Christian Living, Biblical Studies, Religion, Spiritual Growth, Theology
John Beeson
The Faith of Unbelief

Bart Ehrman has perhaps done more to undermine the credibility of the Bible than anyone else in my lifetime. But his story didn’t begin that way. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and skeptic. Ehrman grew up in a Christian home, attended a conservative Bible school, and then found his way to a liberal seminary where his faith in the God of the Bible unraveled. That seminary happens to be the seminary I would attend a couple of decades later.

For Ehrman, everywhere he looks he sees holes in the biblical story. The inconsistencies that he sees have led him to determine that he cannot trust in the God of the Bible.

The Faith of Unbelief
Christian Living, Culture, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Don't Numb Your Feelings

“Don’t listen to your feelings; remember what Jesus did for you!”

“Don’t be guided by your feelings; listen to what God commands you to do!”

In just the past week, I heard both of these warnings. Two very different Christian speakers urged their audiences to shut down their feelings. These admonitions resonate. They contain truth. It is correct that our feelings don’t override truth, nor do our emotions negate what God has done. Neither do our feelings give us an out for what God commands us to do.

Don't Numb Your Feelings
History, Spiritual Growth, Suffering, Wisdom
John Beeson
Lord, Reach Your Justice Down

I had outsized emotions as a child. Games, especially, would get the best of me, whether cards or boardgames or sports. In response to a stroke of bad luck, a hot surge of anger would erupt, followed quickly by tears and then embarrassment.

Emotions are God’s gift to us in many ways. They are one of his kind ways of showing us where our deep attachments lie.

Our son started his freshman year at the University of Arizona this fall. It’s been a great experience for him, but not without its adjustments. The climate of a secular school is quite different than the Christian school he graduated from

Lord, Reach Your Justice Down
Culture, Generosity, Nature, Relationships
John Beeson
Marshmallows and Friends

Most have heard of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment. In 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel invited kids into his lab. A child was offered a marshmallow that they could eat, or, if they waited until the researcher returned, they were given a second marshmallow. About one-third of the kids waited approximately fifteen minutes for the additional reward.

The study then tracked those children over time and found that children who waited for the second reward tended to have higher SAT scores and lower body mass indexes. Later tests have challenged those outcomes, but it hasn’t stopped parents everywhere from running the experiment on their kids, often with humorous results.

Marshmallows and Friends
Christian Living, Culture, Politics
John Beeson
Uprooting Our Political Identity

Happy election day!

In 2016, data scientists Eitan Hersh and Yair Ghitza analyzed data among registered voters to determine how often Democrats and Republicans married. They learned that 9% of marriages had the spouses registered in the two parties. Over the next four years that meager number would drop precipitously, down to 4%.

 As Jonathan Haidt and others have successfully argued, the ideological disparity between FOX News and CNBC are child’s play compared to the engineered social media algorithms that create hermetically sealed echo chambers for our political views.

Uprooting Our Political Identity

How can I criticize a leader?

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On Critiquing Your Pastor

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On Critiquing Your Pastor

When I was 20, my childhood church went through changes in leadership and its vision. I was across the country in the middle of my undergraduate studies in Bible and theology. In my infinite experience and knowledge of leadership (sarcasm alert!), I generously offered my wisdom free-of-charge and wrote a letter to the new lead pastor. I'm still embarrassed by that letter.

The pastor never responded to my letter, but my hunch is he never forgot it. I've never been able to create a relationship with him, and my guess is that he has intentionally kept me at arm's length after that letter. I don't blame him.

Twenty years later, I'm no stranger to being on the receiving end of those letters (and emails, Facebook messages, texts, etc.). During these past few strange months under the cloud of COVID-19, I've received more feedback than any other season of ministry. Every letter is an opportunity for me as a leader to grow in wisdom and humility. But every message takes an emotional and spiritual toll as well. These current events have caused me to reflect on that embarrassing letter and how I might do things differently if I could.

Here are five questions I wish I could have asked my 20-year-old self before he sent that critical letter:

1. How close is your relationship?

The truth is, I was merely an acquaintance with the pastor. Was it wise for my first real communication to be criticism? Recently I hosted one of our online services and one anonymous commenter left only one comment for the entire service: it was a criticism of the sound mix. I private messaged them, but never received a response. I passed on the comment to the tech team, but the hit-and-run comment left me no relational recourse as a pastor.

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