Jesus vs. America

In this episode, we dive into the growing trend of comfort, convenience, and entitlement within American Christian culture, particularly as it relates to the modern church experience. From coffee stations to children’s play areas and entertainment options, many churches in America offer a variety of amenities designed to make the experience as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. Join us as we explore how these conveniences might be contributing to a deeper cultural shift where churchgoers come to expect ease and entertainment, often prioritizing personal comfort over spiritual growth.

Americans are obsessed with size, the bigger the better.  In this episode,  we examine how this value seeps into the American church and influences the way we approach our faith.  We may not even notice how often we rely on size to make decisions or to determine the value of those things we engage with.  And when it comes to the church, while we can critique elements of both large and small churches, our main point is that we should put aside our bias towards size and look for better ways to evaluate the health of our churches. As one of the authors we cite has stated, our focus on size within the church has come at a significant price, and peeling apart the American culture’s obsession with size can help us see the cost it is having on our faith.

Ten days before the 2024 election, we sat down to predict who would win the presidential race and why we came to that conclusion. Now that the results are known, listen in as we discuss our thought process and the implications for both the country and the church.  As we head into the new year, we will be recording more episodes that examine how this election will impact the church and the spiritual lives of young adults, while this episode gave us the chance to put down a marker and to test our predictive abilities.    

Do American Christians worship the idol of safety?  In this episode, we look at how the value we place on safety starts to inform and shape our Christian practices in ways that may be counter to the way of Jesus.  Many of our cultural values, like safety, come from well intentioned desires. But when we place them as the ultimate value around which every other value is oriented, we end up with a compromised version of Christianity that is more American than the way of Jesus.  

The popularity of short term missions continues to increase year after year, and for many it has become a regular part of our Christian practice.  And yet, there are so many ways in which our efforts can cause harm, not only to those with whom we visit, but even to the team that is making the effort.  In this episode we focus on the reasons why short term mission trips can be harmful and question whether the practice should continue.  We discuss examples of the ways this harm comes about and the American values and attitudes we inadvertently bring into short term missions.  We end the episode with helpful tips for those who wish to continue to engage with short term missions, referencing the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, whose work we suggest should be a prerequisite for any short term team traveling domestically or internationally. 

In this episode, we answer a viewer’s question about what the work of Bible translation involves, and whether God would allow the scriptures to be inaccurately translated. Our conversation begins with an acknowledgement that even the most conservative views on the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture affirm that these views only apply to the original manuscripts, and not to translations, and those original manuscripts are no longer available to us. For that reason, even before we consider translation, we need to be familiar with the scholarship involved in the transmission of the text, the field of study that seeks to recover the text of the original manuscripts by studying the thousands of copies that we do have. Contrary to the common notion that the books of the Bible have been changed so many times that we cannot be sure of its original text, we reference those scholars who do not subscribe to the Christian faith but who nonetheless attest to the remarkable care in which the Bible was transmitted.  We then consider the challenge of translating from the foreign languages in which the scripture was written by the biblical authors, and acknowledge the interpretive decisions that need to be made anytime we translate any writing into a different language. Those decisions and the implicit theological positions of the translators can result in slightly different translations of certain words, some better than others. Finally, we conclude with a genuine note of thankfulness to God for the fact that we have so many translations available to us, even while acknowledging that some people groups still have none in their language.

As followers of Jesus, we are to steward every gift that God has given us for the sake of Jesus as citizens of His kingdom. Jesus and the apostles did not have the right to vote, but we live in a country where we do have that right.  How are we to steward the privilege of voting for the sake of Jesus and His kingdom?  In this episode we explore the difference between voting and rooting, and how we can know which one we are doing.  We also talk about the impact of voting on local issues and local candidates, rather than obsessing about national politics, and how much more of an impact our vote makes in the local context. Stewarding our vote also requires that we become educated about the candidates and the issues, putting in the work to be well informed long before we are asked to cast our vote.  We also explore how we can love our neighbors – and even our enemies – in the ways that we vote, and how the way we vote has become one of the most visible aspects of the public witness of Christians to the broader society.  Finally, we ask if there are times that we shouldn’t vote, and whether there is any truth to the idea that voting (or not voting) for certain candidates is a sin.

