Open Dedication

Dedication

To my wife, Candace—thank you for being the stable center that allows my restless mind to wander, ask, prod, and circle back again. You see my heart, and you help me return to it, gently guiding me out of my head and into the work set before my hands.

To my kids—may you find a beautiful and generous orthodoxy, not marked by rancor or shaped by self-centered agendas, but the kind of belief that makes room for others, creates space for growth, and leaves plenty of room for wonder.

Open Preface

Preface

These essays were first written between 2006 and 2012, during my graduate studies, my time as Product Lead at YouVersion, and the beginning of my doctoral work in semiotics, which I never finished. I’ve revisited them in 2025 to listen again to the questions I was asking, and to offer some expansion from where I now stand: as a father and forty-something navigating the terrain of mid-life. Some of the essays have been revised, others expanded, but all remain faithful to the texture of their original posture.

What binds these reflections together is my evolving doctrine of God, not as a fixed set of propositions, but as a lived encounter with the unknown, marked by presence, absence, silence, and surprise. Though I write now from an agnostic perspective, I remain deeply rooted in the way and words of Jesus.

These essays do not aim to persuade or resolve. They are, simply, theological musings: fragments of a faith-in-motion.

Like many with ADHD, I find creative projects like these, requir

Open An Interpretive Theology

Interpretive Theology

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the word theology, mainly rooted in the cumbersome baggage associated with the label. As I’ve delved into Scripture over the last forty-plus years, I have become acutely aware of the vast amount of mystery found in the book(s). In my feeble attempt to understand the ambiguity, I’ve become a collector of theological interpretations. And as many seminary students can attest, there are plenty of options to choose from.

As I see it, this smorgasbord of theological interpretations is the reality in which today’s professional or armchair theologian must cautiously wade. We’re offered charts and camps, creeds and commentaries—many of them helpful, many of them inherited, and many of them exhausted from centuries of defending themselves against each other.

It’s rather surprising to witness the vigor with which each theological camp defends its planted doctrinal flags. This need to justify propositional truth, sometimes to the death, seem

Open God's Otherness

God’s Otherness

The other day, I was asked to sit down with God for a game of Poker. My first inclination was, “NO WAY!” Mainly because of the big three O’s of God’s character: His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. Then I began to think about His integrity, goodness, and sense of justice… and I reconsidered. After the money had been changed out and the cards dealt, I suddenly deflated into my chair as all hope of winning was sucked out of my hopeful heart.

Why the sudden loss of confidence?

I remembered God’s trump card—His eternal patience and long-suffering. So, I folded, because, Lord knows, patience is a virtue I lack.

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I love the image of God hanging out on a Friday night, drinking Stella Artois, and smoking sweet-smelling tobacco from a hand-carved pipe. This picture is not irreverent so much as it is human; it’s an attempt to draw the divine into the realm of the familiar. But alas, I must scuttle this image into the annals of fairyland, because such personalization of “Ya

Open The Trinity

The Trinity: Jesus, Human and/or Divine

Yahweh, he shall be what he shall be — Father, Spirit, and Son. The God who sees me, the God who knows me, and the God who saves me. This is a statement I’ve returned to often, almost like a breath prayer or a whispered benediction. And yet, is it so simple?

What I mean is, can we come away from this declaration with something more than a theological diagram or creedal assertion? Can the mystery of the Trinity, that ancient and strange harmony, inform the way we move through the world today? Or is it only a doctrine to be revered from afar, cordoned off in our minds with other theological curiosities?

Some would say, and I tend to agree, that a proper understanding of the Trinity is not a luxury but a necessity. That to misunderstand the Trinity is to misread the Gospel. The story of redemption, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection only makes sense when God is understood as a communion of love, one essence, three persons.

Karl Barth would call the Tr

Open The Original Sin

The Original Sin

Written in 2012, when living in the Dutch Reformed town of Pella, Iowa.

I thought it relevant to speak to a position that I do not inherently hold, but one that pervades the regional theology in which I now live. That is, the traditional Dutch Reformed interpretation of Original Sin and its implications for the human person.

