The Broken Book Bible Podcast

Joint project with the Christian Transhumanist Podcast! https://www.christiantranshumanism.org/podcastLots of interesting questions. How can we love religion when so many are hurt? How do we describe the reality of social construction? Does Jesus have a personality? What's St. Paul's social media presence? Is God an AI? 

Adriaan Dippenaar, director of the Seattle Nonbinary Coalition joins in to discuss how queer identity, queer tension, and queer magic helps them imagine God. God is absurd, and that's okay! The divine does not fit into any clear, clean label. This is what gives God the power to create and the power to live. This power leads us to struggle with the marginalized.

If the Spirit of Christ dwells in are hearts, and if we are supposed to be Christlike. . . then the Apostle's Creed is about us. 

Sam, who is on the autism spectrum, discusses how his diverse theory of mind has brought him on a unique, exciting, and terrifying journey with and towards God.People on the spectrum develop their sense of theory of mind differently than neurotypical people. Theory of mind is how we distinguish objects and ideas from each other and from ourselves. Which profoundly relates to faith. This journey has many blessings, many curses, and many exegesises of the song 'Moon River.'

This episode was originally recorded over two years ago, and shows us at a different stage in our spiritual development. Amanda, a Unitarian, defends the trinity. Sam, a relativist, defends Biblical' authority and infallibility. As modernism is challenged, new possibilities of truth open up. God can live in relationship. Scripture can serve as revelation. Humans can live after death.

After Eden, God curses the world with hard child birth, patriarchy, toil, and death. The curse sets female against male, humans against nature, and humanity against the snake. We explore how these curses mirror the evolution of humans and the birth of agriculture. But. Good news. We are fighting the curse. And success is possible.

The constant evolution of religious doctrines is an argument for God's living consciousness. The Spirit is sentient! Christianity has too often shunted the Holy Spirit to the corners of our canon, as sort of the third wheel of the Trinity. But the Spirit is where we may most actively perceive God as an active living agent in our lives.

We answer more listener questions! How does the Spirit move and change through time? How should Christians approach the Qur'an? If we could make a Bible TV show, what book would we choose? And is America the new Roman Empire? Also, what does it mean to love our enemies?

Jesus Christ flips. He is the anti-emperor who becomes the symbol of empire. He resists all elements of power, and then becomes the all powerful. He is the incarnation that eventually rejects humanity. What Jesus stands for in the Bible versus what Jesus comes to represent makes the New Testament one of the saddest books ever written.

Listener questions we consider - What is your favorite and least favorite book of the Bible? What would you ask Jesus (historical Jesus) if you had the chance? Do you know anything about Song of Songs? I've heard some interpret it a source a metaphor about the relationship btw Yahweh and Israel, but that seems strange. If you could become friends with someone from the Bible or a biblical author, who would it be and what would your friendship look like?

Have you been burned by the church? Found solace in Zen? Maybe you love your humanist discussion group. Maybe your church is the place you feel the most loved. Maybe you're disillusioned with religion in general. How do we hold the tension between the goodness and the badness of religion? Amanda shares a some stories of tension in this sermon.

Contemporary Christianity has split into hordes of different factions. And we try to find labels to identify different kinds of Christians. These labels are probably necessary in order to talk about the modern faith. . . but these labels are also intensely problematic. Let's try to use lots and lots of humility and forgiveness when it comes to finding adjectives to describe diverse groups of people.

Satan is a powerful force of evil in Scripture. He is an independent agent who challenges God, and successfully rules the world for awhile. But Satan's power rests in a very simple lie, based on ignorance and outdated science. Satan claims that some people are better, more real, and other people. In this episode, Sam tells a myth which explores how the lie creates sin, and how faith saves us from the lie.

Old Testament Law is difficult to understand, especially on the topic of blood. Blood belongs to God alone, and menstruation makes women unclean half the month. Miriam, Moses's older sister, illustrates the disappointment and disillusionment people with periods may feel when reading these verses. But in his treatment of the Bleeding Woman and of the Last Supper, Jesus takes away the shame of menstruation. In place of shame, Jesus shares with all people his divinity.

