Honestly thinking (& rethinking) about God, the universe, and everything in between

Tag: prayer (Page 1 of 2)

The Pursuit of Trump: How Your Choice Could be a Faithless Act

Our “hero” surveyed the landscape.

The enemy had the upper hand. His own troops quaked with fear. Many had deserted their posts.

The consequences were dire. Our hero’s once great nation was at war, and they were losing ground. The people’s future depended on the very choices he alone made today. 

Should they lose this battle, his nation faced extinction by a Pagan enemy whose culture was bent on destroying his people’s very identity as a chosen nation of the one true God.

The time for waiting patiently had passed. Something needed to be done NOW!

What appeared on the outside to be a faithful act turned out ultimately to be…faithless.

Thus, with no other choice, Saul did the one thing he could do offer burnt offerings to God.

But what was meant as an attempt to gain God’s favor in the midst of desperation was soon met with the greatest of rebukes by Saul’s spiritual advisor.

“What have you done?!” exclaimed the prophet Samual. “You have done a foolish thing. You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you!”

The consequences of King Saul’s one single choice on that one single day were quite severe his kingdom would not endure (1 Sam 13).

What appeared on the outside to be a faithful act of Saul turned out ultimately to be…faithless.

Before continuing, let me be upfront by saying I am no less guilty of committing faithless acts. Scientists estimate that the average human makes about 35,000 choices per day, and I am quite certain that a large percentage of my 35,000 choices are committed out of faithlessness rather than faithfulness.

I am also quite certain I have been faithless at times when entering the voting booth or throwing my weight behind a political opinion. What I may have thought in the past were acts of faith, upon further reflection, turned out actually to be faithless.

But how does one determine what is “faithful” and what is “faithless?”

The Bible is full of stories of humankind committing both faithful and faithless acts, along with the consequences that follow. An examination of all of these stories reveals the following themes that are repeated throughout: Continue reading

The Day I Became an Atheist and Believed in God

This is Part 3 in the series titled “Split-Brain and the REAL Reason People are Leaving the Church”

I remember the morning quite vividly – though I’ve never really relayed it so as not to frighten the wife and kids…nor my extended family, my church, or the ministry where I work.

There I lay in bed alone, Bible yet unopened across my lap, as I attempted to do my morning “Quiet Time” ritual of conversing with God and learning from his “Word.”

Full of doubts and questions and unable to hear much in return, I remember the thought flashing across my mind: “Oh crap, what if none of this is REAL?”

And in that moment, I allowed myself to believe it.

And it was good.

Now let me back up a bit to before that “fateful” day. Continue reading

Split-Brain and the REAL Reason People are Leaving the Church, Part 2

In July of 2019, Joshua Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and the person largely credited with advancing the “purity culture” movement, shocked the evangelical Christian world when he announced on Instagram, “I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”

Just a few weeks later, Marty Sampson, worship leader and songwriter for Hillsong, sent a second shockwave as he likewise proclaimed, “Time for some real talk… I’m genuinely losing my faith… and it doesn’t bother me… like, what bothers me now is nothing… I am so happy now, so at peace with the world… it’s crazy.”

Then in May of 2020, Jon Steingard, lead singer of the popular Christian band Hawk Nelson, posted “After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life – I am now finding that I no longer believe in God.”

Hidden behind this wave of well-known individuals is a growing number of men and women who have quietly slipped away from the church, many simply finding new ways to practice their faith and others leaving behind faith entirely. A significant number of them had spent most of their lives in the church, some of them serving as leaders and pastors, before realizing that they could no longer reconcile their actions with what they truly believed.

In revealing words, Marty Sampson went on to say, “I want genuine truth. Not the ‘I just believe it’ kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I keeping it real.”

Real. A word often cited by those struggling with faith.

In Part 1 of this series I noted what I consider to be the underlying thread behind people leaving their faith communities: people have a need to believe in something that is real and they’re simply not finding it in the church.

