Recovering Evangelicals

A new understanding of the ancient story of Israel’s exodus out of Egypt leads to a whole new understanding of the Passover … and of the crucifixion! In this episode, Scott and Luke look back on the two recent re-releases — both challenging the traditional “Sunday school version” of the Exodus story — to address a few loose ends: why did we choose those two episodes in particular to re-release? why is the account of the Exodus from Egypt only available in ancient Hebrew literature …. why wouldn’t the countries around Egypt have said anything about this empire-shattering event? if scholars have learned so much about what didn’t happen, and what actually happened, in the Exodus from Egypt, why does that updated version never find its way to the people in the pews and the kids in Sunday School? the many genetic studies which have been done which only find evidence of a continuous gradual mixing of Israelite genes with the surrounding Canaanite genes, rather than a sudden and dramatic replacement of the latter by the former what does a thinking Christian now do with this new understanding of a core element in our theology? in particular, if the Passover comes directly out of the Exodus story, but the latter may have never happened in the way it’s described in the Bible, and if the Passover has nothing to do with atonement for sins, why does Christianity interweave the crucifixion of Jesus so tightly into the Passover story? As always, tell us what you think … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like: Episode #80, with Dr. Aren Maeir, another world-leading Jewish archaeologist, about the origin of the nation of Israel and her new religion; Episode #57, with Dr. Peter Enns, about who wrote the Hebrew Bible; Episode #98, with Dr. Eric Seibert, about a perfect example of humans putting words into God’s mouth (like telling them to kill their enemies); Episode #19, in which we focus on the various ideas about atonement theory. We also highly recommend you read Dr. Richard Friedman’s book Who Wrote the Bible? To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Science now makes the Sunday School version of this story no longer tenable, leaving three options for believers: ignore the problem, reject the Bible, or revise one’s theology. The story of “the Exodus” has traditionally been seen to involve millions of Israelites following Moses out of Egypt: this image is derived from a literal reading of the Old Testament, with more than a little help from Cecil B. DeMille’s iconic movie. However, scholars have given us several other versions of this story which are much, MUCH smaller in scale and quite different in many of the details … and which are much more believable, especially given that they’re based on actual data (archaeological; literary; genetic). This puts many believers in a difficult position: setting aside what they see/saw as the Biblical version forces them to devalue the Bible and possibly to reject their faith. In this episode, we talk about why the “Sunday School version” is really no longer tenable, and how to revise one’s theology to accommodate that paradigm shift. Discussion points included: how people respond when they grow up with one version (usually the “Sunday School version” and then later are confronted with a very different one (usually one of the scholar’s versions). “the numbers” that argue against the literal version (the “Sunday School version”): (1) the numbers that the text give us which are just too hard to believe (several million Israelites marching out of Egypt? the logistics for a horde of this tremendous size) (2) the numbers that you’d expect to find if the Sunday School version was historical, but which are nowhere to be found (the trail of dead bodies and garbage; surrounding cultures would have written something about this event) (3) the numbers that we do find which point to a very different version (the Levites as late-comers to Canaan from Egypt; the genetics of the inhabitants of Canaan at that time) the perceived risks of rejecting the Sunday School version of the Exodus story: need to reject the whole Bible (the inerrancy/infallibility problem) need to reject core aspects of Christian faith (if there was no Passover event, then what do we do with Christ’s death on “Passover”) [Black] Liberation Theology resonates profoundly with the Exodus story many listeners gave great feedback to our question: “if you have/had to reject the Sunday School version of this story, what impact would that have on your Christian faith” people feel lied to by Christian leaders who know or should know that the traditional Sunday School version is suspicious the first step in coming to grips with this problem is recognizing that the Old Testament was written by Jews, and to Jews; we can debate the extent to which this on-going in-house conversation is open to us 21st century Westerners. constitutional lawyers and Supreme Court judges are faced with the very same situation when interpreting the US Constitution: either stay absolutely true to the original wording, or see it as a living document that breathes and changes as the American population changes through time and encounters new situations we also see the same thing in the four corners of the Wesleyan quadrilateral: two corners that are wooden and unbending (scripture and church tradition) are balanced out by the flexibility of the other two corners (reason and church experience) Fundamentalists and Literalists already occasionally take scripture non-literally whether they realize it or not (the sun orbiting the earth? Hell is underground? the sky is a hard dome holding back an ocean of water? our soul resides in our liver?) the ancient Israelites and 1st century Christians fully believed that God needs blood to