Having recently moved from a predominantly Southern Baptist region (Oklahoma) into a small Dutch Reformed community in which Baptist manners and traditions are replaced with particular Dutch behaviors and conventions, I have become increasingly aware of how doctrinal commitments shape not only ecclesial life but cultural posture. One of the most dominant theological interpretations of the Dutch Reformed tradition is its insistence on the total depravity of man. That is, a seminal interpretation in which the imputation of original sin is passed down to Adam’s progeny through his seed.¹

Original Sin

The Reformers, particularly Calvin and Lu

Open The Doctrine of Salvation

The Doctrine of Salvation

A Soteriological discussion of the Synoptic Gospels versus the Pauline Epistles.

In Sunday School, the answer, if you were caught unaware by the teacher’s pointedly direct question, was always “Jesus?”

I dare say that ninety-five percent of the time, you were correct, even if you had to deconstruct the question to arrive at the messianic projection. But alas, I digress…

If it starts and ends with Jesus, the Doctrine of Salvation would be pretty simple focused on the words of Jesus within the Synoptic Gospels (the eyewitness accounts). But, when is theology simple!?!

When looking at the entirety of the New Testament, not just the Gospels, it seems as though we could argue two avenues of salvation theology. And while both views are Christo-centric, one has Paul’s fingerprints and opinions slathered throughout the delivery system.

Here I am referring to the eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the Gospels and the Pauline interpretations found in the Letters of P

Open Life To the Fullest

Life To the Fullest

_God's Spirit at work in prophecy against the norm and in hope of things to come. _

Isaiah’s poetry does not flinch. It stands in the rubble of kings and dares to speak of hope. His words are forged in a time of collapse, of failed thrones, foreign armies, and the fading memory of justice. And yet, without hesitation or apology, Isaiah imagines something beautiful breaking forth: not a revival of what once was, but new life from a barren stump. “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”¹

Isaiah is not one for theatre. He does not speak in monologues draped in metaphor, nor does he charm the throne with clever turns of phrase. His words are forged from a divine burden, not human ambition. He speaks from the edge, not the center. And that matters, because in Isaiah’s time, prophecy was not a prolific career path. It was risky business. If you found favor with the king, you might dine at the royal table, but if your messa

Open What Does Truth?

What Does Truth?!

In a conversation with a man I respect and have sat under as a learner, a subject was broached that continues to bother me—not in a he’s wrong, I’m right sort of way, but in an unsettled dissonance. We had a conversation in graduate school when my class was studying Dispensationalism, an eschatology (study of the end times) that uses segments of time (dispensations of time) to determine the outcome of the end of the world.

He said, “Yes, there are other interpretations (read: opinions) of the end times, but the reason I ascribe to dispensationalism is because dispensational eschatology determines the ecclesiology (doctrine of the church) I practice.”

I nodded hesitantly and told him I wanted to chew on that for a while. After a few days of contemplation, I became increasingly unsettled in the conversation. Questions began to arise in my mind…

Does my lack of a certain eschatological view influence how I do church? And should that matter?

What are the different views of the e

Open What is Truth?

What Is Truth?

A question that has spanned the centuries, sending ships, planes, and spaceships around the globe in explorations of discovery. It is a ubiquitous question with a multitude of answers. Humans have written prose, scripts, theological propositions, laws, essays, books, and movies, trying to explain, find, explore, and uncover it.

A recent Barna Research Group survey on what Americans believe asked the question, “Is there absolute Truth?” Sixty-six percent of adults responded that they believe that “there is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct," with seventy-two percent of those aged 18 to 25 expressing this belief.¹

One side argues that truth is whatever you believe it to be, and the other side screams, “This is absolute truth!”