Also in Part 1, I explained some of the neuroscience, combined with harmful theology, that I believe has contributed to this, particularly in Western society. I highly encourage you to read it before proceeding, as it will make a lot more sense of what I have to say in the upcoming sections. For those who have already read it, here is a shortened summary: Continue reading

Split-Brain and the REAL Reason People are Leaving the Church, Part 1

I had already been working on an article exploring reasons people in the Western world are leaving the Christian church in significant numbers when I learned about the fascinating case of “split-brain” surgeries – something that totally blew my mind (no pun intended).

In the 1960s Roger Sperry, Joseph Bogen and colleagues performed an experimental surgery, officially known as corpus callosotomy, on multiple patients who suffered from epileptic seizures. The procedure involved severing the corpus callosum which connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Though the procedure is no longer performed today it turned out to be highly successful and, for the most part, patients were able to go on to live normal, healthy lives. But it wasn’t long, however, before split-brain patients noticed some peculiar and fascinating side effects.

One patient reported reaching into the closet with the right hand to pick out an outfit, only to have the left hand pick something different and refuse to put it back. A man found himself going to embrace his wife with one arm while his other arm simultaneously pushed her away.

On a more dangerous level, a female patient relayed that when she was driving her left hand would snatch the steering wheel from the right. She also reported her left hand: unfolding sheets her other hand had folded, closing doors the other had opened, and snatching money back that her right hand offered to a cashier.

In short, because each side of the body is controlled by the two different halves of the brain (the left side by the right hemisphere, the right side by the left hemisphere) these side effects seemed to indicate that the two hemispheres of the brain have two completely separate, and sometimes competing, wills.

So what does this have to do with people leaving the church?

One half of the person’s brain had faith and the other half was an atheist.

Here’s where things get even more interesting. Split-brain patients naturally became the subjects of further brain experiments. Able to selectively control input to each hemisphere, neuroscientists used the opportunity to direct various questions (via input to the left versus right eye or ear, for example) in order to determine how each half separately handles various functions or attitudes.

In one experiment, V.S. Ramachandran reportedly asked a patient, “Do you believe in God?” The response from one hemisphere was “Yes” and the other hemisphere was “No.”

In other words, one half of the person’s brain had faith and the other half was an atheist.

What does this mean? Is our faith biologically controlled and entirely dependent upon whether we are “left brained” or “right brained?” 

My answer is that it’s a bit more complicated than that. But what I hope to demonstrate throughout the rest of this article is what I have come to believe is the root cause of the mass exodus from the church in Western society – we are all operating out of a “split-brain” mode, largely dominated by left-brained only thinking.

Such thinking has infiltrated the Christian church itself for years, creating an unsustainable belief system largely removed from the type of lived-out faith that Christ intended. The consequences are that the jig is up, the dominoes are now starting to fall and people no longer see the God who has been presented as something that is real. Continue reading

Life on Pause in the Time of Corona

It happened the other night.

After spending the last week barraged by constant news of the impending coronavirus pandemic heading our way, rushing out to Boston to help my son quickly pack and fly home as his college suddenly shut down, working overtime on the weekend in order to keep up with my workload, and various meetings at work to determine how best to respond to this crisis, I came home one evening, headed to the porch, plopped myself in the big brown, cushy office swivel chair (now repurposed as a “porch” chair), took in the warmth of the humidity gifted to us by the light drizzle of rain that had visited us earlier that day, appreciated the unusual silence from the lighter street traffic due to “social distancing,” intermixed with the sound of crickets happily chirping away apparently unaware of the potential calamity us humans faced, and for the next hour I thought about…….nothing.

I needed my nothing moment.

I needed my life to be on pause… just for a moment.

And it was good.

Of course, none of us can truly think about nothing; but with no agenda to accomplish, no pressing questions requiring immediate answers and no media to distract, it at least allows for your brain to sort of reset.

And I couldn’t help but walk away from that moment thinking that perhaps that is exactly what’s going on. Perhaps with all of us forced into solitude and with many of us either forced to stop work or to at least change our usual routines, this is God’s way of putting all of our lives on pause.

