Presby-Musings

My middle son, Jackson, recently informed me that the Internet was "on fire" about an interview conducted by the Nelk Boys, a group of young YouTubers, on their channel with the Israeli Prime Minister.   These young entrepreneurs have a massive following on YouTube and are what you would probably consider "alt-right influencers."  They are well-known for promoting conspiracy theories and extremist, far-right politics.   The interviews they conduct are often bizarre (they asked the Prime Minister whether he liked McDonald's over Burger King), and meant to be entertaining, but there is a darker side to what they produce as well.   Hundreds of thousands of young men in what one journalist calls the "manosphere," who watch the show faithfully, are being fed lies, toxic masculinity, and extremist political rhetoric that is shaping their worldview.   I'm often troubled by stories I explore, like this one with the Nelk Boys.  Our culture is qui...

I had a pastor friend once who had a sign on his desk that read, "God loves you, and has a difficult plan for your life."  That sign always drew a wry smile from me, but I was also troubled by the language of it.  I  grew up in a Christian culture that used the term "God's plans" pretty freely, and often in very unhelpful ways.   People in that world I lived in frequently stated that all they wanted was to discover God's plan for their life, or to do God's will, which was nearly the same thing.  Interestingly, God's plans more often resembled their own, and when things didn't go as they planned, it created some challenging theological issues for them.   Truth be told, I held onto those same notions for many of my early years in ministry.  However, things shifted for me after a serious crisis of faith in 2011, when I began to see a difference between what I thought were God's plans (which were really my own) and God's ultimate purposes.  ...

When I was a kid, I fell in love with the Bible.  I loved reading Bible stories from the comic book version I wore into tatters (I eventually replaced it about ten years ago).   By the age of 11, I  had read the Bible through cover to cover at least once.  I was on a Bible Quiz team in the 8th grade that won state and national competitions.  If there was a Bible trivia contest in my youth group or Christian school, no one wanted to go against me.  However, when I entered my high school years, I began to notice some problems with the Scripture — contradictions, stories that seemed too fantastic to be literally true, and various interpretations of God from different eras of history, among other issues.   By the time I graduated from high school, I had walked away from not only the Bible, but my faith in God as well.  It would take me a couple of decades before I would truly find my way back, and begin to understand the Bible differently....

I've been thinking a lot lately about the theology of suffering and why life can be so challenging at times.  I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing that we didn't have to go through suffering or hard seasons in our lives' journey.   However, I also know that when I look back on my life, I've grown spiritually each time I've had to go through something challenging.   To that end, author Ann Voskamp asks this powerful question:  “Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?” Those words cut to the heart of something we often forget amid our pain—our darkest seasons can become the very soil where grace grows deepest. When we walk through suffering, everything in us longs for escape. We pray for the shadow to lift, for the valley to end. But what if the shadow is not the absence of God’s presence, but the backdrop for His greatest work? Shadows only exist because the...

One of the many questions I have been asked over my twenty-five-plus years in ministry centers on the ideas of free will and God's love.   People often ask me, "What does it mean when we speak of our free will concerning God?" In other words, do we have the option to resist God's love or God's will for us?   Typically, the conversation leads to another question: "Why does a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?"  I see these two questions as inextricably intertwined.  And I found the perfect quote from one of my favorite books from over a decade ago, "Love Wins" by author, and former pastor, Rob Bell.   “Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.”  Those words are both sobering and liberating. God’s love is not coercive. It does not manipulate or force us into submission. Love, by its very nature, must allow fo...

“It may actually be more healthy to be disturbed, confused, or searching than confident, certain, and secure.” – Mark Scandrette We live in a culture where it's hard to be certain about anything.  It's hard to know what is "real" and what isn't at times.   My social media feed is becoming increasingly inundated with AI-generated news stories, photos, videos, and the like.   For example, I've seen the same news story about famous sports figures, musicians, and actors who donated money to the families of Texas flood victims, complete with photos of the stars hugging people, all of which was generated by artificial intelligence.   Same story. Different stars. Fake photos.  Many of the people on my social media feed shared these stories, believing them to be real and wanting to assume the best about them without closely examining them.    In a world that is seemingly less and less certain, it's no wonder that these kinds of things happen mor...