At first glance, Robert Fulghum’s “Kindergarten Rules” and Richard Rohr’s “Universal Christ“ seem worlds apart—one belongs in a colorful classroom, the other in a deep theological library. But if we look closer, we find they are describing the exact same reality. To “be aware of wonder” in a Styrofoam cup is the beginning of recognizing that all of matter is “Christ-soaked.”

The Theology of the “Mess”

Fulghum’s fifth rule, “Clean up your own mess,”—is often the hardest for adults to follow. In a “Christ-soaked” world, we realize that our “messes” are never just ours; they affect the whole body of creation. Whether it is environmental destruction or a harsh word spoken in anger, the Universal Christ reminds us that we are all connected. To clean up our mess is an act of reconciliation, a way of restoring the divine pattern that was there from the beginning.

The Sacramental Cookie

When Fulghum notes that “warm cookies and cold milk are good for you,” he is touching on the heart of the Incarnation. We often try to find God in abstract ideas or distant heavens, but the Christ is found in the physical. A cookie is not just sugar and flour; it is a manifestation of the Earth’s goodness, a small “sacrament” of comfort. If we can see the holiness in a snack, we are well on our way to seeing the Christ in a sunset, a glass of wine, or a stranger’s smile.

The Paschal Mystery of the Goldfish

Rule fifteen is the most sobering: “Goldfish and hamsters... they all die. So do we.” This is the “Pattern of the Cross” written into the very fabric of nature. Everything that is born will eventually fall away. But in the lens of the Universal Christ, death is never the final word. Just as the “roots go down and the plant goes up,” the divine DNA ensures that life is constantly being transformed, not ended. We see this in the changing seasons and in the way the love we have for our pets, they continues to shape us long after they are gone.

The Final Commandment: LOOK

Fulghum ends with the word “LOOK.” This is the ultimate call to contemplation. Most of the world’s confusion regarding Jesus and the Christ comes from a failure to truly look. We look at the “finger” (the historical Jesus) instead of the “moon” (the Universal Christ) he is pointing toward.

To “Look” is to move past our labels of “secular” and “sacred.” It is to realize that the traffic we watch out for, the hands we hold, and the nap we take are all part of a single, holy, “Christ-soaked” journey.

A Checklist for the “Second Half of Life”

If you are trying to live out this Universal Christology in your daily life, you might use these Kindergarten rules as your guide:

• Practice Presence: “Wash your hands” and “Flush “let go of the past so you can be fully here.

• Practice Wonder: Look at the “seeds” in your life and admit you don’t know how or why they grow.

• Practice Connection: “Hold hands and stick together.” No one goes to God alone, and we need to walk each other home,

If you have forgotten

― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
7. Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some, draw some and paint some, and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down, and the plant goes up, and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”

To Close, “Which of the ‘Kindergarten Rules’ do you find the hardest to follow as an adult? For me, it’s often ‘Cleaning up my own mess’s—especially the internal ones. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.”

Let’s explore the tension between “Tribal Religion” and “Internal Truth.” As we navigate the ancient landscape of the Bible—from the official Canon to the secret Gnostic library—we eventually hit a modern wall: Who is “in” and who is “out”?

This post dives into the infamous “Gandhi in Hell” debate to help us decide if we are following a system of labels or a path of transformation.

The Gated Community. We often treat the “Kingdom of God” like a gated community. In my recent look at the Gospel of Thomas, we found a Jesus who says the Kingdom is “inside you and all around you.” Yet, traditional religion often insists on keeping the door locked.

This tension exploded when an art exhibit at Rob Bell’s church featured a quote by Gandhi, prompting a member to leave a note saying: “Reality check: Gandhi’s in hell.”

The Tribal vs. The Transformational Writer Rob Asghar notes that religious leaders often use “us versus them” tribalism to build power:

“Humans have a tribalistic nature... many people enjoy the notion that the ‘out group’ will burn in hell.”

But Rob Bell, in his book Love Wins, argues that this “flat-earth” view of salvation ignores the actual character of God. Bell suggests the biblical message is a “dizzying and confounding mix” that points toward a much more generous reality. Asghar summarizes the conflict perfectly:

“The critics of Bell are modern Pharisees, holding biblical authority up as an idol without caring much for the character of the biblical message.”

The “Inner Kingdom” Connection. If we view Jesus as an Esoteric teacher rather than a tribal recruiter, the question shifts. It’s no longer about whether Gandhi signed the right membership card, but whether he woke up to the divine light.

Asghar concludes that many modern leaders are “traitors to Jesus” because they prefer the safety of a belief system over the risk of actual transformation:

“Jesus didn’t want fans. He wanted participants. He didn’t say, ‘Admire me.’ He said, ‘Follow me.’”

Final Thought & Discussion: If the Kingdom is an internal “Aha!” moment (Gnosis) rather than a border crossing, can anyone truly be “out”? If we take the mystic view seriously, we realize the ultimate truth: There are no others.

What do you think? Is God the gatekeeper of a private club, or the source of a light that shines in everyone, regardless of their “religious” label?

The Gospel of Thomas is best described as a collection of esoteric wisdom that sits on the fence of Gnosticism. It is fundamentally esoteric because it presents itself as a "book of riddles," opening with the claim that only those who find the secret interpretation of its sayings will escape death. While it was discovered alongside famous Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi, many scholars argue it lacks the complex "space-age" mythology—such as an evil creator god or cosmic battles—found in true Gnostic systems. Instead, it offers a "Gnostic-lite" or mystical approach, focusing on Gnosis (internal knowledge) as the realization that the Divine Light is not in a distant heaven, but is a present reality already hidden within the seeker.

