The latest sequel to a long series of books and movies just hit the cinema!? Yes, you read it correctly … yet another sequel in the Left Behind / Thief in the Night franchise of books and movies has come out. As if the previous ones which began coming out as far back as the 70s and 80s weren’t embarrassing and destructive enough. We talked to Dr. Aaron Ricker, whose current major research interest is Apocalypticism … in the Bible … in comic books … in modern action hero movies … and in the zeitgeist of our day. And together with him, we first looked at some of the statistics gathered by polling agencies re. the various beliefs pertaining to “the End Times,” the Antichrist, and “the Rapture” in society today (well, mostly in Americans). [Links for these data can be found below] We also looked at the fact that every Left Behind movie or book has the same four ingredients: the “Rapture”, an Antichrist who violently takes over the world, the “Mark of the Beast”, and global destruction. These are the hallmark features of this genre. This isn’t just a nerdy fun-fact: the reason it’s so noteworthy is that the “End Times” scenario that Jesus described doesn’t have any of these four ingredients!? At least not in any way that modern day Evangelicals understand these things. Disagree? Check out how we justify that claim. Finally, we looked at some of the dangers and costs — to individuals as well as to society — of this “End Times” thinking: the anxiety and fear that it creates in people, especially kids and adolescents, of having been “left behind” and now having to face a world-dominating Antichrist, global destruction, and ultimately …. eternal damnation. opportunity costs: some who get sucked into this way of thinking question whether to go to university, or to pursue important careers, or even whether to get married (or they decide to get married too early) … all because they think “Jesus is definitely coming back in the next year or two, so why bother? Instead, we should just get ready for his return.” making the situation on Earth even worse: the mentality that “maybe we can get Jesus to come back sooner if we just stir things up in Israel, or push international relations to the brink, or ruin the planet such that we humans NEED to be rescued (believe it or not, some people actually think this way)”. inaction on important issues: “if Jesus is coming back in the next year or two, then why bother trying to save the planet (pollution; global warming; environmental collapse and species extinction), or fix the inner cities, because it’s all gonna just burn anyway, right?” a distorted attitude re. foreign affairs, especially when it relates to Israel, because “this is all part of the plan”. unnecessary suspicion about any enterprise that involves a variety of governments, because they all start looking too much like “part of the one-world government that paves the way for the Antichrist”. Next week, we’re going to look at the history behind this way of thinking: how it has evolved over the past two millennia. And the week after that we’ll hear from two clinical experts who specialize in this kind of trauma. As always, tell us what you think … If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like the other one we did a year ago on “the End of the World” …. episode #33. Our guest, Dr. Aaron Ricker, can be contacted at aaron.ricker@mail.mcgill.ca Statistical polls discussed in this episode are available at Pew Research and at Lifeway Research. Episode image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay (and modified). Movie promotional image from Amcomri Entertainment and Stonagal 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Trying to find a silver lining in a very dark cloud: does it take an esoteric literary tool to redeem this classic Sunday School story? Remember the story of Noah’s Flood from when you were a kid in Sunday School? The pictures of a smiling Noah stepping off a cute little ark with happy animals, and a happy sun beside a bright rainbow in the clear blue sky? At the time, did you notice all the dead bodies buried in the mud under the ark? Yeah, my teacher avoided that part too. This story of Noah’s Flood is a Trojan Horse for many people. The parts of it that are in plain sight are perfectly fine. A sight to behold. Beautiful even. And so you let your guard down and embrace it. But it’s what’s hidden inside that can eventually destroy one’s faith. It certainly did destroy mine. For many who grapple closely with this story, it’s the incongruity between the details of this ancient Semitic story and our modern understanding of science which erodes faith. There’s just so much evidence against the story. Not just pieces of evidence, but so many different kinds of evidence. From geology … archaeology … genetics … ecology … hydrology … cosmology … engineering (of the Ark) … history (evidence for civilizations before and after the Fundamentalist dating of the event which show no evidence of a global flood). Even evidence from the Bible itself: the “Nephilim” which haunted the Semites even after the Flood!? And so one often feels forced to either choose science or the Bible, because