Amanda and Sam cruise all over the Bible, seeing how modern progressive ideas are ancient and Biblical. Unitarian Universalism is no longer an exclusively Christian belief network, But it is still historically linked to the Bible, and it's seven principles can all be traced back to Biblical teachings. Amanda, who is in training to become a UU minister, shows how her love of Scripture helped guide her into the Unitarian Universalist tradition. Note: This episode was recorded very early in Amanda's UU seminary education and experience of the Unitarian Universalism. Therefore, the terminology used is a little imprecise (calling the Unitarian Universalist Association "the UU," rather than the UUA, or "Church" rather than Congregation, Fellowship, or Association) and the history is simplified and suspect.

Question - which gospel author would you most like to write your biography? Sam discusses the strengths, and weaknesses, of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. He shows what elements of Jesus are captured in each narrative. And how those same themes would be present in our own lives.

At the center of the Book of Lamentations, there's a long fantastic personal prayer. The author is hurt by God. The author loves God. The author tries to convince himself to trust God, but God doesn't seem to work that way anymore. Lamentations 3 shows off the cognitive dissonance between judgement and grace, fear and hope, the same cognitive dissonance than makes Christianity relevant.

It's a weekday night. You want to sit back, chillax, and read a Minor Prophet. Which one will be the most fun!?!?!? This minisode answers that ageold question you didn't know you were asking. How do you rank the Minor Prophets in order of Entertainment Value?

The Book of Lamentations captures that darkest sensation, when God becomes an enemy. Lamentations is our favorite book of the Bible. It has the darkest depiction of God seen in Scripture. And it may have the most hopeful, most empowering depiction of humanity in Scripture. These poems reject toxic religion.

Hard Atheism is the claim that there are no gods. This form of secularism is outdated, unnecessary, and accidentally hurts and silences progressive or alternative forms of religion. There is a theist/atheist binary that over simplifies the wisdom of modern religion and modern secularism.

In this minisode, Amanda explores threads of continuity throughout her faith journey. The presence of God and the stories of those who have drawn on that presence for strength in difficult times have been interpreted and reinterpreted, but their power has remained.

Without refugee narratives, the entire essence and logic and plot of the Bible ceases to exist. Ignore them and we lose our religion. In this episode Sam looks at how being forced out of their country impacted the Biblical authors, and really created the Bible. And he takes a glimpse at the dark husk of a Scripture we're left with if the refugee voice is ignored.

The Bible was made up of Songs, poems, prose, letters, narratives, genealogies. . . all kinds of different media. So! If the Bible were made today, it certainly would not be a book! Amanda and her husband Jim go through the Bible and figure out how best to present a modern Bible. Revelation is a music video. Proverbs are a bunch of memes. This episode is totally delightful.

The idea that God is control of absolutely everything is incredibly common. That is because all of the universe is bound by its own existence, and it is incredibly easy to turn existence into its own God. Unfortunately this God is insanely problematic, and insanely real.

Judah is finished. The temple is destroyed. The old God conception failed. The prophet Ezekiel tries to make sense of everything that's happened. And he seems to go insane. And in this process, he discovers a new God conception. A deadly and sensible and true and awful God conception. Ezekiel may be the most intellectually appealing of all the prophets, which makes him the most dangerous. Also! Flying machines!!!!!!!!!

Amanda shares one of the great introspective legends of Deuteronomistic History. The prophet Elijah has just saved his country from drought, and scientifically proven the existence of God. But soon his victory turns on its head, and Elijah flees for his life. Everything has fallen apart, and Elijah sinks into despair. But then God makes an appearance. Or does God make an appearance? How we perceive God is so confusing.

God is a disembodied voice. God is a rock. God is a person. God is a weather phenomena. God is Lady Wisdom. God is love. God is a whole mess of different kinds of objects. But the Western Theological tradition likes to paint God as consistent, having one dependable form. in this minisode, Sam uses the Bible to rant against the annoying God of the Philosophers, and dorks out over the crazy shapeshifting bizzaro God of Scripture. He was drinking rum at the time, so it gets pretty fun!