absolve sin; but many Christians today call into question Penal Substitutionary Atonement and God’s need for blood As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #57 (the writing of the Old Testament), #101 (Divine Inspiration), #112 (Passover as the context for Christ’s death on the cross), #19 and #20 (Atonement Theory), #15 (how ancient Jews understood things so differently from us today). Movie promotional image from Paramount Pictures (and modified). To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Although the origin story for Jews, and the foundation for much of Christian theology, many scholars will ask: did it really happen (that way)? Moses leading the newly-born nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, wandering through the desert for 40 years, and taking possession of Canaan is an iconic story. Not only is it the central national origin story for Jews, but it also forms the foundation for a great deal of essential Christian theology: the Passover, with its images of lamb’s blood smeared on the front doors to ward off death and judgment, and announce salvation and liberation … the giving of the Ten Commandments and the entire Levitical law … establishing a new religious system … the journey to the Promised Land. These are all themes that are picked up later in the New Testament, and provide the context for Jesus’ mission and death on the cross. For this reason, this story of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt is a staple for Christian Sunday School curricula and sermons alike. But many modern scholars will ask a very unsettling question: did it really happen? To explore this, we talked to Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman, a scholar of ancient Israelite history with impeccable credentials (Harvard; Oxford; Cambridge; University of Haifa [Israel]; UCSD). Points that we talked about include: Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 movie The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston as Moses, has become the Christian/Western cultural memory of that Old Testament history are Christians guilty of cultural appropriation when they take that entire story and make it their own? what data do we have for that Old Testament history …. in addition to the Old Testament itself, we now have archaeological data and genetic data, but not other literary data from non-Jewish sources there are many Egyptianisms in the Old Testament story (the Hebrew Tabernacle looks like the Battle Tent of Ramses II; the Ark looks like a religious box used in Egyptian parades; ritual practices such as circumcision; sacrifices; brick-making; Egyptian names) there was not one massive exodus, but many small exoduses; people groups were constantly coming and going from Egypt “the Exodus” did happen; it just didn’t happen the way it’s described (it wasn’t two million people leaving all at once) the writing of the Old Testament involved many people (it was not just Moses) and was influenced by a variety of political and religious forces; these include two groups of priests who were more allied with either Moses or with Aaron the laity (the people in the church pews) are decades/centuries behind the scholars when it comes to understanding the origin, editing, and redacting of the Old Testament; Evangelical academics are beginning to “catch up” the nation of Israel was a confederation of different indigenous people groups who were already living in Palestine (including ones who were already coming and going from Egypt over the prior centuries), as well as a group of Levites who left Egypt in some kind of dramatic fashion; it was the latter who re-shaped their own history together with that of the existing people groups, and who then taught that revisionist history to the children until it became national doctrine these various people groups worshipped several gods, including Yahweh (the Midianites and others) and El (Canaanites; Ugarit; Phoenicians) the Levites who came from Egypt joined this confederation much later, and re-shaped the religious practices of this emerging nation of Israel if the “Exodus” and the religious rituals of Israel didn’t happen in the way that we are led to believe from a superficial reading of the book of Exodus, then what do we do with the Passover, which is a ritual that celebrates that Exodus, and which Christians have completely appropriated as the very foundation of their theology (Christ as the Passover Lamb, and his blood shed for our redemption) in the Ancient Near East, atonement required blood As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … … and check out our archive of previously released episodes, listed chronologically, or thematically, or by guest expert. Find more information about Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman at his personal web-site. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy Episode #57, in which we interviewed Dr. Peter Enns about the origin and writing of the Old Testament, or Episode #80, in which Dr. Aren Maier tells us about the origin and evolution of Judaism and the nation of Israel. Movie promotional image from Paramount Pictures. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Daniel Hummel, a historian specializing in Christian Zionism and dispensationalism, delves into how these beliefs can shape global politics and conflicts. He discusses his books covering the evolution of dispensationalism and its decline in academic circles. The conversation touches on evangelical attitudes toward Israel, the influence of an apocalyptic worldview on environmental issues, and the cultural impact of dispensationalism, including its reflection in media like the Left Behind series. Hummel emphasizes the need for renewed dialogue between faith and scholarly understanding.