Many of us are aware from our own experience that young people who grew up in the faith appear to be leaving the church in greater numbers.  In this episode, we look at some of the top reasons cited by researchers who survey young adults about why they are leaving the church, and sometimes also leaving the faith.  We talk about the impact that parents have on the faith of their young adult children, how the church’s elevation of political ideologies is increasingly cited as a reason young people are leaving a church, and how moving to a new town can often make it hard to re-engage with a new church.  We also share some of our own observations from our years of experience working in young adult ministry, including how churches often want to have young adults attend their churches, but are often unwilling to make any of the changes that would truly engage young adults or make room for them at the table in a meaningful way.  We end the episode with a description of the model of dialogical engagement that we have used for close to two decades in young adult ministry and ask why churches have an aversion to a method that has been statistically shown to have a significant impact on propelling young adults towards a resilient faith.

Christians are not known for stewarding the earth.  Instead, the majority of Christians appear to care very little about the planet and are often more concerned about discrediting any view that human activity is a factor in the changing climate. What is behind the refusal of so many Christians to work toward the scriptural mandate to care for the earth?  Do political views end up having more of an influence on our action or inaction than our God-given vocation to steward the planet?  In this episode, we meet Dr. Steven Fitch, who has led several Christian organizations that have planted more than a billion trees in an effort to reforest impoverished countries through employment resulting in poverty relief and sustainable economic development. Through his example and the observations made on this episode, our goal is to show how Christians should be leading the way in tackling these issues as those God has entrusted to manage His creation.

We may not even be aware how our attitudes about the flag and its display in houses of worship conflates our faith with our positive feelings about the country.  One of the ways we can assess our own hearts on this issue comes when we consider what happens when we relocate the flag or remove it altogether.  In this episode, we examine how the flag becomes commingled with our Christian faith, often representing a belief that God has blessed the United States in a way that He has not blessed other countries.  Even a majority of pastors believe that patriotic elements should be incorporated into the worship services on certain holiday weekends, while those same pastors report that their congregations sometimes love the country more than they love God. We ask whether American Christians have a unique fondness of flags and pledges, creating new ways to praise Christians flags and the Bible, and how these well-intentioned but misplaced allegiances can take us from the person of Jesus.

We respond to a listener’s question and wrestle with the fact that the Old Testament did not abolish slavery, but actually endorsed the slavery of foreigners. While most of the slavery described in the Old Testament was debt-servanthood, and the Old Testament law provided protections and limitations around the practice that included the forgiveness of all debts and the six-year redemption of those in bond servanthood, the Old Testament also endorsed the chattel slavery of neighboring countries and foreigners living temporarily in the land of Israel.  We discuss how the serious scholarship on this subject dispenses with many of the arguments advanced by Christian apologists, while discussing our honest confusion over the fact that the Bible does not contain an outright abolition of slavery.  At the same time, we point out that it was the very teachings of Jesus and the New Testament writers, built on the legacy of the Old Testament law, that laid the foundation for our modern views related to human rights, anti-discrimination, equality, and dignity of all persons, and that ultimately to the abolition of slavery. Our goal in this episode is to demonstrate our willingness to study deeply, wrestle with troubling issues honestly, and still faithfully follow Jesus by trusting that – while our knowledge of God will always be incomplete – we are ultimately putting our trust in the person of Jesus, and not in having certainty about the answer to every question we may ever pose about the Bible. 

