The Uncensored Unprofessor

Many Christians feel lost when it comes to prayer. How should one go about praying? Other believers feel aimless, "how can I come up with a novel & unique prayer every single day?!" In this episode I explain how the Lord's Prayer (Our Father, Pater Noster ) serves as a scaffold for my own praying. Or, perhaps better, how the Lord's Prayer serves as a targeting system for my praying. Jesus' prayer...

In this quick hitter (21:10 mins) I variously discuss: why I prefer Christ to Messiah; the Crusades e-booklet I will give to $10+ Patreon pledges; the two sermons I recently preached; the value of asking questions in a Post-Christian culture; our recent trip to the Oregon coast (all the animals I saw, all the brokenness I witnessed); my son's experience of coaching tee-ball here in Spudlandia; our...

The siege of Vienna (1683) was an epic history-making event. Sultan Mohammed II and his Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, eyed the "Golden Apple" of Vienna with great hunger. If Vienna, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire fell, the spoils of Poland, Germany, France, and Italy lay ripe for the picking! At first two hundred thousand Muslim soldiers fought against twelve thousand Austrians at the Vienna c...

What was it like, if you were not a Muslim, to live under Muslim rule? Even though the Koran calls for religious freedom why did that not, in fact, ever serve as the way of life? How would the Muslims carry out forced religious conversions? What kind of daily realities did the Dhimmi (subjugated, humiliated) live with? How were Jews treated? Then, in the show's second half, I describe the siege, b...

France's King Louis IX led the 7th Crusade. But he broke with established crusader order by starting first in Tunis instead of Cyprus. Why? And what happened in Tunis? I peel back the layers of the seventh Crusade. We explore the great battle between the Mongols and the Muslims, show why Sultan Baybars earned the nickname "the merciless," and talk about the profound political spin that contemporar...

The sixth Crusade is famous for the involvement of France's King Louis IX. What was he like? Why was he so beloved? What decision did he make that led to the disastrous end of the sixth Crusade? I also clarify what I admire about Medieval Crusaders. They had something that I see nowhere in the contemporary American Church. In the show's news-review I variously comment on: the Deconversion trend at...

A short 9 years after the fourth Crusade ended the Pope called for a fifth. And the aim still was? Taking back Jerusalem. But the Crusaders—again!—made bad strategic decisions. And then, of all weird things, in the middle of the Crusade the Sultan was visited by Francis of Assisi. I recount the exchange between those two men and reflect on the spirit of Crusading. When King Frederick of Germany, a...

The Fourth Crusade was arguably the most disastrous of them all. In the year 1204 Catholics betrayed Catholics, Catholics and Byzantines betrayed one another, and Byzantine royal family members betrayed and murdered one another. What could go wrong?! I narrate the role and place of Venice in the fourth Crusade. Across the episode I also ruminate about all the Christian De-Converters we are reading...

The Crusaders held Jerusalem and the Holy Land for a short 88 years (1099-1187). But when Caliph Saladin (a Sunni Kurd) recaptured both the relic of the "True Cross" and Jerusalem itself a third Crusade was called for by Pope Urban III. Among those who answered that call was Richard the Lionheart, the King of England who carried King Arthur's famed sword "Excalibur." In this episode I recount what...

I'm interrupting my series on the Medieval Crusades to think with you about the question, why do Christian Colleges always slide to the Theological (and with that, Cultural) Left? I listened to a recent Theology Pugcasters podcast episode and they really got me to thinking. I add my own reflections and experiences to their insightful analysis. Then, because the Roman Catholic Church has elected a...

What happened in the Mid-East that motivated the second Catholic Crusade? Why did a monk, Bernard of Clairvaux, preach the Crusade? What happened to the armies of King Conrad and King Louis VII along the way over and down to Constantinople and Cappadocia? How did the centuries-old suspicion between Orthodox and Catholic Christians play out during the second Crusade? I examine and answer all those...

Truth is? I hadn't planned on producing this episode. But way back when I was working on my PhD I learned that one has to go where the historical record takes one. So in this episode I narrate details about the Jerusalem Kingdom (the 600 square mile empire) that arose after the First Crusade. Led by different orders of Knights, the Jerusalem Kingdom became the locale for the fantastic accumulation...

