📚 I wrote a book! 📚 I’ve spent the last 15 years walking alongside people with spiritual trauma. In almost every case, the primary weapon used against them was the Bible. Instead of leading to healing and wholeness, which has always been God’s intention for humanity, Scripture has been used to shame and scold, judge and condemn, marginalize and oppress. Far too many folks have experienced the Bible as a toxic text that causes more harm than good. This book is an attempt to take what I’ve learned from brilliant authors, activists, scholars and theologians, as well as from the incredible people I get to minister alongside every day, and synthesize it into a helpful resource for reading the Bible in better ways. To do that, we’ll dismantle four common lenses for reading Scripture that lead to harm—Literalism, Apocalypse, Moralism, and Hierarchy. And then we’ll explore four new lenses—Jesus, Context, Flourishing, and Fruitfulness—that promote healing and wholeness for all people. We’ll take these better lenses and apply them to frequently weaponized biblical passages, concepts, and statements, like “I do not permit a woman to teach,” the creation story in Genesis, the notorious “clobber verses” used  against LGBTQ people, the book of Revelation, eternal conscious torment in hell, and much more. I started this journey because I came to believe that if our way of interpreting the Bible hurts people, then it must be reconsidered. The way of Jesus always leads to healing, not harm. Better ways to read the Bible exist, ways that lead to restoration, wholeness, and flourishing for all people. If you feel similarly and are ready to take a fresh look at the Scriptures, welcome to the journey. Let’s discover better ways of reading the Bible together. Also, PLEASE PREORDER TODAY! The book comes out August 12th, but preorders are so important, especially for a first-time author like me. Thank y’all so much 💙

Facebook is a truly amazing place.

“The USDA needs $18.8 billion to feed every child in the US school system breakfast and lunch each day. Elon could pay for that 64x and still have money leftover.”

Elon Musk is now a trillionaire. More specifically, his net worth is $1.2 trillion or $1200 billion. That number doesn’t even compute for most of us, so here is some helpful context: The USDA needs $18.8 billion to feed every child in the US school system breakfast and lunch each day. Elon could pay for that 64x and still have money leftover. The World Food Program needs $13 billion to feed the 110 million hungriest people on earth. Elon could pay for that 92x and still have money leftover. The National Alliance to End Homelessness needs $9.6 billion to provide housing for every unhoused person in the United States. Elon could pay for that 125x and still have money leftover. The average American teacher makes $74,495 per year. Elon could pay the annual salary of over 16 million teachers and still have money leftover. The problem is not that we don’t have enough money. The problem is that we have built a world where one person can accumulate more wealth than the GDP of 180 countries while children go hungry, families drown in medical debt, teachers are forced to buy school supplies for their students, and people sleep on the streets. This is a complete moral failure.

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

I hate soccer and couldn’t care less about the World Cup but I am actually totally down for these videos of normal non-internet poisoned Americans being like “we love the nice Algerians who chose our town!”

HYP and I disagree on many things, but not this one: the Biblical hermeneutic which leads to egalitarianism is the same one that leads to LGBTQ affirmation. It’s actually the same one that leads to abolition of slavery and racial justice as well. And that’s a really good thing, because Jesus came “to bring life and life abundantly” (John 10:10) to all people which includes full equality regardless of race, sex, gender, or sexual orientation.

Since 2000, over 380 Southern Baptist leaders have been convicted of sex crimes involving more than 700 victims all while SBC leaders covered for abusers and silenced survivors. But women preaching and pastoring is the real problem? What a joke.

Me: our Bible interpretation should lead to more love of God and neighbor. Facebook commenter:

If we are reading the Bible in ways that do not yield more love of God and more love of neighbor, the two things Jesus says are most important, then we are reading it incorrectly.

This the quintessential story of how sports reflects the state of the world. Thousands of fans have waited for Game 3 their whole lives and now they’re priced out of entering the game and can’t even celebrate outside because one billionaire gets to attend the game for free.

Happy Pride month, y’all! If you aren’t familiar with Pride, it is simply a declaration and celebration of the dignity, equality, and brilliance of LGBTQ folks. In the church world, celebrating Pride Month can be controversial, but I really don’t think it should be. Declaring the equality of all people and lifting up the unique ways we all embody God’s image shouldn’t be controversial at all. But for me, Pride isn’t only about broad support of the LGBTQ community. Pride is also about my friends—many of whom are a part of our church family at Restore. It’s about people I deeply love who have been severely harmed at the hands of Christians and churches. You see, my friends have stories. Stories that some of you wouldn’t believe. Stories of being condemned to hell, being called “abominations,” being disowned by their families, attempting suicide, and even tortured and abused through conversion therapy attempts. LGBTQ exclusion and marginalization has caused immeasurable harm to queer folks, but it has also really messed up the church. Because when we exclude people God told us to include, we miss out on the gifts and talents they bring. We miss out on the unique ways in which they bear God’s image and express the fruit of the Spirit. I can tell you firsthand just how much more Christlike love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control our community embodies because of the LGBTQ folks who pastor, preach, and lead at our church. I am so grateful to lead alongside them ❤️🏳️‍🌈

NEW: Waco Tribune Herald this morning “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is under fire for a plea deal his prosecutors offered in April to a Waco man charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy.”

The White American Evangelical leaders I grew up around told me over and over again that character matters. And I believed them. The same movement that once claimed to care deeply about morality, integrity, and family values now openly argues that cruelty, corruption, and abuse of power are acceptable—as long as they advance their right-wing political agenda and keep them in power. A version of Christianity willing to abandon those values in exchange for political power may still use the name of Christ, but it no longer resembles the person or teachings of Jesus in any meaningful way. In fact, it’s about as anti-Christ as you can get.

This is White American Evangelicalism in a nutshell: a complete abandonment of ethics, virtue, and Christlikeness in a relentless pursuit of power.

.@jamestalarico in Houston, TX: "In a time when there's so much debate about what it means to be a man, my dad showed me every Saturday morning. He would mow our lawn, and then, without telling anyone, without anyone asking him, he would go next door and mow our neighbor's lawn. She was elderly, she was a widow. He never talked about it, he just did it, because that's what a man does. He serves those around him, he takes responsibility, and he does what's right even when no one is watching. Nowadays our culture tells young men men that greatness is tearing other people down, trolling and owning and dominating, but my dad showed me what real greatness looks like."

Can we be done with the pretense that Republican primary voters vote for MAGA candidates in spite of their apostasy and corruption? The transgression is a feature, not a bug. It tells voters they don't care about law or morality. Only power.

Four years ago today, a gunman entered Robb Elementary in Uvalde and opened fire—killing 19 fourth-graders and 2 teachers. Here’s how our Governor and Attorney General reacted: “It could have been worse.” Greg Abbott “We can't stop bad people from doing bad things.” Ken Paxton VOTE THEM OUT.

So let me get this straight… We don’t have money for SNAP. We don’t have money for healthcare. We don’t have money for public schools. We don’t have money for veteran services. We don’t have money for affordable housing. We don’t have money for mental health services. We don’t have money for roads and infrastructure. But we have $1.8b for the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th?