God Ponderings
Thoughts about God, religion, the Bible, etc.
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Celebrities for Jesus and Fred Rogers
In a time when large swaths of the America church have merely mimicked worldly concepts of power, going for bigger, louder, glitzier, we have to return to the small, the quiet, the uncool, and the ordinary. Obscurity may very well be the spiritual discipline the American church needs to practice the most in the coming century. Katelyn Beaty, Celebrities for Jesus My husband and I finally watched It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the Tom Hanks movie from 2019 about Fred Rogers. Wow. I had instant childhood flashbacks–sitting in my grandma’s den on her little couch, drinking my glass of orange juice, and watching Mr. Rogers calmly explain things…
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Footloose and Fearful: 7 Truths for Our Frightened Hearts
I finally watched the original 1984 Footloose movie a couple of nights ago with my husband. In my defense, I was only three when the movie first came out and it’s not exactly appropriate for toddlers. By the time I was a teenager, we were in a cultic subgroup of Christianity that made the town of Bomont seem liberal by comparison. And then for whatever reason Footloose never made it on my list of pop-culture-to-catch-up-on. I was definitely missing out. There are reasons it’s a classic! Besides the cassette tapes, leg warmers, and core memories brought back by the church ladies’ 80s glasses and haircuts, I found myself noticing the…
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Worshiping the Baals and Missing the Living God
I found The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast thanks to someone I follow on Instagram. Produced by Christianity Today and hosted by Mike Cosper, the podcast describes the story of the Seattle based megachurch and it’s pastor Mark Driscoll. But even more than that, it digs into the background of Mars Hill and the Christian culture of the last 40-50 years which produced the disaster that followed. They’ve only released the first two episodes, but I’m already hooked. This feels like I’m getting the missing half of the conversation that started with Kristin Kobes Du Mez’ book Jesus and John Wayne. But unlike Du Mez who seemed to…
- An Impostor Jesus, And Then I Met Jesus, Exposing Legalism, God Ponderings, Looking for the Real God, My Story
Defining Deconstruction
There was an incredible Lego set but over the years people added pieces to it and took some away Most of them had good intentions They were trying to make it look better or more creative maybe more fun and even more defined But after a while you couldn’t tell what it used to look like It was just a pile of Lego blocks stuck together 🪴 I took the blocks apart and found the original instructions which were kind of crumpled and hard to read Then I separated the pieces choosing the ones that belonged to the oirginal set I did my best to follow the directions even though…
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How Did We Get Here?
What has happened to the Church? To our Christian culture? How did we get to this place of brokenness? Where it’s no longer a shock when well-known believers publicly leave the faith? Where pastors and leaders are regularly exposed for sexual assault and harassment? Where spiritual abuse and church hurt are familiar words? The state of our American Church breaks my heart. This article has been simmering for two months now. Really ever since I heard the truth come out about Ravi Zacharias. If you want more thoughts and info than I write here, I’ve been digging into each issue that I mention on my podcast, Looking for the Real…