This dissonance spurs me to look at Jesus’ words and reaction to the question, “What is Truth?” by Pilate in the Gospels, specifically: Matthew 27:11-26; Mark 15:1-15; Luk

Open The Empty Cross

The Empty Cross

March 24, 2011

If the last word is the cross, the empty cross, the cross that liberates us from sin, reconciles us to God, and saves us from our sinful desires. Then the first word, or the first step on the path to the cross, must be a stride of love. Jesus’ life, this incarnation of love, was a model of “how-to”. How to treat the marginalized, the pride-filled, the self-righteous, and the sinner… We too soon preach Christ crucified, overshadowing the birth and life of our Savior, we focus on the end without regard to the means. Hear what I am not saying. I am not saying we should abandon preaching the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

But I am saying that in overshadowing the life of Jesus with the crucifixion, we miss the forest for the trees…What I mean is that in focusing only on His death, we miss the model of His life – a prophetic announcement, a miraculous birth, an incarnational life, a sacrificial death, a momentous resurrection, and His supernatural ascension. So, y

Open God in Suffering

God in Suffering

_If there is one question that has stirred the deepest tension in my bones, it is this: Where is God in our suffering?

Of all the questions I’ve carried, this one returns most often, usually in the middle of the night, when my mind begins to churn, and sleep evades me. It is a question you are forced to live inside of; like the tesseract, there seems to be no end, no resolution, just more. And so, I've stuck this chapter at the end of my book, not as a capstone, but as a springboard.

You will no doubt be left wanting, as these are the types of questions that do not settle. Instead, they seem to shake the foundations of truth and rattle the scaffolding found in the tidy propositions of our doctrinal systems. Suffering is a darkness, it is shouts into the night, words into the gale, it is the unknowable unknown, it is our dark hour, our everlasting night. David James Duncan writes:

**“When experience flies into realms that language cannot touch, honesty demands beyond-language.”<

Open Resurrection and Life

Resurrection and Life

Originally performed at Missio Dei Church’s Easter Service Salt Lake City, Utah Music production by Josh Rosenthal Guitar accompaniment by Noah S.

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Intro (15 seconds)

We enter with expectation. As the prophecy calls forward from Genesis. We see Ham cursed and a blessing spoken over Shem and Jepheth. Unto Shem, there is placed an expectation -- His tents shall be a dwelling place for the people of Jepheth. From Shem's seed comes Abraham, and the prophecy of blessing extends upon his numerous descendants. Israel is to be a covering to the nations, a people of intercession and introduction into the presence of I AM. But, as the pattern goes, this blessing did not extend beyond the tents skirts of the Israelites. They coveted their inheritance, and the great I AM withdrew his presence. Four hundred years of silence and continuing expectation. Messiahs were plentiful, though none found lasting victory over the oppressive rule of Rome. 

Interlude 1 (15 se

Open This Tree of Ours

This Tree of Ours

If this community is a tree, we are roots, and bark, and trunk, with limbs, and leaves and blossoms. Yes, you and them, him and her, he and she, each a part of this beautiful tree.

Our roots find their way through the soil, digging through dirt rich in the blood of martyrs, testimonies and teaching feed our growth.

Beneath this layer is the bedrock of our faith, this Jesus — the beginning and the end, the living word, God incarnate.

His spirit is the aquifer flowing throughout, bringing living water upwards to quench our thirst, for life, for meaning, for faith and grace.

Teachers and preachers establish our trunk, Words and pictures of how we are to, react and respond in the ups and downs of life.

Our tree is encircled with a protective bark, those who serve among us, arms wrapped around, pulling us together.

The sap beneath our bark, is our lifeblood, encouragers whose words are sweet, and long lasting, through dark nights and long winter days.

Open Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

To the many pastors I’ve called friends and collaborators—Jason Jackson, Marty Schmidt, Paul Solomen, Andrew Schmidt, Kevin Korver, Jonathan Middlebrooks, Greg Dewey, Lance Humphries, and Alex Armstrong. And to the congregations that didn’t walk out when I filled the pulpit at Skyline Church in Oklahoma City; Gateway Church in Des Moines; First Reformed Church in Pella; Celebrate Church in Knoxville; and The Bridge Church in Ottumwa—thank you.

To my mentors and teachers at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and during my short stint at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon—thank you for honoring the slow, uncertain work of theological thought and practice. You permitted me to unlearn, to revisit, to revise. You helped correct my posture from one of knowing to one of learning. You allowed me to hold faith and doubt not as opposites, but as companions toward a more generous orthodoxy.

To the thinkers and writers who have quietly companioned this journey—Frederick B