it seems you can’t have both. [Although appearances can be deceiving.] But another toxic ingredient in this story is the basic morality which you have to accept. That an all-loving and all-powerful God finds humans to be so evil that he has to wipe them out. And to do so by drowning them, rather than a painless and immediate annihilating snap-of-the-fingers . Ironically, the text says it’s their violence that he finds so abhorrent, and yet his solution to the problem is … oh so very violent!? And finally, there are so many details that quite anthropomorphize God. He seems to be repeatedly making mistakes. First He says he shouldn’t have created humans, then later that he shouldn’t have destroyed them; and then his solution to the human problem evidently fails because there’s just as much evil after the flood as there was before the flood (and some would say that some people — “the Nephilim” — seemed to have survived the flood). What’s that common saying in baseball: “Three strikes and ….”? And that puzzling scene where God smells the meat that Noah is barbecuing (as a sacrifice), and finds it so pleasing that his anger is cooled: what’s that about? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Dustin Burlet, who focused his PhD project on the story of Noah’s Flood. In particular, he used a specialized literary tool called “rhetorical critical analysis” to reveal a whole new perspective on this story: that the latter actually reveals the compassionate, loving and provisional side of God! And I’ll admit that I can see how he gets there using this kind of linguistic and literary analysis. I just wish it didn’t require a specialized literary tool (one that only some scholars know about) to get there. I’m not trying to be insulting here, but I’m sure that even if a handful of scholars from different universities got together for beer and conversation at some major conference, and one of them said “we should apply some rhetorical critical analysis to what you just said there, Frank” I’m sure at least one of those other learned scholars will say “and remind me what that is again.” And more to my point, the average lay-person engaging with this story that was supposedly written for the benefit of anyone who wants to engage with God’s word just simply isn’t going to scratch their head for a second or two and then say: “I guess I’m going to have to apply some rhetorical critical analysis to this.” And I don’t think I’m far off by saying they’ll never hear their pastors mention “rhetorical critical analysis” in a Sunday morning sermon. Am I wrong? So, again, using this tool, it is indeed possible to pull out a message that the story of Noah’s flood is about compassion, salvation, provision, and hope. But I myself am still left with the images of God opening up floodgates and turning on sprinkler systems, and then watching so many people struggle desperately till they die by drowning, including kids, babies, and pets, let alone a reasonable number of adults that I have to believe were around who really didn’t do anything deserving of being drowned to death. If we maintain that he’s all-powerful and all-loving, why couldn’t he just identify the worst trouble-makers and just … vaporize them. And then as soon as a few other characters started getting out of line, vaporize them too. And keep vaporizing until finally the people get the message and start staying in line. That’s what our police do using speeding tickets, and the government does with tax cheats. How is that not a better way to solve the problem than to just completely and utterly destroy everything and everyone on the face of the earth, as well as the face of the earth itself? Or is this instead a story written by an ancient Semitic people who experienced a major, catastrophic flood at some point (apparently floods happened every year in that part of the world, and there would always be “the big one” that Grandpa would remind his clan of), and they, together with their Sumerian and Akkadian neighbors, tried to process that event in the way that they always did: they tried to see it as a divine act sent for some particular reason. I’m now leaning much more in that direction. As always, tell us what you think … Check out Dr. Burlet’s book at Amazon. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #31, where we talked to David MacMillan, who was working his way up through the ranks at Answers in Genesis until he had his own Plato’s Cave experience, saw through their rhetoric and distortion ……. and left. Episode image by Gerhard from Pixabay. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