Americans are known for their rugged individualism.  But our value of individualism and wanting to be at the center of every narrative can derail our efforts to follow Jesus.  In this episode, we examine the ways that our culture – and even our churches – have reinforced the idea that we are the main character in our worship and in our reading of the biblical narrative.  We discuss how this focus on ourselves shows up in subtle and not so subtle ways, and our discussions seeks to show how inserting ourselves at the center robs us of the richness found in being an integral part of the united people of God.  Our affirmation is that Jesus is the main character of the scriptures and of all of cosmic history, and that finding our true place as part of His body is an important part of following Jesus as our Lord.

Recreational use of marijuana will soon be legal in a majority of states.  Is legalization the standard for followers of Jesus, or does the way of Jesus require that we exercise our freedom in favor of being sober minded? In this episode, we start with the experiences of those we know who have regularly used marijuana, and we ask whether marijuana is a form of drunkenness that we are commanded to abstain from by scripture. 

We respond to a viewer’s question about whether the verses we commonly cite from the New Testament to address homosexuality are properly translated, and whether the issue was a significant concern for the biblical authors. We look at some of the passages where the issue is addressed and review the work of several scholars to conclude that while homosexuality is addressed, this treatment comes as part of a much broader context that addresses all people and the various ways that we respond to God. Even conservative scholarship on the subject admits that homosexuality is a minor concern for the biblical authors, and that a truly biblical morality must avoid overemphasizing peripheral issues. Instead, we should be as charitable with one another – with those inside and outside the church, and with those who agree with us and those who don’t – in the same manner that Christ has been with us. Each of us is urged to remember that God’s kindness, patience and forbearance are what brings anyone to repentance, while those who are hard-hearted and pass judgment on others bring judgment on themselves (Romans 2:1-5). 

The title of our episode is one of the most frequently asked questions that pastors hear from their congregations and a topic that is often discussed in online forums.  While there is room to debate the answer, the way we approach this question – and the way we treat those who might come to a different conclusion – says more about us than it does about Jesus or the question itself.  Why has this become such a litmus test of orthodox Christian faith?  Why doesn’t the fact that we are so scandalized by the issue serve as a warning that we have become the very legalists that we often decry in the pages of scripture?In this episode, we examine the heart of Jesus in coming close to those who needed him the most, and we contrast his actions with the Pharisees who made sure to publicly and privately keep their distance from the very same people.  We ask whether Jesus would do the same today, and point out the ways that many Christian leaders seem to more closely resemble the behavior of the Pharisees rather than that of Jesus.  We also examine the many arguments that are stated about what makes a wedding different from other public events, and we break down those arguments to better understand the motivations behind them. In the end, we want to center our answer on Jesus: if he would attend, then we should; and if he would not, then we should not.  

Studies are mixed on whether people of faith are less intelligent than the average person in the general public, or even those that have no faith at all.  Regardless, it does seem that Christians go out of their way to believe the strangest things that are not only entirely unrelated to the Christian faith, but which are demonstrably false. Our thesis is simple: if people can easily see that our beliefs are verifiably false about things that can readily be tested, why would anyone believe our witness about things that are unseen, like the claims of Christ, the truth of scripture, or the work of God in our life?

In this episode, we respond to one of your comments about why we believe that Jesus’s life and teachings are accurately recorded in the New Testament biographies and the letters authored by his apostles.  While acknowledging that there is no way to adequately answer this question in a short episode, our goal is to provide some of the reasons that our faith confidently rests on the answers available from scholarly resources that have addressed this question over the long history of the church.  We also contrast the ways historical narratives were written and transmitted in the first century, and we caution about relying on our own cultural biases to discredit the writings authored in another time and place.  Our hope is that our discussion models a form of engagement with this topic that remains open to opposing views, while reminding that we should be prepared to do the hard work of researching this issue further if this particular question is important to the way we view the claims of Jesus.  