They started heading southeast in 1096. Three full years later, June of 1099, the Crusaders arrived at the walls of Jerusalem, multiple armies led by multiple personages. And, other than wanting to rescue the Holy Land from Muslims, they weren't even on the same page. So then, what happened when they finally sieged the walls of Jerusalem? On a related theme, what percentage of Crusaders actually w...

European folk, besieged in the East and invaded in the South, believed their civilization was at stake. They heard all about the Muslim invasions in the Balkans and the Muslim destruction of Christian Egypt. So the truth is there were many battles prior to the Crusades and in this episode I unpack three of those: one in Syria, one in Constantinople, and one in Southern Spain. What particular thing...

Welcome to the most-difficult-to-produce episode I've ever put out! Why? Because I am talking about Islam following the way Mohammed and the Koran talk(ed) about Islam. The West suffers from a kind of historical amnesia about both the Crusades and Islam; almost like there is a willful ignorance at work. But what did Mohammed himself offer to Muslims who go to war? With what kind of pious language...

In my first two episodes I laid out geographically-oriented motivations for Crusading. This week we explore the religious motives of Crusaders. What were they offered by the papacy in return for joining a crusade? Was every Crusader on a journey of religious gain? Were Crusaders motivated either by their own poverty or a desire to evangelize pagans? Who was more likely to join a crusade, younger o...

What stirred up the Crusades? Last week we saw that it was the spread of Islam, and Muslim invasions of Christian lands. In this second episode I explain how Muslim violations of holy Christian sites and locales (and monks and women) was further grist, greater motivation, for Holy Roman Empire Catholics to ride far East and Crusade. But first? What is the dominant and curated narrative, today, abo...

There are several curated narratives pertaining to the Crusades. Those narratives dominate not only our understanding of the Medieval Crusades but understandings of the Middle East today. But, what really happened? What initially, and really, motivated Holy Roman Empire Catholics to travel over 1200 miles eastward at the price of great sacrifice? To try to answer those questions we examine some of...

Perhaps more than other people, Christians are susceptible to having their emotions manipulated. After all, love of neighbor is an express way to show love of God. But that beautiful attribute can be abused, primed, and played. What's happened? Well, we used to encourage compassion: feeling for the other such that one is moved to action. Today the emphasis is upon empathy: deeply sharing the feeli...

The Bible is most aware of the problem of anxiety vortexes. But whereas too many believers today get sucked into those vortices the Bible counsels sober-mindedness. In this episode we unpack just what is sober-mindedness and offer some steps for how to achieve emotional sobriety. If you've ever watched professional golf you'll have realized that the pros intentionally seek to remain calm, sober-mi...

We get enculturated: the anxiety of someone (anyone!) should trump the norms, behaviors, hopes, and values of everyone. "Anxiety trumps all!", we are incessantly taught. So what to do? How to respond? When to respond? I offer several strategies for dealing with hyper-anxious groups and persons, strategies oriented in the notion of differentiation. What is differentiation? How can you practice that...

Families and churches are swept through with anxiety, and they get split, shredded. If we don't see it everywhere we feel the power of anxiety everywhere. Why does anxiety disassemble entire communities? Why is it that the entire community gets pulled down to the level of its least mature members? In this first episode in a new series we talk about the mechanisms that force anxiety down everyone's...

After a four-month series on Jesus' harsh sayings what are my final takeaways? I work through why Jesus was a first-century shock-jock, how in light of Jesus love can be tough, Jesus' axiology, why He was a man's man, how amazing it was that Jesus was not snared by the anxiety of those around him, and why—when it comes to my faith—I am "Curious Eddie." I also unpack what the progressive Gospel say...

"Jesus was just a common Jew who wanted the best for everyone." "Jesus was a liberal first-century rabbi." Those memes have captured much of the public's imagination about Jesus. But they both are 180 degrees off the mark, especially when we read what Jesus said about himself. He said, "I am Lord of the Sabbath," and "I am greater than the Temple". And certainly those don't square with the Jesus-t...

"If they will not welcome you shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them," Jesus said as he gave the Twelve missional instructions. That just seems so abrupt! And it wouldn't have been recorded as part of the Gospel if it were recorded for us by someone from the 21st century; it's just too embattled. So why did Jesus say that? What did it mean? Not mean? In this week's episode we unp...