In giving up or changing so many core “traditional” Christian beliefs, how can we still call ourselves “Christian”? In an episode two weeks back, one of our guests challenged us to look at what now defines our Christianity This was in response to us listing one traditional Christian tenet after another which we were now redefining, softening, or even rejecting. Apparently, even an atheist was wondering if we were giving up too much, and taking a path which diverged so sharply from main-stream Christianity!? Around the same time, another one of our listeners posted to our private Facebook discussion group an interesting article published in Salon magazine: “Not quite losing my religion: Being a liberal evangelical isn’t always easy“. Many of the things in that article resonated so much with me personally, and with the question/challenge articulated by our guest two weeks ago. Both those events were the spark that led to this episode. And Scott and I thought the author of that article — Nathaniel Manderson — was the perfect guest to bring on to unpack the topic: his life story that eventually led to him becoming an ordained Baptist minister who passionately challenges many aspects of Evangelical thinking in his articles for Salon magazine was a perfect fit for the topic and for our podcast. We ping-ponged our way through many questions around this central question of what it means to be a Christian: the claim that it can be (must be?) seen as a “personal relationship” with the Divine why do we feel the need to put an infinite Being into a finite box (personhood)? … is it to control God? could you have Christians who don’t believe in a Theistic God? does calling God “a creative life force” diminish him too much … or does personifying him diminish him? what does it mean to say that Jesus is divine? did Jesus always know that he was more than a Jewish Messiah bringing a message of liberation for Israel, or did he grow to realize his bigger broader mission to all humanity over the course of his teaching ministry? can we be sure that the words of Jesus were recorded accurately (and/or that we have misinterpreted some of them)? what does the label “Evangelical” really mean, and is it still worth hanging on to it? As always, tell us what you think … Find out more about Nathaniel Manderson at his webpage at Salon. Episode image from Cruz&Co Business and Taxation Services. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #42, where we talk specifically about the “Personal Relationship”, or Episode #39 which explores what Evangelicalism is all about. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

How long will it be before AI becomes one of the staff members at your own church? How long before AI is generating sermons for the pastor? Image from the Religious Studies Project Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a household word, but many people don’t appreciate how pervasive it is in our society. We’re all familiar with digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google, and also with the variety of spelling and grammar checkers. But how many know how AI is behind weather prediction … scanning X-rays to come up with a disease diagnosis … pre-screening job applications … forensic accounting and tax auditing … criminal investigations and parole board prejudgements? We know that AI re-directs our questions to the right desk at the bank, or your university, or a major business. But how many know that one can consult AI for personal advice, psychological counseling … even spiritual matters: Buddhism and Roman Catholicism have begun to use very limited versions of AI in spiritual guidance. How long will it be before AI becomes one of the staff members at your own church? How long before AI is generating sermons for the pastor? You thought OpenAI’s “ChatGPT” was just a problem for learning institutions concerned about students using it to generate essays? We looked at how easy it was to use it to generate a sermon on the Second Coming of Christ, or Penal Substitution, or the utter wickedness of the heart of humanity. But there are other forms of AI out there, and once the software becomes available to the public, who’s to stop them from using it for whatever purpose suits them? The genie is now out of the bottle! AI models are “trained” by simply feeding them gigabytes of a certain type of information, and letting it look for patterns in that data set (X-rays; weather reports; criminal convictions). But what if the data set is distorted by humans? Criminal convictions and parole hearings in the past, for example, were often tinged by racist influences on/in humans: and when those historical decisions were fed into the AI intended to pre-screen parolees, its pre-decisions started to reflect … a subtle racism! In the same way, other AIs trained on historical data from the internet started to reflect their own sexist ideology. And here’s where the problem becomes particularly worrisome. AIs such as ChatGPT were trained by a diet of millions of pages from the internet and digital books that were existent as of a couple years ago. But now that AI is being used to generate essays, books, songs, music, and art … all of which quickly become part of the information smorgasbord on the internet … its own output becomes part of the curriculum for future versions and applications of AI. In other words, it not only teaches our future humans, but also begins teaching itself! It creates a pedagogical feedback loop. Who knows where that road leads?! Combine that idea with the growing use of AI in religious applications: AI creating sermons, blogs, internet articles, and theological textbooks. Could the day come when AI influences theology? If AI can become racist or sexist, can it become Fundamentalist? Could it eventually create a new religion? If you ask me, this is something we need to think about a bit more carefully. As always, tell us what you think … To learn more about our guest Dr. Beth Singler, visit her website. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Five exvangelicals compare notes about our decisions to either reject or reconstruct a faith system that just wasn’t working for us. Image by Sunny Sunflower from Pixabay Picture a gymnasium full of “kids” celebrating their 30-year high school reunion. After graduating from the same school, they all took different paths through life. Joined completely different professional societies. Mixed in different socioeconomic circles. But now they’re all doing the same thing: talking about how they’ve learned what’s really important in life …. that it’s not all about money, power, and control … showing pictures of their kids and grand-kids …. and looking for ways to re-connect and enjoy life together. And as the evening wears on, and the huddles get smaller and tighter, the conversation morphs gradually toward the unknowns and the unanswered questions. In a way, that’s the experience that Scott and I had this week, talking to three of our listeners who started on the same path as we did, who made a choice radically different from our own …. and yet found that we arrived at the same spot. All five of us had fully bought in to an Evangelical/Fundamentalist worldview. And we all had a similarly introspective, inquisitive, open-minded personality. All five of us took courses in religious studies at the college/university level, four of us doing so at the graduate level. But so much thinking, searching and learning generated so many questions and so much cognitive dissonance that we had to reject the faith system we started with. We all became exvangelicals. But that’s where our paths diverged. Two of us started reconstructing a new Christian faith system that just made more sense of the world around us, radically different from the one we started with, while three of us decided there wasn’t enough worth salvaging from the ruins. And in this episode, we had that reunion experience I referred to above. We compared notes: believers vs atheists. We raised questions and shared perspectives that many of our listeners will relate to. About certainty. Doubt. Wanting to believe, and yet finding it hard to do so. Whether the label “evangelical” is worth hanging on to. As always, tell us what you think … 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

We look at some of the common ways that believers [mis]understand this, and share some other perspectives on the how’s, who’s and what’s behind it. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Is the Bible divinely-inspired? Often the first thing that Evangelicals will do when asked that question  — after voicing a very vigorous “YES!”  — is quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which begins with “All scripture is God-breathed …” The problem is, that’s not the question that was asked. To begin with, Paul is NOT talking here about the Bible! He’s writing this before the Bible as we know it even existed: before the Gospels or any of the non-Pauline books (from Peter, James, Luke, and one or more Johns) had even been written, and hundreds of years before a number of books were selected out of a large pile of sacred writings circulating at the time and collated into what we call “the Bible”. He’s probably referring in part to the Old Testament books, but who’s to say he wasn’t also referring to yet other books? He uses a phrase which in the original Greek means “sacred writings” and which is translated in our modern English into “all scripture”. The Old Testament itself endorses many other ancient Hebrew books — “sacred writings” — that are not in our modern Bibles: the Annals of Samuel the Seer (1 Chronicles 29:29) the Records of Nathan the prophet (1 Chronicles 29:29; 2 Chronicles 9:29) the Records of Gad the Seer (1 Chronicles 29:29) the Visions of Iddo the Seer (2 Chronicles 9:29 and 12:15) the Records of Shemaiah the prophet (2 Chronicles 12:15) the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14) the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13) the Annals of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41) Annals of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29).  