And not just my neighborhood or my country, but the whole world.

As a meme I recently read on Facebook stated, “I can’t help but feel this is like the earth sending us to our rooms to think about what we’ve done.”

This is not the first time I’ve had to have a “pause” moment. In fact, it’s become a more routine part of my life lately. I’ve shared openly on this blog about some of the mental health crises my immediate family has struggled through. What I haven’t shared is my own mental health crisis I experienced a little over a year ago. Continue reading

The Leading Cause of Death

I need to inform you all about something fairly significant…

I’m dying.

I’ve actually known about this for quite a while, but the timing seems right for me to let you all know now.

It’s from an illness that’s acronym is T.O.K.G.E (which I will explain later). It’s about as dangerous of a disease as any known to humankind, and its symptoms are quite severe…

So serious that it affects every area of my life. Continue reading

Check out my new book, “Rethinking God!”

Book description:

The God you think exists does not exist.

By examining science, philosophy, and the Bible, Steve Baldwin reveals the existence of a God that is radically different than most have understood. He demonstrates how we lack a consistent definition for “God” and the result is often a God we see as too insignificant for our lives, too distant for relationship and having little relevance to our daily realities. By proposing a new understanding of the name of God, Steve uncovers a God that really does exist and bridges the widening gap between faith and science:

“What if we are looking at two sides of the same coin? What if billions, if not infinite, combinations played out together to ‘accidentally’ create over a length of time an ordered universe with intelligent creatures, reflecting the very natural laws and character of its intelligent, creative, and I daresay even loving source – existence?”

The universe is telling stories.

The question is, why?

Words

The words felt good.

Just a few simple words replying to comments on someone’s post

enough to knock them down a few inches and build my own self worth.

Then sit back and count the number of likes,

never minding who gets hurt

…in my war of words.

Words that were so filling and yet so          empty.

Words.

Funny things they are

just utterances of sounds

and a bunch of .dots and lines and curves

and yet so powerful in everything they do.

They start wars and bring peace.

They destroy relationships and make best friends.

Whisper “I love you” and you build a new bond.

Utter “I do” and you start a new life

write We the People and a whole new nation is born. Continue reading

13 Ways You Make God Too Small and the 1 Reason Why

I previously shared an article titled “We’ve Made God Too Small.” This was based on a thought process I went through and a major revelation that not only changed my life but also sent me on a spiritual, philosophical and scientific journey, essentially leading me to rethink how I think about God.

I also shared in my very first blog article, “Not Gonna Lie,” how I am a hypocrite – because half of what I state here I have trouble believing myself.

It is with that understanding I present the following list. Even though I say “You” I could just as easily say “I.” I have been guilty of every one of these at various points and continue to struggle to this day.

But I also know I am not alone. I have seen this kind of thinking problem in practically everyone I’ve met.

And so I give you…

13 ways you make God too small: Continue reading

A Trump Protester’s Insider Look Within the Evangelical Trump Supporting World

The Meeting

I wanted to throw up.

Here I was sitting in a room full of well-known evangelical leaders saying positive things about then- candidate Donald Trump, talking as if he was the best hope for all Americans.

Of course, none of them could publicly “endorse” him, but their exuberance for him was obvious.

How could they be so blinded? Did they not see what I could see? Did they not see Trump was contrary to everything they stood for…so contrary to Christ?

Many of them I highly respected. Many were mentors in the faith – ones who had taught me so much about hearing God.

How is it they were hearing something so radically different than me? Especially after I had clearly heard the complete opposite.

Some of them talked about the many private hours they had spent with Trump and how he really listened to them and was respectful. They talked about his love for ALL Americans.

What? You’re kidding me, right?

I wanted to stand up and shout, “You fools!!! Don’t you realize he’s manipulating you? As soon as he wins, you’re all gone. You’re just pawns!”

Of course, then they’d know my secret. Continue reading

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