The Greatest Commandment

In Matthew 22 (Verses 34–40), a lawyer asks Jesus which commandment is the most important. Jesus replies by boiling the entire religion down to two inseparable commands:

1. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

2. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus concludes by saying, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” This means that every other rule and religious obligation depends on these two things. If you aren’t doing the second part—loving your neighbor—you cannot truly claim to be doing the first part—loving God.

The Follow-Up: “Who is my neighbor?”

In the Gospel of Luke (Chapter 10), a similar exchange happens. When told to love his neighbor, a lawyer tries to find a loophole. He asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” essentially hoping for a list of people he is not required to love.

Instead of giving a definition, Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Parable (Luke 10:30–35)

Jesus describes a Jewish man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who is attacked, beaten, and left half-dead on the road.

• The Religious Leaders: A Priest and a Levite both see the dying man. Despite being religious leaders, they cross to the other side of the street to avoid helping him.

• The Samaritan: Finally, a Samaritan comes by. In this culture, Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies who despised each other. Yet, the Samaritan feels compassion. He bandages the man’s wounds, carries him to safety, and pays for his recovery.

The New Definition

After the story, Jesus asks the lawyer: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The lawyer replies, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus simply says, “Go and do likewise.”

The Meaning: The lawyer was looking for a limit—a boundary line to define who he could ignore. Jesus flipped the script. He changed the question from “Who qualifies as my neighbor?” to “To whom can I become a neighbor?”

The story proves that a “neighbor” is not defined by geography, race, or religion. A neighbor is anyone who shows mercy to someone in need.

I will be the first to say, “ I don’t get it,” but I don’t get a lot of things! And just as important, who am I to judge?

Let’s preface this highly debated topic with the famous scene from the “Bible Lesson” from The West Wing.

Key Context

The Argument: The President’s point was not to mock the Bible, but to dismantle the “cafeteria-style” religion where one picks and chooses which ancient laws to enforce (like those against homosexuality) while ignoring others that are inconvenient or absurd in a modern context (like not wearing mixed fabrics or eating shellfish).

In this scene, President Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) confronts a conservative talk radio host named Dr. Jenna Jacobs (a character modeled after Dr. Laura Schlessinger) at a White House reception.

After Dr. Jacobs asserts that homosexuality is an “abomination” because the Bible says so (citing Leviticus 18:22), Bartlet uses a series of other Old Testament laws to point out the inconsistency of selective literalism.

While same-sex behavior was certainly visible in the ancient world, the modern understanding of sexual orientation was not. Regarding the Gospels, you are correct: Jesus is never recorded speaking about the topic. Most New Testament references to the subject come from Paul's letters, not from Jesus's words.

The Big Picture

Jesus never spoke about same-sex behavior. The New Testament mentions it only in Paul's letters. To understand what Paul meant, we have to look at the original Greek words and the culture of the first century, rather than modern English translations.

General Historical & Biblical Facts

• Silence of Jesus: There is no recorded instance of Jesus speaking about same-sex behavior in the Gospels.

• Pauline Focus: All New Testament references to this topic are found in the letters of Paul, not the teachings of Christ.

• No Modern Concept of Orientation: The 1st-century world understood sexual acts, but had no concept of “sexual orientation” (a modern psychological understanding of innate attraction).

• The “Vice List” Format: Paul utilized a common ancient literary device called a “vice list” to contrast a “lawless” life with a life in Christ.

Linguistic Facts (The Greek Terms)

• Arsenokoitai (1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10):

• A compound word literally meaning “male-bedders.”

• Extremely rare in ancient literature; likely coined by Paul or borrowed from Jewish slang.

• Linked linguistically to the Greek translation of Leviticus (the Septuagint).

• Malakoi (1 Cor 6:9):

• Literally means “soft.”

• Used broadly in antiquity for men who were lazy, cowardly, or lacked self-discipline.

• Only modern translations equate this exclusively with sexual orientation.

• “Against Nature” (Physis):

In Romans 1, Paul uses the Stoic term physis, which often referred to established social order and hierarchy rather than biological mechanics.

Cultural & Contextual Facts

• Predominant Models: Same-sex activity in Paul’s Roman context almost exclusively involved power imbalances: master/slave, pederasty (man/boy), or prostitution.

• Absence of Marriage Model: There was no cultural model for committed, equal-status, same-sex covenantal marriage in the 1st-century Mediterranean world.

• [Moral Associations: Paul grouped these terms with “economic vices” like greed, swindling, and theft, leading some scholars to believe he was targeting exploitative behavior.

Interpretive Facts

• The Universal View: Holds that Paul intended a blanket prohibition of same-sex acts for all people and all times, rooted in Old Testament law.

• The Contextual View: Holds that Paul was condemning specific, abusive Roman practices (excessive lust and exploitation) rather than loving, mutual relationships.

• Spirit vs. Letter: A “Relationship over Dogma” approach prioritizes the “Spirit of the Law” (loving God and neighbor) as the primary lens for interpreting difficult ancient texts.

The Bible can be seen as a guide rather than a rigid academic exercise. In this view, the “Spirit” of the law—loving God and neighbor—takes precedence over specific ancient Greek words that have been interpreted in many different ways over 2,000 years.