Gideon illegitimate son tries to declare himself king. Lots of innocent people die in the process, and we get to hear a very trippy sermon about evil anthropomorphic plants. The central gist is that it's a very very very very bad idea to have a king.This is the direct sequel to Gideon: When God just wants to be Famous episoe, so we suggest you listen to that one first.

Gideon is a rationalist skeptic douchebag. God is an ultra absurdist diva with massive jealously issues. Together, they fight Midianites, as we explore one of the craziest and funniest moments in the saddest part of the Bible.

Meet us! Amanda describes growing up having fun with a strong Christian faith. She talks about how good Christian education led her to doubt certain teachings, so she eventually became agnostic. Sam describes growing up as a kinda sloppy Christian, and how good Christian education led him into Bible love. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

Amanda describes her faith journey from conservative Christianity to agnosticism and finally into the progressive Unitarian Universalist (UU) tradition. She describes how within conservative Christianity, she struggled with 'small q questions,' faith problems she believed had answers. But later, she discovered 'Big Q Questions," problems with her faith for which it didn't seem possible for there to be satisfying answers. And these Questions eventually led out of conservative Christianity into agnosticism and the UU. The journey was difficult, in particular sharing her faith change with family, friends, and her church and seminary community, most of whom were Christians. But through difficult and vulnerable conversations, Amanda came to realize that the differences between conservative and liberal religion were not so insurmountable as she had thought. The veil is thin. This Minisode is a recorded sermon delivered at All Souls Community Church of West Michigan, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Grand Rapids. http://www.allsoulscommunity.org/ P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

Refugees return from exile in Babylon, and they try to rebuild. But religion is irrevocably changed. Books of the Bible start debating each other, and it gets intense. Some conservative books, like Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, try to return to the old ways. Other books, like Jonah and Ruth, trail blaze very different ways to define God and Israel. The early post-exillic era is one of the most theologically diverse periods in all of Judeo-Christian history. Even God isn't safe as Job thoroughly dissects the very concept of divinity. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

Irony - Noun. The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite. Irony is present in just about every book in the Bible. Heaven is opposite world, and the Day of the Lord is opposite Day. Things are not as they seem. Oh, and welcome to the age of Drumpf. Note - Many minisodes will only feature either Amanda or Sam. This episode only features Sam. Annnnnnnd. . . .whoops. Sam made a mistake. He said that the doctrine of all books of the Bible not conflicting with each other was called the "Perspicuity of Scripture." Those words do not mean what he thought they meant. Perspicuity of Scripture is the notion that normal people can understand the true meaning of the Bible without the help of tradition or external theological explanation. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

The Old Testament comprises over half a million words written by dozens of authors over a thousand years. The history of its interpretation is basically the history of the West. So we've decided to summarize the whole thing in two podcasts. Because we're nuts. In part 1, we find the Israelites struggling to maintain a world view as everything goes wrong. Eventually the entire religious system falls apart, the old God is destroyed, and the last remnant of Judean culture is trapped in exile. But sometimes hope comes in weird places. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

Howdy! Every week we'll be releasing an extra minisode where one of us or both of us tackle a shorter topic. This week we explain our Theme Song, which combines the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness and the text it's based on, Lamentations 3. We discuss the contrast between the hymn and the text, and various ways they dialogue with one another. Then our conceptualizing is disrupted by a New Jersey insurance salesmen. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.

In our pilot episode, we introduce ourselves and the Bible. Like, why do we care so much about the Bible that we're doing a podcast about it? And hey, where does the Bible begin? Genesis, the first book of the Christian Bible, is a clear contender with its creation narratives. But different traditions have put the many books of the Bible in different orders. We'll begin with Amos, which is probably the first book to be written down. P.S. If this recording is too quiet, we are sorry! If it's really hard to listen at this volume, you may want to skip to Gideon, Episode 6, at which point we have fixed this issue.