk through a list of the reasons he believes most modern Christians would like Paul more than they might expect. And if you disagree you're prolly just not chosen. That was a joke. haha Fo...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric friend talk about AI, humanity's search for meaning, how to think about redemption, and what to do in these strange times. We hope you love this extended episode! (We felt we owed you some studio time! haha)  Heart,  Mark and Eric For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com. You can find all...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and an old friend talk about faith and doubt and specifically, how to think about sacred texts as a modern, the character of God recovering from violence, and why sometimes fiction tells the truth better.   For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com. You can find all of social handles here: TEXT AND ROCK...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and an old friend talk about faith and doubt and specifically, the "scandal of the particular." Walter Breuggemann coined this term to hold in tension what it means if the God of the Bible is true, personal, and good over and against a vague conception of God or God as deist/clockmaker, or God as uninvolved and dispassionate. We hope you love it!! For Text and Rock...

Send us Fan Mail Merry Christmas friends! kk here goes: HOUSE OF THE WORLD. Ancient story and artifact meets lo-fi and Mediterranean hip hop in this journey to reclaim the art of the Bible’s creation story. Poetry… in cosmological motion.  haha! HOUSE OF THE WORLD was craft-brewed to give you the wisdom that our end is in our beginning. If you grew up with the Bible and it seemed like you were the...

Send us Fan Mail A friend of the show and I continue talking about faith and doubt. This episode we chat about how to be sincere friends with people we love all across the spectrum of faith and doubt. Serving your atheist friend might be the most Christian thing you can do. A lot of times being right is less important than being in healthy relationships.  We also talk about how many people frame G...

Send us Fan Mail A friend of the show and I continue talking about faith and doubt. This episode we talk about what to do when the bottom falls out-- to have faith or not to have faith? We both believe that whenever something truly horrible happens, we actually have a choice whether to lean into God/Source/Universe/Being/Oneness, or to lean out. At these times people either grow in faith immensely...

Send us Fan Mail A friend of the show stops by to chat about the Faith and Doubt Series. This episode we chat about how tough questions about God from our children actually get to the heart of adult issues with faith, doubt, and being a good human. Along the way, we talk about God behaving badly in the Bible, the Flood narratives, and how to read with the grain of the editors of sections of the Bi...

Send us Fan Mail Faith & Doubt 03 — God as Mosaic, Faith as a Creed When you stay in the tradition long enough, you realize something unsettling: God doesn’t hold still. The moment you think you’ve got God figured out—a verse, a doctrine, a tidy metaphor—life shifts. A diagnosis, a betrayal, a miracle, a silence. Suddenly, God looks different again. That’s what this episode is about. The idea...

Send us Fan Mail Who gets to say what God is like? For many, the early answers were simple: God is good, loving, and holy. But as you grow, those answers get more complicated. The Bible’s portraits of God are not one-dimensional—they include the God who liberates and loves, but also the God who floods, rages, and stays silent. The tradition itself preserves these tensions, refusing to sanitize the...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when the God you grew up with turns out to be a moving target? From the garden stroll in Genesis to the cosmic transcendence of the New Testament, the Bible presents wildly different portraits of the divine—each shaped by its time, place, and author. In this episode, I trace the fascinating evolution of God in the Judeo-Christian tradition: Genesis: God as an embodied...

Send us Fan Mail Hey Text and Rockers!  Just to change it up, Mark outlines the next several episodes of Text and Rock, including an introduction to the Text and Rock Blog and a 3-part series on Faith and Doubt.  It's all about leaving the Judeo-Christian tradition so that you enter it again. How to lose old names for new names, and stop trying to fit  new wine in old wineskins... If you are...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric explore the creative process behind writing poetry about ecological disasters and the prophetic role of artists in identifying problems before they become mainstream knowledge. For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com. You can find all of social handles here: TEXT AND ROCK SOCIALS. Want to supp...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk about a philosophy of God that might work for you if simple answers do not. How does human religions actually work in real time? Is God something we can actually name and put in a box? Or it is a moving target of an ideal that humans cast out before themselves to deal with the difficulty of reality? We hope you love it! Here is a link to all our socials and our...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk wealth gap, systemic overhaul, and the scandal of politics in the fading western empire. Along the way, they talk about Jesus as a Second Temple Period human sage, a different kind of kingdom, and how to treat people in hard knock times.  We hope you love it! Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom. https:/...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric kick around the idea of awareness as a philosophical pillar for meaning, life, and even divinity, before performing an original poem entitled "Awareness."  We hope you love it! Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom. https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck And below is the poem in this episode... Hear...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk about how to have peace in a world of uncertainty. We hope you LOVE it! Here is a link to all our socials and our digital press... we have been quietly busy. Boom boom. https://www.https://linktr.ee/txtandrck And below is the poem in this episode... Heart,  Mark and Eric ...PEACE... Peace comes when you are ready, and she is not all that heady— just quietly turn...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk about how the animals can teach us wisdom if we have eyes to see. Along with it, we chat about how to move and breathe in a culture addicted to fast wealth and fame (which the vast majority of us never actually achieve). We hope you love it! For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at www.textandrock.com. You ca...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric set up a street performance in front of the "Together We Rise" mural in Cedar Rapids, IA. The mural is a bunch of hands stacked up to the Cedar Rapids skyline, representing the need to work together to rise as a society.  We did a live set of four poems, and the connection between them is doing the intellectual and moral work on yourself so that you can for...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric kick talk about consumerist culture and how to cultivate a life that does more good than harm. We also speculate about space archaeologists in 10,000 years, building altars in the back yard, imaginary friends, and why we'd rather be eaten in two-three T-REX chomps than mauled by giant centipedes. We hope you love it! Be good to each other! Heart, Mark and Eric F...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric kick around the theory of rituals in religious traditions, and try to help you focus on the posture of the heart that actually helps. They also introduce their new book HOLY ROLLER and pop a recent live set on the back end.  We hope you love it! Be good to each other! Heart, Mark and Eric For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Er...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk about the upside-downside, good/evil encompassing nature of divinity and how to keep faith while being in on the joke. This one is all about why it is okay to admit you cannot know everything and are free to hold life with levity. We hope you love it! Be good to each other! Heart, Mark and Eric For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact...

Send us Fan Mail Mark and Eric talk about how to think about fast changing times and cultural systems which often feel out of our control. We hope you love it! Join the TEXT AND ROCK FACEBOOK GROUP by clicking HERE. For a limited time, join our community and get a free digital press item as a free gift. For Text and Rock Poetry, Podcasts, and Video Content or to contact Mark and Eric, visit us at...