Most of us walk around assuming we’re “good people.” We don’t rob banks, we don’t kill anyone, and we try to be decent to everyone we meet or when we put a dollar in a donation jar, walking away patting ourselves on the back, because I‘m a good person. We assume that’s enough for God.

But “good” is a subjective human standard—and it’s a moving target.

God’s standard isn’t about being “good enough” on a grading curve; it’s about perfection and wholeness. The gap between my best behavior and the Divine is too wide to bridge with just good deeds. As the scriptures say, even our best attempts can look like “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). when compared to the magnitude of God’s glory.

That sounds harsh, but it’s actually the setup for the best news in history: We don’t have to bridge that gap ourselves.

Salvation isn’t a reward for the righteous; it’s a gift for the guilty. You can’t earn it, which means you can finally put down the exhausting burden of trying to be “good enough.” Heaven isn’t full of people who earned their spot. It’s full of people who trusted the One who paid their way.

Are We Good, or Just Lucky? We often assume a “good Christian” is just someone who is polite, votes a certain way, and follows the rules. But C.S. Lewis challenged this, reminding us that “niceness” is often just biology or good upbringing, not spiritual fruit.

Here is the uncomfortable truth I’ve wrestled with: I know plenty of atheists, Buddhists, and agnostics who are kinder, more patient, and more generous than many Christians I know. Some people are just naturally wonderful. That is a gift of genetics or parenting, not necessarily the Holy Spirit. (C.S. Lewis)

The “Christian Nation” Paradox If we look at our culture, the evidence is pretty damning. In a country that loudly claims to be a “Christian Nation,” the behavior we see is often arrogant, unloving, and deeply hypocritical. We are failing the simplest test of our faith: to “do everything in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

So, if being a Christian doesn’t automatically make you “nicer” than your neighbor, what is the point?

The Difference is the Source. The answer is humility/Ego. When we ask, “How can bad people get into heaven?” we conveniently leave ourselves out of the “bad people” group. We assume we have the ID card to get in, while everyone else is trespassing. (C.S. Lewis)

But the Gospel flips this. It admits that I have no goodness of my own to trade for God’s love. I don’t do good works to get God’s attention; I do them because God has already turned His attention toward me.

I love the analogy of the greenhouse: The roof of a greenhouse doesn’t attract the sun because it is bright. It becomes bright because the sun is shining on it.

I am not the source of the light. I am just the glass. And I become “good“ only when I let Him shine through.

If you’ve been living under the crushing weight of trying to perform your way into heaven, let me invite you to put that burden down today. It isn’t yours to carry. Trust in what Jesus has already done, rather than what you are trying to do.

So, to close, stop trying to be the source of the light. It’s exhausting, and it doesn’t work.

In spiritual discourse, the terms “religion” and “faith” are often used interchangeably, yet they represent two fundamentally distinct aspects of the human experience. One is a structure; the other is a force. One is a map; the other is the journey.

To understand the modern spiritual landscape, we must distinguish between the two and examine why critics such as the late Bishop John Shelby Spong have argued that one often chokes the life out of the other.

The Distinction: Structure vs. Spirit

At its core, Religion can be defined as the hardware. It is the organized system of beliefs, rituals, and institutions designed to preserve and propagate a tradition. It is generally characterized by:

• External Structure: Fixed doctrines, liturgies, and hierarchies.

• Group Identity: Membership in a community (the church, the synagogue, the temple).

• preservation: The goal is often to maintain the “truth” of the past and hand it down to the future.

Faith, on the other hand, is the software. It is the dynamic, internal state of trust and connection with the Divine. It is generally characterized by:

• Internal Conviction: A personal relationship with God or a higher power that exists within the heart, often independent of external validation.

• Fluidity: It evolves based on personal experience, suffering, and epiphany.

• Transformation: The goal is personal growth, resilience, and a deeper understanding of love.

A helpful analogy is that Religion is the Cup, and Faith is the Water. The cup (religion) provides a necessary structure for holding and sharing water. Without it, the water (faith) is difficult to grasp or pass on to others. However, a cup without water is just a dry vessel—an empty ritual. And, as critics point out, sometimes the cup becomes so thick and ornate that you can no longer get to the water at all.

The Critique: When Religion Becomes Control

It is at this intersection—where the institution overtakes the individual experience—that Spong leveled his most famous critiques. Spong, a progressive theologian, argued that while faith is liberating, organized religion often devolves into a “guilt-producing control business.”

He stated that institutional religion, particularly in its more rigid forms, relies on a cycle of “Sin and Rescue” to maintain power over its adherents. He identified three primary mechanisms of this control:

1. The Weaponization of the Afterlife Spong argued that the church amplified the concepts of Heaven and Hell primarily as behavioral management tools. Hell acts as the “stick” to scare people into subservience, while Heaven is the “carrot” to reward compliance. If you remove the fear of eternal punishment, the institution loses its primary leverage over human behavior.

2. The Manufacturing of Sickness. To sell a cure, you must first convince the patient they are sick. Spong criticized the doctrine of “Original Sin” (the idea that humans are born broken) as a psychological trap. By convincing people that they are inherently unworthy, the church positions itself as the sole dispenser of the medicine (salvation). This creates a dependency that keeps believers in a state of spiritual immaturity.

3. Spiritual Childhood vs. Adulthood “The church doesn’t like people to grow up,” Spong famously said, “because you can’t control grownups.” He argued that true faith is not about being “born again” (reverting to a child) but about growing up—taking responsibility for oneself, one’s neighbors, and the world.

The Synthesis: Moving from Compliance to Compassion

If religion is the rigid container and faith is the living water, the challenge of the modern believer is to ensure the container does not become a cage.

Spong did not advocate for the destruction of faith, but for its rescue from systems of control. He proposed a “religionless Christianity”—a faith that moves away from the tribalism of dogma and toward the universality of love.

The transition from religion to faith is a move from external compliance to internal transformation. It is the shift from asking “Am I following the rules correctly?” to asking “Am I loving well?”

As Spong summarized in his mantra for a mature faith:

“God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems that human beings have created to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don’t believe my tradition defines God; I think it only points me to God.”

The goal, then, is not to escape religion entirely, but to ensure that our structures serve our spirit, empowering us to—in Spong’s words.”

Live fully, love wastefully, and be all that we can be.”

To understand the depth of Christian spirituality, we must first correct a common misunderstanding: “Christ” is not Jesus’s last name.

Author Richard Rohr points out that we have confused a title with a surname. I agree, and I see Christ in everything!

1. The Title, Not the Name The word “Christ” functions like the word “King” or “President.” It is a designation of role, not identity.

2. The Translation Chain

• Greek: It comes from the word Christos, which means “The Anointed One.”

• Hebrew: This is the direct translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach (Messiah).

3. The Meaning When we say “Jesus Christ,” we are not just identifying a person; we are making a claim. We are saying that Jesus is the long-awaited King and Deliverer promised in the ancient prophecies to restore humanity.

But it goes deeper than just a title. In the lens of the Universal Christ, “The Anointed One” refers to the presence of God infusing all of creation. It is the ‘Divine DNA’ that connects every living thing and the force of love that pulls the universe toward unity.

The Distinction: The Person vs. The Mystery

To grasp this, we must distinguish between the container and the content:

• Jesus is the Person. He was the historical man who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago, limited by time and space.

• Christ is the Mystery. This is the universal “blueprint” or “template” for reality that has existed since the very beginning of time.

Jesus is the specific example; Christ is the eternal process of God manifesting in matter.

How This Changes Everything

When we view the world through this lens, our understanding of faith expands in four profound ways:

1. Christ as Cosmic Reality (The “Logos”) Progressives view Christ as the Logos (the Word/Pattern) mentioned in John 1. Christ is the “glue” that holds the universe together (Colossians 1:17).

• The Implication: The physical world isn’t “fallen” or “evil”; it is the first body of God. Nature, science, and the cosmos are all filled with the Christ presence.

2. Jesus as the “Face” of the Christ If the Universal Christ is the invisible electricity, Jesus is the lamp that showed us exactly what that electricity looks like when it lights up a human life.

• The Goal: We don’t worship Jesus because he is a “magical exception” to humanity. We follow him because he is the perfect example of what humanity looks like when it is fully aligned with God’s love. The goal is not just to worship him, but to imitate him—to let the Christ come alive in us.

3. Christ as Solidarity (The Justice Angle) This theology moves faith from the sanctuary to the streets. Christ is defined as the divine presence found specifically in the marginalized and the suffering.

• The Action: In Matthew 25, Jesus says, “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” This means the Christ is the hungry person, the imprisoned person, and the outsider. You don’t find Christ just in a church service; you find Christ by standing with those who are excluded.

4. Christ as Your “True Self” Finally, drawing on mystics like Thomas Merton, we realize that “Christ” is the name for the deepest part of your own soul.

• The Transformation: Salvation isn’t about getting “saved” from hell; it is about waking up to your True Self—the part of you that is already one with God, loved, and whole—and letting go of the False Self (the ego, status, and division).

In Short

To “believe in Christ” doesn’t mean agreeing to a list of dogmas about a virgin birth or blood atonement. It means trusting that the universe is benevolent and participating in the flow of love and justice that Jesus modeled.

The Bible: A Library, Not a Fax from Heaven

To understand the Bible, we must first understand the vehicle. A common misconception is that the Bible is a single book dropped from the sky—a “fax from Heaven,” perfect and untouched. But the reality is far more complex and far more human.

The Bible is not a single book written by a single author at a single time. It is a library of 66 books written by over 40 authors—shepherds, kings, fishermen, doctors, and prophets—spanning roughly 1,500 years. It was written on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) and in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).

Most importantly, for the first several centuries, there was no printing press, no cloud storage, and often no written text at all. These stories were passed down orally—around campfires in the desert, in royal courts in Jerusalem, and in house churches in Rome. When they were finally written, they were laboriously copied by hand on rotting papyrus or animal skins by scribes working by candlelight.

God did not write a single page of the Bible. The words came through men—deeply flawed men—and were written, rewritten, translated, and argued over for centuries. When you understand this process, the “contradictions” stop looking like mistakes and start looking like human thumbprints on a divine artifact.

The “Thumbprints” of Humanity

We often judge the Bible by the standards of modern history, expecting journalistic accuracy and scientific precision. But the authors lived in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. They wrote epic mythology to build national identity, not to preserve statistical data.

Here is how the human transmission process explains the “facts” often cited against the Bible:

1. Internal Contradictions (The Result of Oral Tradition) Because accounts were preserved orally for generations, details often shifted depending on who was telling the story.

• The Death of Judas: Matthew (writing for Jews) says Judas hanged himself. Luke (writing for Gentiles) says he fell and burst open. Without a central news agency to “fact check,” the early church preserved both oral traditions side-by-side.

• The Census Incitement: In 2 Samuel, God incites David to count the people. In 1 Chronicles, written centuries later after the exile, Satan incites David. This isn’t a typo; it’s a theological update. After exposure to Persian ideas during the exile, the Israelites could no longer attribute “evil” actions directly to Yahweh, so they updated the story to reflect a developed understanding of God.

2. Historical Discrepancies (Ancient Genre)

• The Exodus Numbers: The text claims 2 million people left Egypt. Logistically, this column would stretch for hundreds of miles. In ancient Semitic literature, numbers were often hyperbolic, used to show greatness rather than a literal headcount. The story was amplified over centuries to demonstrate God’s power.

• The Census of Quirinius: Luke claims a global census forced Jesus’s parents to travel. Writing 80 years later, Luke likely conflated different historical events to make a theological point: Jesus, not Caesar, is the true King of the world.

3. Scientific Divergence (A Pre-Scientific Worldview)

• Cosmology: Genesis describes a “firmament”—a solid dome holding back water. This was the standard “science” of the Babylonians and Egyptians. God communicated to the ancients within their understanding of the universe. The point was to say who created the world, not how.

• Creation Orders: The Bible contains two creation stories (Genesis 1 and 2) with different timelines. The editors of the Torah didn’t try to smooth these out; they respected both the high poetic hymn and the earthy folktale, placing them side-by-side.

4. Textual Instability We do not have the “original” writings. We have copies of copies.

• Scribal Errors: A scribe in the 3rd century might accidentally skip a line or “correct” grammar.

• Later Additions: Famous passages like the ending of Mark (16:9–20) and the Woman Caught in Adultery do not appear in our oldest manuscripts. These were likely popular oral stories that scribes felt were “too good to lose,” so they eventually pasted them into the text centuries later.

The Evolving Revelation

Perhaps the most difficult “contradiction” is the moral tension between the Old and New Testaments. The Bible records a trajectory of humanity's gradual learning of who God is. It moves from a tribal war deity in the Iron Age—smashing enemies and commanding genocide—to the universal Father revealed in the Roman Era.

If you view the Bible as a “flat” book where every page is equal, this is a disaster. But if you view it as a progressive revelation, it makes perfect sense. The Old Testament shows humanity’s search for God, projecting their own violence onto Him. Jesus arrives to correct the picture. “You have heard it said... but I tell you...” (Matthew 5). Jesus shows God as He actually is.

Jesus Over the Book

This brings us to the most critical point: The Bible is not God.

Jesus was born, lived, and died as a Jew in Judea. The Bible as we know it did not exist when Jesus lived. It wasn’t compiled until hundreds of years later, literally voted on by bishops and politicians in a room who decided what made the cut.

Jesus never said, “Read my book.” He said, “Follow me.”

His gospel was not about denominations, brick-and-mortar churches, or arguing over dogmas. He was talking about the church in the heart of men. Jesus taught us to “be like little children.” Kids don’t need theological degrees; they need simple truth. The gospel was meant to be clear, freeing, and alive—not weaponized by the “woke left” or the “stone-casting right.”

Christians often avoid this history because it destroys the idea that the Bible is flawless. But we have turned the book into an idol. We must stop worshipping the paper and ink and start listening to the Truth behind it.

Summary: From Inerrancy to Incarnation

These facts do not disprove the Bible; they humanize it. They shift our view from Inerrancy (a perfect encyclopedia) to Incarnation (God speaking through the messy, limited, evolving cultures of real people).

The miracle isn’t that the Bible has no errors; the miracle is that God used such a human process to communicate divine truth. If the Bible is valuable, it is because it is human. And if it is human, then the point was never the pages; it was the Person.

A history book gives you information. The Bible gives you wisdom, and wisdom is found by wrestling. You haven’t lost the Bible; you’ve just stopped worshipping it and started worshipping the God it points to. That is a much safer place to be.

Follow Him, and be free.

He was such a good dog, loved so much by our family. I am choosing Richard Rohr forTiro’s eulogy.

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar, seeing “Christ” in his dog (famously his black lab, Venus) wasn’t about the dog being a deity. It was about his belief in Universal Christology—the idea that the physical world is the first “Bible” and that everything in it is a thumbprint of the Creator.

It teaches us that we can learn about God’s character by observing the unconditional love of a pet just as easily as reading a sermon.

Rohr teaches that “Christ” is much more than the historical person of Jesus. He argues that the first time God “became flesh” was at the moment of the Big Bang. Therefore, all matter is “Christ-soaked.” * The Application: If everything that exists is a physical manifestation of God’s thoughts, then a dog, a tree, or a person all carry that same divine energy.

The Connection: If a dog can “be” its most authentic self without religious rules, it proves that the Divine Spirit is already there. It’s “baked in,” not “added on” later.

Rohr says we often miss God because we are looking for a “spirit” in the clouds. He argues that if you can’t see the divine in the particular (the wag of a tail, the wet nose, the breathing of a living creature), you will never see it in the universal.

In the simplest terms, “Jesus” is the person, but “The Christ” is the light that fills everything.

Inheriting Your Faith

The concept of “inheriting your faith” is a powerful way to describe what sociologists call religious socialization. It is the process by which a family’s spiritual DNA is mapped onto the next generation, often before a child has the cognitive tools to evaluate it. This inheritance happens through several deeply embedded layers of human development and social structure.

1. The Power of Early “Imprinting.”

During early childhood, the brain is essentially a sponge for cultural norms. Because children rely entirely on their parents for survival, they are biologically wired to mirror their parents’ worldviews.

• Normalizing the Sacred: When a child grows up seeing prayer, ritual, or church attendance as a standard part of the weekly routine, like brushing their teeth, it becomes part of their base reality.

• Pre-Critical Thinking: These beliefs are often installed before a child develops formal operational thought (the ability to think abstractly and question logic), making the “inheritance” feel like a foundational truth rather than a choice.

2. Faith as “Cultural Glue.”

Religion is rarely just a set of abstract ideas; it is a communal identity. For many families, “inheriting” a faith is actually about inheriting a tribe.

• Social Costs: Questioning the family faith can feel like questioning the family itself. The inheritance is maintained because walking away might mean losing a sense of belonging or causing a rift with loved ones.

• Rituals and Milestones: Faith provides the script for life’s biggest moments—births, weddings, and deaths. By participating in these, the next generation stays tethered to the tradition.

3. The “Zip Code” Factor

Sociologists call this propinquity. We tend to inherit the faith of our parents because we are raised in an environment of schools, neighborhoods, and social circles that reinforce those specific beliefs.

• Echo Chambers: If the majority of people in your immediate world believe the same thing, there is no cognitive dissonance. The inheritance is never challenged because there are no competing claims for “the truth” in your daily life.

4. Emotional Safety and Fear

Faith often carries an emotional inheritance of security.

• Avoiding Existential Anxiety: Parents often pass down faith as a protective tool to help their children navigate the fear of death or the “unknown.”

• The Weight of Tradition: There is a sense of honor in carrying the torch of one’s ancestors. To many, “deconstructing” feels like an act of betrayal toward the parents or grandparents who found deep meaning in those same pews.

The “Lightbulb” of Deconstruction

The “lightbulb moment” is the transition from an inherited faith to an examined faith. It starts with a simple, jarring realization: If I had been born in India or China, what are the chances I would believe exactly what I do now? If your parents had worshipped a different God, you likely would have too.

When that hit me, I had to ask: Why is one religion “right” and all others “wrong”? I realized people believed it simply because it was the water they swam in. Immediately, the light bulb went off..

As I constructed and deconstructed my faith, the fear vanished. When people are traditional Christians, they don’t fear the “Hells” of other religions, and they don’t fear mine. Once I saw that, I realized there was no reason to fear any Hell at all. I don’t think I “thought my way out” through my own brilliance; rather, I recognized that my roots weren’t as deep as others. I went to public school and wasn’t at church five days a week. For those whose entire social safety net is the church, questioning is terrifying. I am thankful it was easier for me to walk away and allow myself to ask these questions.

The Second Half of Life

Richard Rohr speaks about this as moving from the “First Half of Life,” which is about the containers, the rules, and building an identity, to the “Second Half of Life,” which is about the contents of the container and finding the Universal Christ in all things.

Today, I believe the Christ story, but I see Him in everything. To me, the true miracle is an all-powerful God sending His Son to be with us, speak our language for even a little while, just so we wouldn’t have to be afraid of Him anymore.

To Close, in the same way, the Bible’s view of salvation and punishment should be understood in terms of what was known and unknown at the time. If Paul had been able to access the wisdom of the Buddha and Lao Tzu online, and if he had been able to see the Dalai Lama on a speaking tour, I suspect he would have found common ground with those figures and framed his message of redemption accordingly.

Not having been exposed to God or any form of faith until later in my life led to years of searching for how to get a “chip” in the faith game. Which led to studying all types of scripture, attending different houses of worship, listening to podcasts, participating in multiple Bible study groups, and spending hundreds of hours in online theological studies over the years, which have helped shape my faith. I believe the story of Christ; I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus never asked us to worship Him, but to imitate Him / be like Him. I see Christ in everything, i.e., The Universal Christ (Richard Rohr).

I have become hesitant about telling people that I am a Christian. Not because I’m ashamed of Jesus, but because of those who have claimed to believe in Jesus and yet seem uninterested in acting like him and using his name for their own personal gain. Christians have been the source of immense suffering in our society. I know prefer the term “Follower of Christ”.

I believe in the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). The concept of an all-mighty, all-powerful God sending His only begotten Son to earth (even for just a little while) to be with us, to be one of us, to teach us through His actions, and specifically miracles. Jesus taught important lessons about faith, kindness, and God’s ability to make great things from our most humble offerings. While teaching us, there are “No Others “and to “love one another”.

My faith includes respecting others' beliefs and following the “Golden Rule”. Love God with all your heart and treat others with the same way you want to be treated. When any religious discussion becomes closed-minded or “tribal” and insists on having all the correct answers or defining the rules regarding getting into Heaven or going to Hell. I find myself unable to participate in any type of mean-spirited religious fundamentalist-type discussions, or when the discussion becomes the need to prove their religion is the only truth. I define Fundamentalism as the inability to admit that one might be wrong. Fundamentalism or any closed system that cannot admit questioning, discussion, or critique. I find God’s grace in my search for understanding and believe there is more value in questioning than in the absolutes. People need to be more curious in their faith, and I am not all that concerned about what you believe, but why you believe it.

Finally, understanding that the Kingdom of God is within you changed everything for me. Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:21). There is plenty of Heaven and Hell out there on earth right now on. Stop worrying about where it is up there or down there! Unwrap the gift that is already inside you, engage now!

People have been blessed with free will, which includes the ability to choose whatever faith they wish to follow. The Bible is not a personal message to the reader; it’s a collection of specific messages preserved for Christians by Christians through the ages. A mix of history, myth, metaphor, and poetry. While understanding that any good theologian can make the Bible sound, anyway they choose, and that lots of people have read the Bible in ways that justify oppression rather than promote love and justice.

We’ve spent our lives anchored to the idea that being a Christian means possessing a clear set of beliefs regarding Jesus Christ. Plagued with assumptions that we can’t still be called Christian, and if we don’t offer quick (and correct) answers. The only problem is that true spirituality and faith in God are relational. Not Intellectual.

I don’t think faith is something you can lose. I find great comfort in letting go of the need to be right. Imagine what it might feel like to be unburdened from the idea that you must know the truth about God.

Christianity has been its unrelenting insistence on a bad-cop God. There is no angry, wrathful, bloodthirsty god, God so holy and pure that very idea of your presence screams abomination. God’s essence consists entirely and purely of love.

The Bible is the inspired Word of God, or “God-breathed”. It unfolds as a divine love story between the Creator, God, and the object of his love, humankind. In the pages of the Bible, we learn of God’s interactions with humans.

The revelation for me was that once I got outside of organized religion, I was able to see with new eyes and a new heart. I think Christianity, especially in its “over-organized” form, has some real problems.

All my spiritual heroes have pushed the theological boundaries of their day ( Stan Mitchell, Rob Bell, Richard Rohr, John Shelby Sponge, C.S. Lewis, Bart Ehrman, Colby Martin, Viktor E. Frankl, Keith Giles, Brian McLaren– to name a few and you will hear them throughout my writings.

They all seem to be at their best when they were making very comfortable Christians very uncomfortable.

To close, it is an exciting and refreshing experience, not to reconstruct my faith, but to construct my faith from scratch. I have documented what I have learned and experienced over the years during this awesome spiritual journey. I am gratified to find that there are many others who are on the same faith journey with me, which is never-ending.

This faith journey that drives me is also my labor of love, and what I am meant to pursue with the rest of my time on this earth.

Jesus’s stories (parables) being played on different instruments in different keys

The analogy of Jesus’s stories (parables) being played on different instruments in different keys is a beautiful way to capture the essence of how these stories can be interpreted and applied in various contexts. Here’s a breakdown of what makes this analogy work:

• Different Instruments: Each Gospel writer (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) presents Jesus’s parables with a slightly different emphasis or perspective. Like different instruments have unique timbres and qualities, each Gospel writer brings their own “voice” to the stories. Matthew, for example, often highlights how the parables relate to the Kingdom of Heaven, while Luke emphasizes Jesus’s compassion for the marginalized.

• Different Keys: Just as a song can be transposed into different keys and still be recognizable, the core message of Jesus’s parables remains consistent even when told with variations. The “key” may vary depending on the audience or the specific point the writer seeks to emphasize. A parable might be told in a “major key” to emphasize hope and joy, or in a “minor key” to highlight the seriousness of the message.

• Harmony: Even though the parables are presented differently, they ultimately harmonize to create a richer and fuller understanding of Jesus’s teachings. Each version contributes to the overall message, like different instruments playing together in an orchestra.

Strengths of the Analogy:

• Captures diversity: It acknowledges the unique perspectives of the Gospel writers.

• Highlights the core message: the underlying unity and consistency of Jesus’s teachings.

• Allows for flexibility: It recognizes that the parables can be interpreted and applied in various ways.

Overall, the analogy of Jesus’s stories being played on different instruments in different keys is effective because it emphasizes both the diversity and unity of the Gospels, while also acknowledging the flexibility and adaptability of Jesus’s teachings. It encourages us to appreciate the unique contributions of each Gospel writer and to explore the multifaceted meanings of the parables.

The man and the birds – a Christmas Story – Author unknown

The story is about a man who doesn’t believe in Christmas, and he doesn’t believe in Christmas because he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. It’s not that the man has a hard heart; it’s just that he’s given this a lot of thought, and the whole concept of an “all-mighty, all-powerful” God sending His Son to earth in the form of a man (and wasn’t that convenient) just didn’t make any sense at all. If there really was a God, he thought, and He really was all-mighty and all-powerful, why would he do something like that? It just didn’t make any sense. If God really did exist, He could have just opened up the heavens Himself and told us directly what He wanted us to know. The whole “Jesus thing” was just too ridiculous and convoluted, and since it didn’t make any sense to him, he had long ago decided that Jesus was just a fantasy created by mankind to give us hope when there really wasn’t any hope at all.

And so, as yet another Christmas Eve came upon him, the man did again what he did every year; he went out to a party at a friend’s house and enjoyed some good company and holiday cheer. He arrived back home at around 11:30 that night, and he was glad that he did, because it had just started snowing as he pulled into the driveway, and he was thankful that he had gotten home before the roads turned treacherous.

He went inside his house and started going about the business of preparing to turn in for the night when all of a sudden he heard a loud thump! He paused for a moment and then heard it again: thump! Curious, he started walking through the house, looking for the source of the strange noise. Upon entering his living room, he heard it again – thump! – and he could instantly tell that something had just hit the large plate-glass window facing out to his front yard.

Thinking that there might be some teenagers roaming the streets, throwing snowballs at his window, the man rushed outside, intent on giving them a piece of his mind. But as he made his way out the door and into the front yard, he immediately noticed two things: The first thing he noticed was that the snowfall had gotten much, much heavier; heavier in fact than he had ever seen in his entire life. Huge snowflakes were literally cascading down from above, and the night was alive with intense motion and yet eerily quiet at the same time.

The second thing he noticed was that there were no kids in his front yard throwing snowballs; instead, there was a flock of birds, and even as the man stood there watching, he suddenly saw two of the birds shoot away from the others and slam into the plate-glass window on the front of his house - thump!, thump! – hitting it so hard that their bodies fell dead to the ground below.

The man instantly knew what was going on. The birds - confused and frightened by the heavy, swirling snow - were fluttering and flying around in a panic, and they could see right inside his house to a place of light and shelter, and they were trying to get inside. But what they didn’t know – what they could never know – was that no matter how hard they tried, they would never be able to get in through the glass.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Three more of the birds slammed into the glass and fell lifeless to the ground.

Now, the man didn’t believe in God or Jesus Christ, but he wasn’t a bad man; he had a good heart, and it crushed him to see what was happening before his very eyes. He was determined to put a stop to it.

He quickly ran back inside his house and turned off all of the lights, thinking that if the birds couldn’t see inside, they would stop killing themselves trying to get in. But even though the birds could no longer see inside, the now darkened window still held the appearance of shelter – a cave opening, perhaps – and the birds continued to fly into the glass, and their bodies continued to pile up in the snow underneath.

The man then ran to his garage – only 30 feet away - and threw open the door to give the birds a real place of shelter that they could enter without harm. But the birds just continued to fly into the window. Kicking himself, the man ran back into the garage and turned on the lights. Now, he thought, they’ll be able to see that the shelter they need is right over here. But the birds were so focused and intent on getting through the window that they simply didn’t see him at all.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Becoming increasingly panicked himself, the man started shouting at the birds. “Hey! Over here! Over here!”, he yelled, trying to get their attention. But still, the birds did not come.

Finally, the man rushed out right into the remains of the flock, yelling and shouting and waving his arms, trying to herd what birds were left towards the garage. But if the birds had been confused and frightened before, they were now absolutely terrified at this new apparition in their midst, and faster than ever, they hurtled themselves into the glass: Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

Not knowing what else he could do, the man stood there in the cold darkness, snow falling all around, and watched the birds die one by one. With helpless tears flowing down his face, he thought to himself, “If only I could be a bird for just a few minutes . . . I could talk to them in their own language – they wouldn’t be afraid of me; they would understand me, and I could tell them what they needed to do to save themselves.”

At that very moment, the man heard bells begin to ring; It was midnight, and church bells throughout the town were ringing to usher in Christmas morning, this day set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

And as he stood there he thought about what had just happened, and about the words that he had just said to himself, and all of a sudden, the concept of an all-mighty, all-powerful God sending His Son to earth to be with us - to be one of us - for just a little while, didn’t seem like such a crazy idea after all.

In a landscape often focused on “deconstruction,” my piece offers a perspective on spiritual construction. Raised without religion, I spent my adulthood building a faith framework centered on the idea that “there are no others.” My journey moves away from traditional dogma toward an experiential and inclusive theology of love, rooted in the belief that the Kingdom of God is in our midst (Luke 17:21).

The full article is included below my signature. Thank you for your time and for fostering these important conversations.

Best regards,

Howard Schreiber 216-272-3855 howard.schreiber@outlook.com

I was raised without religion. In our home, there was no Bible on the shelves, no prayers at bedtime, and no Sunday worship. While we celebrated Christmas and Easter as holidays, God was entirely missing from the picture.

My parents believed they were giving us the freedom to choose our own path by remaining neutral, but I grew up feeling spiritually adrift. They hoped to protect us from rigid dogma, but as I grew older, I felt a persistent ache—the sense that something “Big” was missing. Now, as a parent and a follower of Christ, I refuse to pass that emptiness down to my children.

The Search for a Framework. This feeling of being an outsider followed me from a young age. I remember being eight years old, riding my bike to a nearby church just to watch from the back as the congregation sang and received Communion. I would pedal home with a heart full of questions I didn’t have the language to ask.

Those questions finally demanded answers in college after the sudden death of a teammate. Standing at the edge of that loss, I was forced to confront the ultimate question: What happens next? I realized then that while being a “good person” is a noble pursuit, it provides no framework for the mystery of mortality or the depth of our purpose.

Faith as a Relationship Years of searching led me to a deep dive into theology and the Bible. However, I soon discovered that knowing God is a relationship, not an intellectual exercise or an academic pursuit. While I value the Word as a guide, I’ve come to see it as a pointer toward a lived experience rather than the entirety of God’s revelation.

My faith today is anchored in the “Christ story” as a bridge. I see the miracle in an all-powerful God sending His Son to speak our language so we wouldn’t have to be afraid of the Divine.

The Kingdom Within Once you look past the complexities of “over-organized” religion, a profound spiritual principle emerges: There are no others. This realization identifies our inherent connection to everyone else, challenging us to see ourselves in the stranger.

My touchstone is Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” Heaven is not a far-off destination or a reward for following a checklist; it is the intersection of heaven and earth, beginning right here, within the soul. It is a reinterpretation of traditional dogma into a more experiential and hopeful theology—one that explores God’s inclusive love.

Why Practice Matters for My Children. I intend to give my children a faith that is practiced and known. I want them to have the language for grief and the framework for joy that I lacked growing up. By providing them with a foundation, I am not limiting their choice; I am giving them the tools to understand the “Kingdom” that already resides within them.

People raised without religion are not doomed to be immoral, but they are often forced to navigate life without an anchor. I know what is missing when you don’t have it, and I intend to make sure my children never have to wonder.