In this engaging discussion, Eric Scot English, a scholar of philosophy and Christian theology, sheds light on the often-overlooked concept of Dispensationalism. He connects this belief to recent political actions, including evangelical support for Israel and dismissals of climate change. English explores how Dispensationalism influences personal faith and communal dynamics, as well as its historical roots in evangelical thought. From its theological implications to its entanglement with Christian nationalism, the conversation reveals a critical perspective on a belief system shaping modern evangelicalism.

A retrospective on how well we achieved our goals for this season, and pondering whether we need to do some re-branding before the next!? August is a busy time of year for us: vacations … road-trips … and getting ready for the return to teaching responsibilities at the university.  And for that reason, we have typically gone on hiatus between August and February (when my teaching load is done).  This year will be no exception. In today’s episode, Scott and I look back over Season Six, and ask ourselves if we met the goal we set for this it: of giving listeners strategies, tools, information, and examples to help  deconstruct a  traditional Christian  world view that doesn’t work seem to work very well anymore in the 21st century,  and to find a way to another form of Christian belief that does. And then we turned ourselves around 180 degrees and looked to what might be coming down the pipeline if/when we do re-boot in the new year.  We wondered if it might be time to re-brand.  For example, should we change the name: do we still want to refer to ourselves as Evangelicals (albeit “Recovering” Evangelicals)?  It seems that that label has been irretrievably tarnished by one particular faction within the Evangelical camp, and to use “Recover” as an active verb may be a hopeless cause. Or do we lean more heavily into “Recovering” as an adjective, and continue to create a safe space for those who are in rehab? And if we take the latter mind-set, do we focus on listeners who are moving further down the “slippery slope” or reconfigure the podcast to make it more friendly …. less daunting ….. to new listeners who are only just beginning to ask hard questions of their own traditional Christian faiths, and haven’t yet gone as far down the path as the rest of us have done.  In a way, it’s similar to the conundrum that many churches  have found themselves in over the past couple decades: “do we go traditional, or contemporary, or try to do some kind of hybrid that targets both” (which rarely works well). If you have any wisdom to give us on those questions, we enthusiastically welcome your input. Until that time, stay tuned.  We don’t expect to go completely silent over the next few months.  There will be a  couple episodes that are already in progress and will be released over the next few weeks.  And we’ll keep our eyes on the news headlines and the book publisher’s releases, looking for any particular events or new book releases that merit a quick episode here or there.  If you subscribe, you’ll get an automatic notice of whenever a new episode is released. Otherwise, check out our Episode Archive through these three links that list all our previous episodes chronologically, thematically, or by guest experts.  A majority of our previous episodes fall into the category of being “ever-green” …. you can listen to them years later and they’re still current.   I mean, we’ve tackled theological questions that have had scholars talking and authors writing for centuries, so a few years is not going to take the shine off those episodes!? Thanks for listening.  And stay tuned! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our collection of other episodes in which we look at a series of releases and try to extract a few general themes to help in re-building a new Christian worldview. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Although Christians may say that “Jesus was fully human and fully divine,” many of them tend to slow-pedal the first half of that fundamental tenet. A fundamental Christian belief is that Jesus was fully human and yet fully divine. But for many, including us at Recovering Evangelicals, this tenet raises all kinds of questions and problems.  In fact, Christians have wrestled with that idea for two thousand years: this is NOT a new problem! In this episode, we’re putting a spotlight on the first part of that belief statement: that he was fully human.  Some Christians don’t like to do this: they feel a need to keep his divinity front and center.  But our guest today — Dr. Daniel Kirk — thinks we lose quite a bit when we do this.  And he’s written a book to explain why: A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels. We first explore the many lines of evidence in the Bible of his full humanity: Jesus showed all the vulnerabilities of a normal human being: he could get cold and hungry … he needed to eat, sleep … he was susceptible to mental and physical pain ….. could fear being killed and, in fact, could be killed. Everybody around Jesus at the time saw him as the Jewish Messiah … a very human title/role. Jesus himself preferred the Messianic title “Son of Man” over “Son of God.” That title and that role were only ever expected to be held by a human, not by the Divine. He didn’t know everything.  