Paul would also have been studying from other Hebrew religious books which were available to him. Some of these are collated into what we call the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha: you may have heard of the Book of Enoch, the four Books of Maccabees, and dozens of other ones. And if modern day Fundamentalists hang their hats on the words “all scripture” — as in “ALL scripture” — then what does one do about other “sacred writings” and “scripture” that Paul would have known about? He would have known about the religious “sacred writings” of the Greeks and Romans (in fact, he quoted from a couple Greek philosophers), and that their slaves and business partners might have had their own “sacred writings” or “scripture” from yet other religions. And then there’s the strange word that Paul uses: a compound word that literally means “God-breathed”. It’s only used once in the Bible, and only a few times in other Greek literature, so scholars really don’t know what to do with it. Does it mean “dictated”? Most translators and scholars have opted for the translation “inspired by God”. But even that: what does that mean? How does that work? Did God put images in the heads of the writers? Did he actually fire the neurons in their brains? We look at a number of the “how’s” that likely played into that inspiration: the zeitgeist …. worldview … of the cultures they lived in circumstances and events in their personal lives and in the world around them the way humans are wired … our tendencies and mental peculiarities that we inherited through evolution (or through creation?) our emotions and values We also looked at “who” might have been behind these subtle forms of inspiration: the agent behind that inspiration. It all depends on how you define “God”. We don’t all agree on this! And finally, we look at the object of that inspiration. Do we have to say that only the Bible is divinely-inspired? That it’s uniquely inspired? Why not also those other ancient Hebrew books that aren’t in the Bible? Why not some of the Greek philosophical writings that were circulating at the time, and which completely re-shaped human thinking and was incorporated into Christian thinking? What about modern authors (I would nominate NT Wright, Philip Yancey, Peter Enns, and Brian MacLaren)? What about certain songs on the radio, poems, classical literature that really get you thinking deeper thoughts, asking existential questions, and re-organizing your life? I even think modern science and medicine are divinely-inspired: God motivating humans to search for truth and to apply that knowledge to the betterment of humanity. As always, tell us what you think about what we had to say about this … . 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A close look at the history, science, and theology behind this strange practice, and what it all means for us today. image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay Most Evangelicals will have encountered the phenomenon of “speaking in tongues”, if only through reading about it in the New Testament. But I’m guessing very few of them are well-informed about the practice, even though they might actually do it (I’ll even say especially those who do it!). I’m also guessing that many of our listeners — Recovering Evangelicals — are embarrassed and even traumatized about it. So we took a deep-dive into this controversial practice. And to help us with that, we brought in a guest who was a tongues-speaking Evangelical who became an atheist playwright and actor … who still regularly speaks in tongues in order to tap into his inner psyche, and recently ran work-shops for his theatrical colleagues teaching them … how to speak in tongues!? After hearing Gary Kirkham’s amazing, hilarious, and provocative story, we looked at some of the science behind speaking in tongues. Scholars of literature and of history will point out that the ancient Greeks and Romans were speaking in tongues in their own religious rituals many centuries before the New Testament Church took it up. And speaking in tongues is practiced in many other religions around the globe today. [And don’t jump too quickly to the common response that those are “counterfeits”, we address that too]. Anthropologists and linguists make it their careers to study humans making and using language. Despite being able to decode the languages of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian artefacts, and learning the languages of living aboriginal tribes who have never had contact with the rest of the world, those experts find nothing meaningful in recordings of Pentecostals and Charismatics speaking in tongues. The sounds, syllables, vocabulary, cadence and rhythm are on the level of baby-talk. Neurologists look at the brain pathways involved … and not involved … in producing the “speech” of someone speaking in tongues. Gary then unpacks some really fascinating insights into what he’s found to be the benefit of speaking in tongues [and remember, he now identifies as an atheist!?]. Basically, he finds it unlocks his inner psyche, and puts him in touch with his emotions. He finds it “hugely therapeutic” and “quite profound”. And people who attend his workshops find the same. And if they’re right, doesn’t this completely explain why speaking in tongues is so prevalent not just in Christianity — especially those strands which are so heavily focused on emotion in their spirituality — but also in other religions around the globe and down through history. As always, tell us what you think … To learn more about our guest Gary Kirkham, visit his website. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Is prayer really a vending machine to get stuff? Or instead an introspective, meditative discipline to find out how you yourself can be the solution? Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay. Let’s face it. The experience of many believers, particularly listeners of this podcast, is that prayer doesn’t work. Ask for stuff — a physical healing … a solution to a problem … to ace a final exam … a parking spot!? — and the vast majority of the time you seem to only get what would typically happen if you hadn’t prayed at all. We talked about Queen Elizabeth II, who’s been prayed for by millions of people around the globe, from lowly commoners to highly prominent clergy, numerous times every day, ever since she was born. And her health history was no different from most other people who enjoy a wealthy lifestyle and benefit from modern medicine in Britain. We also looked at the famous “Harvard prayer experiment”, which evaluated the efficacy of prayer in the exact same rigorous way that they test the efficacy of the latest drug. And prayer came out with a big goose egg. And yet there are some believers who are absolutely convinced that prayer DOES work. Especially for physical healings. At least, that’s what seems to happen at many faith healing services. But look more closely at the track record and you’ll find a disturbing pattern. At these healing rallies, there are always two very different groups of people. On the one hand, there are those claiming a miraculous healing of a medical condition which often can’t be verified in any way, is known to be capable of reversing on its own through natural processes, and is often something related to pain. Who knows whether the “cancer” which was never properly diagnosed before or after the fact wasn’t an ulcer or a kidney stone — or just gas!? — all of which often resolve on their own? And even if it was cancer, cancers can also sometimes resolve on their own. And that pain? Your body can make its own natural, built-in painkillers under the right circumstances: this is why survivors of a plane crash can help carry out other wounded people even though they later find out they themselves had a broken arm or a broken ankle. Ever heard of a “jogger’s high”? The high-energy atmosphere of a healing service can easily trigger all kinds of physiological changes, including the fight-or-flight response which activates these built-in pain-suppression pathways. On the other hand, one never hears about miraculous healings of a medical condition which has never been shown to reverse on its own. What I mean is, there’s never a restoration of amputated limbs. Never the reversal of a congenital physical abnormality (cleft palate; Down’s syndrome; cerebral palsy). Never the elimination of a straightforward, easily-verified genetic disease (cystic fibrosis; sickle cell anemia; blue-green color blindness). I guess God doesn’t do those kinds of miracles. [And by the way, when I say “never”, I’m completely ignoring all those claims that begin with “I heard from the friend of an acquaintance of mine about some unnamed guy in a far-off distant land (who you’ll never be able to track down, so you can’t follow-up on this claim), about him getting healed from ….”]. So we have natural, scientific explanations for all the kinds of healing that are often claimed, but no theological explanations for the kinds of healing that are never claimed. I mean, what theological reason could one possibly give for why can’t/won’t God restore a couple amputated legs? But maybe that’s not what prayer is all about. It’s not about getting stuff … the cosmic vending machine … rubbing the genie’s lamp. Maybe it’s about meditative introspection to see how you yourself might need to change … or to be the change. As always, tell us what you think… 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A sordid story of “divinely-sanctioned” violence in the Old Testament … which seems to be anything but that. There are many stories in the Old Testament of carnage and slaughter, perpetrated by the nation of Israel, which are presented as divinely-sanctioned. In fact, the claim is that God / YHWH not only condoned them, but actually commanded them. Many books, articles and podcasts have looked at these and found ways to “justify” this violence. Explanations given include: YHWH had put a curse on the line of one of Noah’s sons (Ham, from which the Canaanites came), commanding that those descendants would be perpetual slaves of another one of Noah’s sons (Shem, from whom the Israelites came); YHWH had promised that land to Abram and Sarai, and the Canaanites were just in the way of Divine urban development; YHWH had to use Israel to carve out a protective little niche in a savage heathen land in order to establish a Messianic bloodline; the wickedness of the people of those lands was so great that YHWH couldn’t tolerate it anymore, and he used the nation of Israel to cleanse the land; YHWH/God had his reasons, he does not have to explain himself to us, and we’re in no position to judge him on that. Personally, I can’t accept those explanations any more: they’re entirely inconsistent with a God of love and forgiveness, and it’s appalling that an omnipotent God would use an innocent people (Israel) to do his dirty work. Imagine a religious leader or a winner of a Nobel Peace Prize sending his teenage-daughter with a shot-gun to the