The Bible Uncut and Unfiltered

Nehemiah 5 stands apart from the rest of the scroll. For once, the greatest threat to Jerusalem isn't an enemy outside the walls; it's the exploitation happening within them. As famine and predatory lending push the poor deeper into debt, Nehemiah confronts the wealthy in a way that would make many modern American Christians uncomfortable: by forming a mob and publicly shaming them into ca...

This chapter takes a darker turn as opposition to rebuilding Jerusalem grows in direct proportion to the wall itself. Nehemiah swiftly responds by militarizing the worksite. But alongside his confidence in God’s protection is a willingness to call down judgment on his enemies in language that often feels jarring for readers formed by later Christian ethics. The author doesn’t sanitize that tension...

This chapter is a monument built not just out of stone, but out of words. We follow Nehemiah on a tour around Jerusalem’s walls as he pauses at each section to record the names of the ordinary people who repaired it. To modern readers, it can feel like one of those chapters you breeze past during a Bible-in-a-year plan—a long list of unfamiliar names and forgotten places. But ancient authors don’t...

Fox released a new Bible drama this year called The Faithful: Women of the Bible, retelling the stories of Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel from their perspectives. If that sounds intriguing, don't get your hopes up. Unsurprisingly, this version of female empowerment very quickly became a show about blaming the women for every bad decision the biblical patriarchs make. This week, we&#39...

What if most of the things you've been taught about the Pharisees, the Law, and the Jewish context of Jesus and Paul are completely backwards? This week, we're honored to learn from Amy-Jill Levine, one of the world's leading New Testament scholars and a Jewish expert on the historical world of Jesus. We tackle some of Christianity's biggest misconceptions like: · Did Jesus really...

If there was a miracle drug that could guarantee you’d live a happier, healthier life, would you take it? According to Rebecca McLaughlin’s latest book, there is such a drug, and it’s called regular church attendance. Drawing on the work of a Harvard professor, she cites several studies, hoping to convince you that church attendance could save your life. But when I actually read those studies? Wel...

All Christians believe in Jesus. Far fewer actually follow him. This week, Chris Jones of Spiritual Hot Sauce joins us for a conversation about suffering, philosophy, Jungian archetypes, spirituality outside church walls, and why modern Christianity totally misses the point by pushing belief in Jesus as the primary goal. We talk about: · How common Christian answers to suffering fall apart · The d...

When teenage Colin was spending every weekend playing inline hockey, there’s no way he could’ve known a conversation like this with an old teammate was somewhere down the road. More than a decade later, we may not be quite as sharp on the rink as we used to be, but apparently we still make a pretty solid team, just this time behind a mic. Longtime friend, local college prof, and prolific philosoph...

You know him from our conversations on the uncontrolling love of God, but what happens when theology picks up a camera? This week, Tom Oord returns as a photographer and filmmaker to discuss his brand new film, SEER: A Spiritual Natural Photographer Explores Love. Throughout the film, Tom shares his own stunning nature photography interspersed with deep reflections on love, God, beauty, healing, a...

This week we go off script and share our distilled thoughts on whatever’s been rattling around in our heads. Think Festivus’s “Airing of Grievances” with a few positive notes and several rabbit trails sprinkled in. These are the unfiltered tangents that don’t make it into the regular podcast—hot takes on holy texts, pop culture, church culture, and whatever else demands a mic. Today you can expect...

Nehemiah 2 isn’t the clean, inspirational leadership story it’s usually made out to be. Beneath the surface of quick prayers and open doors is a tense political drama. There is an anxious king with every reason to distrust, a calculated cupbearer waiting for the perfect moment, and a mission that may be as much about empire as it is about faith. There’s even a potential cameo from a fan favorite l...

Nehemiah doesn’t start in Nehemiah. It starts with a prophetic thread running from Jeremiah to Daniel to Ezra—a century-long story of exile, expectation, and an anticipated return that was intentionally written to feel like a new Exodus. The problem? That second Exodus doesn’t quite land the way anyone hoped. So this week, we read Chapter 1 through a trauma-informedlens that accepts and makes spac...

Nehemiah. A corner of the Bible condemned by Christianity to be little more than a justification for church building campaigns or a last-minute devotional at men’s leadership retreats. But what if we’ve been reading his story completely wrong? This isn’t just a book about walls going up. It’s one of the last chapters in the narrative of the Hebrew Bible. It’s set in the aftermath of exile, at the...

If you've ever wanted to hear: - Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, refuse to pray for Catholics while calling his congregants impediments to his work, - Jonathan Edwards, the Great Awakening revivalist, encourage violence against others while pretending to be the only perfect Christian in the world, - or maybe M. R. DeHaan, founder of Our Daily Bread Ministries, ramble about literally...

What if the religious beliefs and systems sold as protecting you were actually the very things keeping you stuck? In this conversation with NYT bestselling author Tia Levings, we unpack her powerful new book, I Belong to Me, and what it means to reclaim ownership of your body and identity after church-sanctioned harm. If you’ve ever heard: · The church is a hospital for the hurting · God/Church di...

One of the most dangerous things you could do in Christianity is actually take “God is love” seriously. Thomas Jay Oord returns! And this time, he’s sharing Volume 1 of his brand new Systematic Theology of Love. He explains why centering love doesn’t just reshape doctrine to be more biblical—it disrupts entire systems built on certainty, control, and having to be right about everything. We explore...

The American church has seen better days. Or has it? This week, Rev. Dr. Andrew Hale, Associate Executive Coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship North Carolina, joins us to talk about the fractures he’s seen in 25+ years of working directly with congregations and clergy. He explains why many of the divisions churches blame on politics or worship styles actually run deeper. Root issues like...

Over the past month, we’ve been exploring the sacred overlap of food and faith. But there’s a shadow side to that story that is rarely addressed. This week, Anna Rollins joins us to talk about her new book Famished and the unexpected similarities between dieting culture and purity culture in the evangelical church. What happens when self-control becomes the highest spiritual virtue? When hunger, w...

Imagine if you could fearlessly talk theology with a pastor over a glass of wine. This week, we do just that! Wine Pastor Jeremy Jernigan joins us for a conversation that explores faith through the lens of vino. We talk about growth and change through the language of vintages, the extravagant overindulgence of Jesus’s first miracle, and the sacredness found in life’s messiness. From the church’s d...

Professional chef, former pastor, wine rep, and podcaster Andrew Camp joins us this week to explore the sacred, scandalous, and deeply human theology of the table. From Jesus’s eating with the disciples on the Emmaus road to the wild idea of God becoming edible in the Eucharist, we discuss how food isn’t just background imagery in Scripture. It’s actually a central theme. If the Bible begins and e...

Life is fragile, unpredictable, and often terrifying. Fear makes sense. But fear doesn’t get the final word. In this conversation, Ben Price introduces us to feral Spirit—the untamed presence of God that responds to suffering with a quiet and defiant “yeah, but.” While religion tries to capture, copy, and commodify, the Spirit refuses to be managed, showing up in ways, places, and people we least...

So much of our faith lives in our heads, while our bodies quietly remember things our theology forgot. Our ancestors ate with the seasons, learned the land they lived on, and trusted food that was alive—fermented, shared, and shaped by place. They understood that what nourishes us comes not just from belief, but from embodiment. Asia Dorsey joins us this week to share what she’s learned about lean...

Every meal is theological. You just don’t know it yet. This week we're kicking off a new miniseries on the intersection of food and faith—territory most Christians have never explored beyond praying before a meal. But here's the thing: some of our richest theology happens at the table. It exposes our interdependence. It forces us to reckon with who has access and who doesn't. And if yo...

You’ve seen his cartoons on social media; now, it’s time to meet the artist himself. This week, we’re joined by the one and only David Hayward, also known as the NakedPastor. His art has helped countless people name, survive, and heal from spiritual abuse. In this conversation, we dig into how spiritual abuse actually works, why systems and organizations tend to pull people toward their worst selv...

Hell is often treated as a core, unquestionable Christian belief, but what if the way it’s been taught has caused more harm than good? Former pastor Brian Recker joins the podcast to talk about his new book Hell Bent and how hell has been used not just as a doctrine, but as a tool of control and spiritual abuse. Using Jesus’s own standard—you will know them by their fruits—we examine what fear-bas...