The Unorthodox Gatherings

Most Christians are unaware that their understanding of Christian Theology is more influenced by Augustine than Jesus, or any other person in history. Augustine's influence cannot be overstated and one area is he created an overtly negative perception of sexuality, the body, and women that is still highly effective today. And here's the kicker: Augustine wasn't remotely biblically literate enough...

Many in our group don't know what Purity Culture is. And many know it far too well. Today's conversation is more of an introduction to Purity Culture and where this series is going. While it's easy enough for us to dismiss Purity Culture as an unhealthy and ignorant expression within some forms of Christianity, it's reach is not only extensive, but deeply layered and psychologically still affectin...

One of the most accepted doctrines of Christianity is that Jesus and God are one and the same. It's attested to in some of the earliest creeds of the Church. But does the Bible support it? In today's conversation we talk about the text of the gospel of John, Jewish beliefs around images of God, and the history of one of our creeds in order to traverse this question, Is Jesus God? What we find is t...

A Western-Medieval/Modern thought on Christianity is that we are born with a hole, as sinners, and when we "accept" Christ, that hole is filled. It's a poor thought because it cuts us off from growth once that "acceptance" happens. Today we talk about the experience when we encounter the divine as we are rather than filling a hole, it creates a God-Shaped Hole, one that bea...

This episode will be a little Unorthodox. There are two things to be aware of. First, we did a Bible Gift presentation for two of our kids at the beginning of the episode, so bear with us. Second, this is not a normal presentation and conversation like our normal episodes; it is a liturgy, a service. It moves through different points to a conclusion and we've recorded the whole thing raw. It&#...

Doubt has been one of the primary enemies of the Church for a long time. However, an authentic exploration of faith and connection with the divine will ultimately lead one to the need of doubt in this journey. In today's episode, we discuss the virtue of doubt.

Last episode we talked about the limits behind this old way of thinking of religion as offering objective truth, either through doctrine and dogma, or through historical criticism. This episode we start to seek out language that can help us approach the divine in humility, with the understanding that we can never fully know God, but also with curiosity, so that we never stop trying to know God.

We start a new series inspired by the work of Peter Rollins that explores the advent of language used to speak of God, how this language has become idolatrous, all in the hope of being open to the never fully understood revelation of God that requires both curiosity and humility.

We've spent some time with the book and sociological studies about The Religion of Whiteness, which is dense and disheartening. But not without response and hope, which is where we end today. We hope this gives insight into language that can help detect both Rows and Rowers, both outside and within ourselves and continue work towards equitable change.

Utilizing the work of sociologists Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II, The Religion of Whiteness explores the question: How is racism still so prominent in American churches when Christian Theology is explicitly antithetical to such behavior? The central argument in their book and our new series is because racism is such a driving force behind American Christianity. We embark on a new serie...

In antiquity, people were naturally able to understand the meaning behind all of Jesus' miracles, while believing in the miracles themselves. We've robbed ourselves of that ability because we've moved into a literalist mindset. Today we look at several of the miracle stories in Mark from the perspective of actions occurring, but miracles not taking place and perhaps reclaim the ability...

It should be shocking and frightening to learn how many people rely on poor biblical interpretation to create bad biblical prophecy, that then dictates a stance on foreign policy. Non-conservative Christians might typically discard this kind of thinking as fantastical and silly, but we're watching real time effects today.

In a complete about-face, John the Revelatory takes everything Jesus fundamentally teaches about wealth (it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle) and domination (love your enemy, bless those who persecute you), and not only repudiates it, but ultimately gives wealth and domination the divine endorsement they need for Christian kingdoms and nations to live contrary to Jesus&#39...

Revelation is nothing if not tremendously violent. A massive, but seemingly inconspicuous departure from Jesus in the gospels, it's weird how accepting we've become of violence while also claiming to be followers of the prince of peace. Today we talk about this obsession we have with violence and the approval society has received from the Book of Revelation in utilizing it.

In our path to Deconstruct the Book of Revelation, it's important to do two things: summarize the plot of Revelation and point out explicitly why this is a commentary about Roman persecution at the end of the 1st century. Once we layout this baseline of understanding, we can see that treating it any other way is a creation of later generations with nefarious intentions.

The Book of Revelation was disliked vehemently first the first 300 years of Christianity and its first primary usage came at the hands of pettiness. John of Patmos wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Contextually, it's a commentary on the Roman Empire. And yet, today, it's thought of as the premier source of the Bible predicting future events. Today we look at the framework for how R...

Our conversation in this episode is led by Trish Hecker, founder of Open Door Support. She has a Masters in Social Science with an emphasis on Human Development and is a certified Sexuality Educator. In our series we've been deconstructing the Bible as a source for creating sexual ethics today, but it's been Trish who has helped us understand what a healthy sexual ethics looks like utilizi...

In this episode we do a short recap of what we've covered in our "Deconstructing Sexual Ethics of the New Testament" series and spend time thinking through the renegotiations that have been made for heteronormative relationships that have not been given to the Queer Community.

The Bible does not talk about homosexuality. What it does reference, only a small handful of times is same-sex sex and a modern, puritanical society has conflated the two. In this episode we look at several references to same-sex sex from Leviticus to the letters of Paul, to help understand how same-sex sex was thought about in antiquity so that we might help undo the harm to the LGBTQ+ community...

The letters of Paul have probably been more instrumental in creating a modern sexual ethics of the church than any other biblical source. Here's the crazy part: Paul has been vastly misunderstood. This episode we talk about the 2 primary ways Paul has been misunderstood and why this should stop us from using Paul to create sexual ethics for today.

The foundation for understanding and deconstructing a sexual ethics from the New Testament starts with understanding sexual ethics from the perspective of 1st century Judaism. The laws that come from ancient Judaism are the jumping off point for the conservative, puritanical sexual ethics that come over to the New World. The problem? They're all renegotiated to fit the context of whoever is us...

Today marks the beginning of a new series that will deconstruct the sexual ethics from the Bible that are used to try and create a "Biblical" sexual ethics for a modern day. Today's conversation is more about creating a foundation for the rest of the series, but it's an important conversation as we'll be using this information throughout.

There are a lot of words that Christians use for granted, words they know because they've been raised with a cultural understanding of them, not a contextual one. However, words like gospel, salvation, saved, Son of God, Christ, are not words meant to be used by a powerful church, but by the powerless followers of the historical Jesus who believed they were taking a non-violent, compassionate...

In this conversation we go over a recap of our Slow Church series and try to think of a vision for both our Bethania and Unorthodox community that can incorporate a way of being a church centered in this slower method, a way that rejects the hold consumerism has on our community and lives, and a way of being more present with our neighborhood in general, and with the vulnerable among us in particu...

Everyone would like to be a hospitable person. The problem is we live in a consumeristic world where if we can't even afford more and more material possessions, our smart phones are still consuming our time, attention, and energy. Genuine hospitality cannot come unless we center ourselves in abundance and gratitude, values that are antithetical to consumerism.