FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the problem that The Spiritual Brewpub (TSB) seeks to solve?

In a nutshell, it seeks to solve the problems with Tribal Christianity. I define that as any rigid Christian faith that harms individuals and society, particularly evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and other brands of conservative Christianity. Tribal Christianity can also seep into liberal forms of faith, although it is significantly much more prevalent in conservative Christianity.

What are the harmful beliefs TSB addresses?

Tribal and all forms of conservative Christianity teach believers to divide the world into “us vs. them” and to look down on “them” as hopelessly depraved, rebellious, and hell bound unless they become like “us.” This leads to scapegoating and distrusting masses of people—unbelievers, progressive Christians, agnostics, atheists, Democrats, liberals, followers of other religions, the LBGTQ community, those who don’t submit to “church discipline,” and those who leave evangelicalism or other toxic faith. In liberal faith, it can happen when people scapegoat ALL conservatives and don’t have sympathy for those who have been brainwashed by conservative Christian teaching.

One example is that evangelicalism/fundamentalism doesn’t allow for true questioning, doubts, and more historically accurate views on things like the Bible, church, church authority, LGBTQ issues, women in leadership, Christian nationalism, substitutionary atonement, the end times, eternal damnation, and what matters most in Jesus’ teachings—that is to say, his love ethic and way of mercy, peace, and restoration. Unquestioned belief in things like the infallibility of the Bible, modern church models, rejecting the LGBTQ community as sinful, not allowing women in leadership, original depravity, violent sacrificial theories of atonement, that we are probably in the last days, and eternal conscience torment for unbelievers cause warped views of a supposed loving God and religious trauma for adherents.

These unhistorical and/or rigid views lead to being spiritually abusive and controlling toward disobedient insiders and suspicious of all outsiders. It leads to calling for violence via the promotion of corporal punishment of children, encouraging women to remain in abusive marriages, a spiritually abusive church culture, not taking sexual abuse in the church seriously, retributive tough-on-crime sentencing, capital punishment, a retributive gun culture, supporting American wars, and threatening violence for outsiders through the belief in final judgment and the doctrine of hell.

The growing number of people who leave evangelicalism or any tribal faith (the process of leaving is commonly called “deconstruction”) are often persecuted and harassed by their former church, friends, and family. They also often suffer from spiritual abuse that stems from narrow expressions of Christian faith.

How does TSB content seek to solve these issues?  

My content found here (books, podcast, videos, workshop, speaking) provides real-life deconstruction stories along with historical facts about earliest Christianity that debunk a lot of evangelical/fundamentalist myths and beliefs. They help people see the restorative, peaceable message of Jesus that contradicts much of evangelical theology. They provide readers with a safe haven to honestly question conservative Christian theology and find material that helps them forge a new expression of faith that is truer to the original Jesus epic of the first century. And one that takes seriously the path of peace and restorative justice that Jesus paved, but outside of religion. It helps people expose harmful faith and find healthy faith or a new healthy theory of life.

Are you promoting a new religion?

Absolutely not. The goal here is to provide people who are questioning their faith the tools they need to follow the evidence where it leads and make up their own mind about where to land. Many people who deconstruct end up becoming progressive, liberal, or Eastern Orthodox Christians who feel they have adopted a more historically-honest way of following Christ. Others may become post-Christian but still consider themselves followers of the love ethic of Jesus. And others may become agnostic, humanist, or atheist but usually are not fundamentalist about their new belief (they left that and don’t want to duplicate it again). They too may respect or even follow the positive love ethic of Jesus despite calling themselves a skeptic or non-theist.

Why did you write Breaking Bad Faith?

When I was deconstructing evangelicalism, I noticed a pattern to all the major issues that people usually deconstruct—things like original depravity, substitutionary atonement, God-ordained genocide in the OT, the doctrine of hell, the transactional god, the infallibility of the Bible, the end times, even the modern Church. They all had ties to some form of retribution and violence. Why is that? I asked. I discovered they were related to this notion of what we call “sacred violence” or “violent sacrificial religion,” and that came from certain narratives in the Old Testament, some from Revelation, and mistranslated terms in the New Testament.

Since evangelicals believe the Bible is inerrant in everything, they are kind of forced to believe in this two-faced God, who is both violent and non-violent, hating and loving, wrathful toward sinners and a friend of sinners. They are forced to harmonize these ugly narratives like the flood story, the Canaanite Conquest, and reciprocal violence and the death penalty laws, with Jesus’ teachings. This is impossible to do if you believe in inerrancy, but they try. Believing in this two-faced God makes you accept several unhistorical doctrines. Like original depravity (where we all deserve punishment), PSA (where Jesus had to be tortured and murdered in order for God to forgive us), that God is pro war in most circumstances (particularly for our chosen-nation American wars), that God is even genocidal and created hell, where God closes the door on mercy and forgiveness and institutes the ultimate retribution for those who don’t measure up. So this pattern needed to be thoroughly deconstructed, so that’s where the book starts. It covers why this whole belief system is a myth and hallow, unhistorical, and corrupt.

How does the book address solutions to these problems?

In the second half of the book I pivot to the other side, where I bring out the fact that, giving oneself permission to judge the scriptures with an historical and logical eye, helps us to reject these retributive narratives and see the restorative narratives that pop out. Like the Joseph story in Genesis, much of the prophets’ writings that critique the sacrificial system, and especially Jesus’ teachings. Jesus was deconstructing the retributive narratives in Jewish thought and the Torah and Writings right before our eyes. He wasn’t harmonizing all scripture—he was not an inerrantist with the Bible at all. Jesus was pointing to a counter myth of restorative justice and peace. The counter myth comes from certain parts of the Jewish scriptures and Jesus’ revelations. So I wanted to put a large sign post in the ground for people deconstructing evangelicalism or other forms of tribal Christianity and trying to rebuild something. Hey, there is a peaceable path here that is worthy of following and it has nothing to do with the religion of Christianity. Christianity, the way we know it, didn’t even exist until 200 years after Jesus. So, I wanted people to see the beauty of that path in contrast to the ugliness of all the things we deconstruct.

How does the deconstruction workshop help people?

The Religious Deconstruction Workshop helps people questioning their faith to deconstruct and rebuild something new, beautiful, and more historically honest. It also helps people to overcome religious trauma and find a new community of like-minded ex-evangelicals or those formerly of other faiths. Click on the link above for a full description.