Many of us have heard that faith in Jesus requires either blind faith or certainty, but it turns out that both are incompatible with the Christian faith.  Whether our perception from the outside is that belief in God requires magical thinking, or whether we have seen faith communities who shut down all questions and all doubts in favor of a blind faith, the Bible instead commends a faith that is closely examined and based on the evidence of God’s work in the world and in our lives.  True faith requires building our entire life in trust on the claims of Jesus, and we share how there is nothing blind about staking everything we value on that faith.  We also explore why there has been a tendency to push for blind faith even from leaders within the church, exposing how this paternalistic tendency has led many to feel guilt and shame over the questions and doubts they have expressed.We also tackle the idea that the Christian faith requires certainty.  We address those outside the faith who won’t come to faith unless every question they ask has been satisfied to a level of certainty, exploring the motivations behind that need.  We consider how the angels have certainty because they see God face to face, as well as the clues we have from scripture that the angels instead wish they could have faith.  Our contention is that faith and doubt are more closely aligned than faith and certainty.  In the end, growth, wisdom and sustenance from God comes from walking in an examined faith without falling to the twin errors of either blind faith or certainty. 

As we work to untangle the influence of the American culture from the Christian faith, we respond to a listener’s question about our culture’s belief that love can never be wrong. Before we work our way toward more difficult topics about love and sexuality, we have to first determine whether we are going to prioritize the teachings of our faith or the desires of our heart whenever they don’t line up the way we expect. Knowing which we give priority to helps us determine whether we are following Jesus, the culture at large, or our own formulation of faith. We also examine one of the foundational assumptions of the Christian faith, that sin has tainted everything in this world, including our desires and our best intentions, and we talk about how strange this sounds to those of us who have grown up in spiritual traditions influenced by the language of therapeutic self-help.

The word deconstruction has become very popular over the past decade. But many young Christians who say they’re deconstructing seem to mean they’re simply leaving the faith. Is it possible to explore difficult aspects of our faith without abandoning our faith altogether?

It feels more open-minded and loving to say all beliefs are equal, that each person should do what feels right for them, and there may be different ways to God.  But can there be multiple truths? What do we do with the exclusive claims of Jesus that he is the only way to God?

Is it possible to be a follower of Jesus without going to church? This episode dives into the frustrations many experience when immersed in Christian community culture, while seriously considering God’s purpose and use of the church.

Statistics consistently tell us that less and less people engage the Bible, and we have largely become a Medieval church, lacking the literacy to read and understand the Bible for ourselves.  Is it possible to follow Jesus without engaging the scriptures?  In this episode, we explore the reasons people have an aversion to the Bible, how this has led to an enculturated or juvenile faith, and we provide a number of encouraging ways to overcome our inability to properly read and understand the Bible for ourselves. 

It seems that many in the church can receive the most challenging teachings, but the moment the subject of racism is mentioned, the crowd begins to thin out. Why is the church so sensitive to the topic of race? This episode examines this very real phenomenon and the spiritual components that are at play. 

Do all Christians vote Republican? So many young adults are walking away from their faith as a result of a political alliance that often fails to take into account the teachings of Jesus.  How did the Christian faith and the Republican party become so tied together? This episode dives into the history of how Evangelical Christian became so associated with the Republican party.

The church has struggled for decades to speak with credibility on sexuality.  We have also ignored the Biblical command to look inwardly at our own sexuality, instead choosing to focus all our attention on the sexual lives of those outside the church.  How do we talk about sexuality in a spiritually healthy way?

A Gen X attorney sits down with a millennial and a member of Gen Z to untangle the Christian faith from the influence of the American culture.

For the last two decades, research has consistently found that a majority of young adults will walk away from their faith by age 30.  In this episode, we’ll discuss some of the main reasons young adults give up on the Christian faith and provide helpful guidance for those hoping to avoid becoming another statistic.  

Was Jesus actually against anything? This introduction episode dives into the meaning of our show’s name and the greater purpose driving our discussions. Follow along as we explore topics like deconstruction, the bible, sexuality, politics and more.