We first look closely at the story of Jesus in the temple at 12 years old, asking a lot of questions (those Christians who insist that he was teaching should look more closely at the actual wording in the story), and suggest whether this is where he first began to wonder about being the Messiah that everyone was talking about.  And throughout his public ministry we find him asking questions: sometimes rhetorical questions meant to make a point, but many other times because he just didn’t know and wanted the answer. In the second half of our conversation, we discuss why some Christians (often Evangelicals) get so uncomfortable about emphasizing his humanity, as well as why Dr. Kirk finds so much value in doing exactly that. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Daniel Kirk at Patheos, and his books at Amazon. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like two previous episodes in which we explored Jesus as the Jewish Messiah (#82) and as the cosmic Christ (#83). To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

It’s time to revise our picture of human origins, and the theology built up around the one handed down to us by authors and church fathers who knew nothing about our hominid cousins. This is the final episode of our miniseries looking at the impact that scientific discoveries over the past couple centuries of our hominid ancestors might have on Christian theology.  It needs to be recognized that none …. NONE ….. of the Biblical authors, nor the characters they write about, nor any of the church fathers who unpacked Christian theology over the centuries after the Bible was written … NONE of them knew about human evolution, about millions and billions of years, about our hominid cousins with whom we interbred and interacted, nor about the spiritual journey that we … and possibly also those cousins … have been on for the past many hundreds of thousands of years.  It’s time that we updated the picture. The four episodes which preceded this one have raised many questions.  Today, we’ve distilled those many questions down to five broad categories and brought in a world-class theologian (Dr. Douglas F. Ottati) to help us explore how to reconfigure Christian faith to accommodate that new information that was completely unavailable to the Biblical authors and Church Fathers.  Those five are: the tension between Biblical revelation and scientific discovery.  Many Christians like to speak about “the Book of God’s Word” and “the Book of God’s Works” (or God’s World) being in harmony.  But the uncomfortable fact is that the two often do NOT tell the same story. And John 3:16 does NOT specifically refer to humans/people, but to the entire universe (which would include other species)! many Christians are becoming comfortable with human evolution and even asserting that God “used” biological evolution to “guide” genetic changes; however, biological evolution is supposed to be random and undirected. so much scientific evidence rules out the ideas of: a first human or a primal pair, which are foundational to a great deal of Christian theology; a sudden appearance of suffering, disease and death in the evolutionary time-line; humans being the sole participants in a search for a Higher Being. contrasting a traditional Christian view of the human condition (Fallen creatures; utterly depraved) and an imminent end of the entire universe as described in the Book of Revelation, with a revised modern Christian view of humans climbing an evolutionary ladder (in the biological, cognitive, spiritual, moral, and ethical senses) collectively towards a Divine ideal, and other species/aliens joining us in that journey on a time-line that stretches out for millions (even billions) of years. the concept of being “created in the image of God” takes on a whole new meaning now that we consider other hominids, and even certain other non-hominids, on a journey toward that Divine ideal. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Ottati at his institutional web-page, and his many books at Amazon; you may also want to check out our previous conversation with him a few months ago. Episode image by Andrew. Thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A committed secular humanist, two Christians (and a Jewish rabbi) compare perspectives on their agreed claim that human morality has been on the upswing. A year ago, we did an episode with a Jewish rabbi and scholar — Dr. and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson — exploring the claim that human morality has been trending upwards, in large part due to a Judeo-Christian influence on modern Western society: that we’ve been climbing the evolutionary ladder, not just in a biological and cognitive sense, but also in a moral and ethical sense.  A lot of people really struggle with that claim, largely because they look at headlines in the newspapers and say: “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Another leading scholar who’s very skeptical and resistant to religion — Dr. Michael Shermer — made the same claim about human morality, although he believes science and reason are the driving force behind the increase (and very much plays down any positive contributions from religion).  We thought it would be fun, and enlightening, to compare notes with Dr. Shermer. One of the points that we agreed on is that news headlines can be very misleading if you’re trying to find a trend: those are snapshots in a very dynamic situation, very much like the daily status of the stock market. In Michael’s words: “three steps forward but two steps back.”  You need to look at the overall trend.  It’s like compound interest.  