neighbours next door to slaughter every person and animal in the house because they did something to offend him. But maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe those stories aren’t divinely sanctioned; maybe people were just being people and using their national deity as their alibi. The push-back on that suggestion is simply the slippery slope argument: if the text claims that God commanded it and we decide that he didn’t, then where do we draw the line on other parts of the Bible? But there’s a story in the Old Testament which, in my mind, gets around the explanations listed above: an incredibly sordid story recounted in the book of Judges, chapters 19 to 21. Without getting into all the details: one individual Israelite is badly personally disrespected by the men of an Israelite town, so he rallies the entire nation of Israel to defend his honour by slaughtering the Israelite tribe in which this town is found. They had to attempt the attack three times before they were finally successful (so much for God being in charge). Once they realize that the tribe of Benjamin is in imminent danger of being completely eliminated (because they had killed off all the women and children), they attack another nearby innocent Israelite village, kill off everyone except the reproductively-viable virgins, and give those virgins to the survivors of their first attack. And this is supposed to have been divinely ordained and sanctioned!? This story has nothing to do with Canaanites (in fact, the “enemy” is a tribe of Israel, with whom YHWH had also made a covenant), or protecting a Messianic line. It is all about one truly despicable little man in a jealous rage igniting a civil war between Israelite tribes, all of it fuelled by offended Semitic male pride (just read the story). And yet the story claims that God “gave that city into their hands” because the attackers threw some magic dice and trusted that the outcome was God’s command, even though the dice were thrown AFTER they had already decided to go to war against their brothers. Let’s keep in mind that the story is not a dictation from God, but an oral history (transmitted by humans) which was eventually written down (by humans) and later revised, redacted and edited (by humans) over a thousand years later when the nation was trying to make sense of their Babylonian captivity. Our motive in exploring this truly sordid story is not to discredit the Bible or the Christian faith, but to show that we don’t have to read the Bible literally and superficially, especially when it comes to things like the Canaanite slaughters. Instead, we have to admit that the Bible may be divinely-inspired, but it’s got human fingerprints all over it, and we have to develop the skills to read it critically and astutely. There may be golden nuggets in it, but you have to dig those out of the dirt and polish them off. As always, tell us what you think… Find out more about Eric Seibert at his university profile page, and his books at this Amazon page. 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Having children intensifies the deconstruction process, and can even re-start a whole new round of wrestling with long-dead questions. Deconstruction is difficult enough on its own. But doing so while having young kids gives that process a whole new level of peril and fear. Even those who have deconstructed quite a while ago and have grown quite comfortable in their new worldview find that many of the questions they thought they’d wrestled into the dirt now come back all over again. Exvangelicals bring a lot of baggage to the parenting experience!? To help us through this topic, we talked to Bekah McNeel, author of the book: Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning Their Faith. Bekah shared her own story of deconstruction over the course of many years, and talked about some of the major reasons that motivate people to head for the “exit ramps”: Biblical inerrancy the subject of hell politics, and the embrace of Trump racism rules around what a family should look like academia; intellectualism; science She then unpacked many of the issues and questions that tend to come up again for deconstructed parents when children enter the picture: baptism, circumcision at birth what if we got the whole “no hell” thing all wrong? Do we really feel confident enough to jeopardize their eternal future? should we start taking the kids to Sunday School / church? discipline, fear and shame sex, sexuality, body image, masturbation education, homeschooling, college/university Our listeners also pitched in a few questions. What about the youth group, and its leaders? Are they open to kids asking tough questions: teenagers need a place where their concerns and questions are taken seriously. How your spouse feels about the deconstruction is hugely important: what do you do when the parents start believing very different things? As always, tell us what you think… Find out more about Bekah McNeel at https://bekahmcneel.com/, and about her book at https://bekahmcneel.com/book/ 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, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive