Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower with Tom Krattenmaker | Created In The Image of God 230

For many people, “secular” and “Jesus” sound like opposites. Tom Krattenmaker’s life doesn’t fit that script. Raised in a Catholic context in Minnesota, he never really took to church life—but the stories and teachings of Jesus stayed with him. The teenager who sat restlessly through Mass found himself captivated by a figure who measured character by how we treat those with the least, and who chose suffering, not domination, at the decisive moment of his story. Over time, that fascination led Tom into journalism and a career spent examining religion in public life, and eventually to his book Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower, which the Religion News Association named one of the top religion books of the year.In this episode, Tom traces how his respect for Jesus grew alongside a candid, secular outlook that no longer affirmed Christ’s divinity in traditional terms. He talks about the paradox of writing a “religion book” from a secular standpoint, why so many nonreligious people still wrestle with questions of meaning, purpose, and ethics, and how he now focuses on articulating a positive secular vision rooted in moral seriousness and the natural world. Along the way, he and Wade explore the tensions built into America’s founding ideals of religious freedom and pluralism, the gap between institutional religion and lived faith, and what it might look like to seek the “moral high ground” without turning every difference into a culture‑war battlefield.This conversation does not try to collapse the differences between believer and nonbeliever. Instead, it asks what can be learned in the space between—about Jesus, about conscience, and about how people with divergent convictions might still work toward a more just and humane society. For anyone curious about secular perspectives on Jesus, or wrestling with faith in a post‑Christian culture, this episode offers nuance, honesty, and a wider frame for the questions so many are quietly asking. Get full access to SOOPMedia on Substack at soopllc.substack.com/subscribe Get full access to Created in the Image of God at wadefransson.substack.com/subscribe