Maybe it’s Time to Take God Seriously

Reclaiming the Radical Teachings of Jesus in a Divided World

I have been reading the bible off and on for nearly 40 years. Don’t hear that as a boast but as the confession from someone who has read the bible, heard others read the bible, and read what other people had to say about reading the bible. I am also someone who fields the question, “but doesn’t the bible say…?” more than once per week.

But doesn’t the bible say this about that?

But doesn’t the bible say they are wrong?

But doesn’t the bible say I am right?

The funny thing about these types of questions is that they inevitably result in an us versus them mentality. Us versus them seems to be at the forefront of just about everything we do. Aside from parody accounts, my social media feed has been taken over in the last few years by influencers influencing on an us versus them platform. And many of these influencing influencers are Christians pushback against other Christians.

In his book The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith That Feeds on Making Enemies, author David Fitch (

Fitch’s Provocations

) writes that Christianity has “become a set of belief statements that we argue either for or against with other Christians. And the actual practice of following Jesus becomes lost in the fray.”