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, requiring discipline, revision, and sustained attention to tone, a slow and wandering labor of love. Born from late-night caffeine-induced sessions after the girls’ bedtime and early, pour-over fueled mornings wrestling with the nuance within the words written the night before. I could not have completed it without the patience of my wife, and the persistence of my children, who—despite the closed door of my den—still knocked, barged in, and distracted me with their lives. Though my annoyance in the moment was often loud, the joy of their presence outweighed any grumbling.
The images included throughout were created in response to each chapter, using the help of ChatGPT and many rounds of refinement in Photoshop to get the tone right.
My mentors in this work are evident in my citations. While I do not espouse full alignment with any of their theological positions, I have found a majority of their theological positions to be more generous than I had previously assumed. I am indebted to their clarity of thought and their willingness to articulate complex doctrinal tensions with imagination, courage, and hope.
- G.K. Chesterton – For his wit-laced orthodoxy and his stubborn delight in paradox. - C.S. Lewis – For shaping the imagination of my faith more than the logic of it. - Karl Barth – For his relentless focus on Christ and resistance to theological simplicity. - Frederick Buechner – For making space for doubt without dismissing the holy. - David James Duncan – For teaching me that a story can baptize doctrine. - Fred Craddock – For his preaching that whispered its way into my soul. - Walter Brueggemann – For his fierce trust in the prophetic voice and poetic lament. - Wendell Berry – For reminding me that rootedness is a form of resistance. - Brian McLaren – For opening windows when my tradition only offered walls. - Jordan Peterson – For interpreting Biblical stories with a psychologist’s lens.