Even historical retrospectives looking back over a few centuries are too myopic. We discussed a variety of scientific and political developments and societal factors which are contributing to this trend and the volatility masking it: polarization of society around the world increased attention to human rights over the past 1000 years liberalization and the recent introduction of democracy (up until 2 or 3 centuries ago, countries have always been run by emperors, autocrats, theocracies, dictators, etc.), but a democracy also comes with more intervention by radicalized individuals the bipolar potential of the internet, AI, genetics and nuclear technology (to name just a few) the business model driving social media and our news sources, both based on outrage and the number of clicks/eyeballs In the end, we also seemed to agree that both science and religion can create problems, and solve problems.  Getting past our turbulent status quo will require cooperation between religion and science … Christians and secular humanists … humans of all stripes.  It’s a choice that we have to make: a determined decision backed by resolve.  And so, on that note, we also talked about hard determinism versus free will (or free won’t!?). As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Michael Shermer at michaelshermer.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, you really should check out our previous episode on the same question: “#162: “Bending the arc of the moral universe.” “Bending the moral arc of justice” image by Andrew, and modified. Thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

The questions “who was the first person to speak English?” and “who was the first human?” are equally ridiculous and unanswerable, and for the same reasons. For many Christians, the many recent discoveries of our ancient hominid ancestors have raised uncomfortable questions.  Some of them will cope with this by just trying to avoid any reports/discussions of these discoveries, or simply denying the data (“they’re all hoaxes”), or deciding to re-interpret or re-define the data (Answers-in-Genesis, for example, will simply re-define a new discovery as either human or ape … no intermediates are allowed).  We’ve addressed these coping strategies in previous episodes. Some other Christians will accept that humans and hominids have been evolving, but will still find it necessary to draw an arbitrary line in the sand, declaring humans on “this” side of the line as completely separate from any ancestral humans and hominids on “that” side of the line.  For example, they might claim that, at some discrete point in time, God picked up a couple of those ancestral humans and gave them a massive upgrade, with new hardware and software (advanced cognitive abilities; a “soul”; the “image of God”), and then started a unique relationship with those newly created beings.  But the scientific data that we have on hand — including genetics, bones, tools and art work — just do not reflect a sudden and dramatic change in the human line.  It simply is not possible to claim that there was a “first human” or a first primal pair. But many people find that hard to understand.  They might insist that “there just had to have been a first human!?” In this episode, we want to directly confront this claim using an excellent metaphor that everyone should find easy to understand: the evolution of language.  More specifically, the evolution of English.  We talked to an academic linguist — Dr. Gareth Roberts, at the University of Pennsylvania — about the history of the English language and the forces that drove changes in that language.  The Old English that was spoken by King Alfred, the Venerable Bede, or Aethelstan [the 1st king of England]) gradually morphed into the Middle English used by Chaucer and Henry the 4th, which eventually became the “modern” English used by Shakespeare, Ben Franklin, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth.  Dr. Roberts gave us a great example of that evolution: the skeptical listener should listen to the Lord’s Prayer spoken in the English of the 15th century, and then the 13th century, and then the 10th century! Throughout this discussion, we tried to point out the similarities between the evolution of language and the evolution of biological life forms.  New languages or new dialects are the linguistic equivalent of new biological species.  The new languages spoken by enslaved people combining parts of their home language with the language of their owners is equivalent to biological speciation through hybridization.  Societal pressures on “proper” language are equivalent to sexual selection of genetic traits.  Even complicated biological phenomena such as “ring species” and “founder effect” have their correlate in the evolution of languages. But the most important point that we wanted to leave with the audience is this: the question “who was the first person to speak English” is just as ridiculous or impossible to answer as the question “who was the first human” ….. and for all the exact same reasons. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Gareth Roberts at his university faculty page and his research lab’s homepage. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our collection of episodes on human evolution, or Luke’s book Standing On The Shoulders of Giants: Genesis and Human Origins. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook and our YouTube channel. YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter Amazon Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive