The Bible Uncut and Unfiltered

Spiritual abuse can be incredibly difficult to name, especially when you’ve lived inside an abusive system. Many people don’t even realize the whole of what they’ve experienced until long after the damage is done. This week, we start to change that! Licensed therapist Naomi Norton joins us to talk about adverse religious experiences, religious trauma, spiritual abuse, and how these dynamics affect...

Only on this podcast could Schindler’s List, Star Trek, and The Clone Wars collide in a single moral conversation. In this episode, we wrestle with Steven Spielberg’s haunting question: What does it mean to do enough with your life? Is saving one person enough? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or the one? Along the way, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes an unexpected appea...

We all know the teaching, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” But far fewer people know where it comes from—or what it originally meant. And here in the U.S., we remain one of the last first world countries where spanking is widely accepted and often defended as biblical, with pastors and parenting voices regularly pointing to scripture as support. In this episode, we take a careful look at the pass...

What’s your favorite scripture passage? Most normal people have never asked or been asked that. But the IFB circles I grew up in treated that question like a spiritual personality test. You were expected to have one of 31,000+ Bible verses chosen to define your entire life, memorized by heart, and ready to share on demand. This week, Janna joins us to trace where that strange tradition came from a...

You asked, we responded! This week, we dig beneath the surface of some of your biggest Bible questions. From ancient cosmologies to lost artifacts, divine timelines, mythic giants, and more—nothing’s off the table. This episode is full of tough questions, honest responses, and zero fear of the strange stuff in Scripture! • What happened to the Ark of the Covenant? • Did Nephilim exist after the fl...

This week, we’re celebrating 100 episodes of uncut andunfiltered Bible scholarship! We’re looking back at our favorite moments, sharing a few personal updates,unpacking some fun stats, and giving you a first peek at what’s coming in 2026. Plus, we even squeezed in a recap of Theology Beer Camp 2025. Thank you for listening, sharing, and supporting us throughthe first 100. We truly couldn’t have ma...

Psalm 88 is one of the darkest and most overlooked corners of Scripture. It’s a prayer that ends in literal darkness and isolation. It’s the psalm that dares to accuse God and still call it worship. This week, we trace the deconstruction of an ancient Israelite worship leader to ask how faith survives when hope doesn’t—and why God insisted on leaving this raw, unsettling song right in the middle o...

This week, we’re pouring the Bible straight—unbroken, untamed, and (you guessed it) unfiltered. From garden to glory, we’ll trace the threads that tie the whole thing together and reveal why this ancient anthology isn’t just a rulebook, but one of the greatest stories ever told. Settle in, you’re about to hear the Bible like you’ve never heard it before! Website:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Round three of our fundamentalist pamphlet adventure brings us: – A not-so-self-aware tale of how one man found absolute truth and lost his joy. – Anti-communist propaganda thinly disguised as an anti–sex ed sermon. – A grab-bag of end times theology takes. – And a preacher who fueled the Salem Witch Trials…held up as a moral hero. It’s another dose of advice no one asked for, but since we had to...

Back by unpopular demand, we’re reviewing four more vintage fundamentalist pamphlets this week! This round tackles burning questions like: – WWJS—What Would Jesus Smoke? (A: Nothing ever, and you’re a heathen for even asking the question.) – Is there a foolproof way to twist scripture so you’re always following the will of God? (A: Absolutely!) – What happens when Israel gets misused in Christian...

As Israel paints the town red in preparation for their great escape, a new character emerges from the shadows—the mysterious Destroyer. But he’s not the only puzzle in Exodus 12. Who exactly were the “mixed multitude” leaving Egypt with Israel? How many people actually made the journey? And why does Pharaoh, of all people, suddenly ask for a blessing from God? We’ll unpack misconceptions about the...

Chapter 11 begins the most unsettling part of the Exodus story. The death of the firstborn, blood on the doorposts, and neighbors handing over their wealth while suffering from shock—this isn’t Sunday school flannelgraph material. In this week’s episode, we wrestle with divine violence, the silence of bystanders, and why freedom without repair isn’t enough. What does this ancient story have to say...

This week we’re uncovering layers in Exodus you’ve definitely never heard before in church. Previously unexplained details from Joseph’s story find a parallel in Moses’s final confrontation with Pharaoh. Locusts appear, but not where you’d think, thanks to a popular mistranslation. And buried in the Hebrew language are geographical clues that reveal the perspective of the ancient storyteller. But...

Exodus 9 isn’t just about more plagues—it’s about unsettling questions. Why would God raise up Pharaoh for this exact showdown? Why save Israelite slaves while others stayed in chains? And what’s with sudden skin diseases blooming like anti-creation flowers while Hebrew grammar breaks under divine weight? Signs 5–7 land hard, but the finish line isn’t here yet. Get ready to sit with the moral tens...

Chaos ensues this week as I’m joined by three guests to tackle a pile of vintage fundamentalist pamphlets and read the advice out loud. We cover everything from faith healing for physical illnesses caused by your sins to biblical money management that goes nowhere to addiction recovery methods that make AA look like cutting-edge psychology. Join us as we laugh, cringe, and occasionally find oursel...

Bruised roses. Chewed-up gum. Poop in the brownies. These were the metaphors the church gave my generation for our bodies, our desires, and our worth. But what if those weren't just bad illustrations but anti-Christian lies? Paul and Billie Hoard join us this week to introduce their groundbreaking new book, Eucontamination . Behind that unfamiliar word is this familiar yet powerful belief: to...

Back in the early 2000s, The Prayer of Jabez swept through evangelical circles like a holy life hack. Author Bruce Wilkinson promised that if you just prayed this one obscure Old Testament verse, God would open the floodgates of blessing. But what if that passage isn’t a divine cheat code? What if it’s been wildly misunderstood? This week, we dive into the bestselling book that turned a footnote i...

Ever feel like you're too conservative for liberals and too liberal for conservatives? This week, we sit down with Nate and Shelby Hanson of Almost Heretical to talk about faith on the fringes—what happens when the questions you’re not allowed to ask lead to a more honest (and sometimes seemingly heretical) version of Christianity. We talk openly about deconstruction, the psychological toll of...

Ever wonder why God chose some of the world's most annoying creatures to take down ancient Egypt's superpower status? This week we're exploring Exodus 8—where frogs invade Pharaoh's bedroom, magicians have their "this is above my pay grade" moment, and unidentified flying insects accomplish what armies couldn't. But these weren't just random acts of divine weirdne...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Nile… This week, the river runs red—not just with judgment, but with memory, protest, and poetic justice. The first plague isn’t random wrath; it’s a calculated strike against an unholy empire that’s forgotten the days of Joseph. It’s what happens when God says enough. But sometimes liberation looks more like crisis—depending on which side of the...

You’ve probably heard of the 10 Plagues on Egypt—but the Bible rarely calls them that. Instead, they’re mostly described as signs, divine invitations for Pharaoh to change course. But he doesn’t budge. So God sends Moses, temporarily promoted to the role of God himself, to impress Pharaoh with a sea serpent. He’s just a God standing in front of a Pharaoh, asking him to free his people. But then th...

Exodus 6 might be the most overlooked chapter in the first half of the book—but it's packed with surprises you definitely won’t hear about in church this week! Just 3 verses into the chapter, we’re hit with some pretty big questions about God: 👉 What does the title El Shaddai really mean (and why don’t English Bibles translate it correctly)? 👉 Who is Jehovah (and why doesn’t he exist)? 👉 And… d...

Middle management in ancient Egypt sucks! This week, we meet some often-overlooked characters in the Exodus story—the Hebrew foremen. Caught between Pharaoh’s oppressive government and their own suffering people, they’restuck in an impossible spot. Like the serpent in the garden, Pharaoh pits them againstMoses and Aaron, triggering a full-blown crisis for Moses before the plagues even begin. Our s...

A long time ago in a part of the world far, far away.... A saga of lost ways unfolds. Once, the Jedi stood as guardians of peace, sworn to the will of the Force. Once, the Church stood as witnesses to love, bearing the Spirit into the world. But pride crept into the Council. Power consumed the Temple. In chasing control, the Jedi lost the Force. In seeking influence, the Church forgot the Cross. N...

It’s time to rethink the Atonement! Most of us only know one version of what Jesus's death and resurrection meant—He died to take God’s wrath away from you and put it on himself instead. The fancy theological name for that is Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and it wasn’t orthodox belief until 500 years ago. But church history reveals a wealth of different views on what atonement  really  mean...