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Twice in the past year, someone who loves me has written to warn me that my changed theology puts my soul in danger, citing Matthew 18:15 and 2 Timothy 3:16. In this episode I share my response. If you're on a deconstruction journey and someone has told you "I'm concerned for your soul," this one is for you. I talk about taking 2 Timothy 2:15 seriously and realizing I'd only ever studied to prove myself right. I also share how inner healing and my church's failures in 2020 opened me to real repentance. I explore why the Bible isn't as "plain" as we claim, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Gregory of Nyssa and apokatastasis, and whether challenging the church is arrogance (Luther had thoughts). And I explain why I no longer need anyone to agree with me in order to trust their relationship with God. Plus: I've finished the first draft of my book, Perfect Love, Perfect Fear.

What happens when you've spent decades being shaped by God - and you finally feel ready to pour into others - but you have no one to pour into, and you're running out of time?In this episode, Brandon wrestles with a growing sense of uselessness: the institutional church isn't making disciples the way it should, he can't return to it in good conscience, and community outside its walls is nearly impossible to build. The rubber just isn't meeting the road.But then something broke open.If Christian universalism is true - if resurrection means an embodied, eternal life on a restored earth - then death doesn't end the call. It doesn't end the purpose. It doesn't even end the discipleship. The grave has no hold on what God is building in you."O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" This episode is about why that passage hits completely differently when you take eternity seriously.Topics covered:- Why the institutional church is failing at discipleship (and the numbers to prove it)- Organic church and the problem of community outside the institution- Christian universalism and the sweep of scripture toward universal reconciliation- Embodied resurrection and the renewed earth in Isaiah, Romans, and Revelation 21- Why your usefulness to the Kingdom does NOT end when you dieScripture referenced: Matthew 28:19, Romans 5:18, 2 Peter 3:9, Ephesians 1:3-2:10, 1 Corinthians 15:51-55, Isaiah 65:17-25, Romans 8:19-23, Revelation 21Crucible of Thought is Brandon's podcast exploring theological deconstruction, progressive Christianity, and what faithful living looks like after you've left easy answers behind.Subscribe and leave a comment - they all get read!

If you grew up in evangelical Christianity, you probably learned a version of prayer that treats God like a cosmic vending machine - put in the right coin, get out the answer you want. But what if that's not how prayer works at all? This episode explores two very different theologies of what Jesus came to do, and how each one shapes what we expect when we pray. If you're deconstructing your faith but want to stay Christian, this might reframe the question in a way that actually helps. You can watch this in video form at https://youtu.be/WLdsuszojtU

Your brain is lying to you about God - and the consequences are devastating. In this episode, we explore the deeply human psychological habit of “tokenizing” - reducing complex realities to simple mental shortcuts - and reveals how we inevitably do this with God, collapsing the infinite Divine into a neat little package of doctrine, denomination, and politics that fits comfortably in our minds. But that comfort comes at a terrible cost: it locks us into a distorted, shrunken picture of God, turns us against anyone whose “tokens” differ from ours, and has even been used to justify violence, oppression, and the idolization of political figures. Drawing on Scripture, psychology, and his own journey of deconstruction, we make a compelling case that God has always resisted being boxed in - and invites us to the terrifying, exhilarating freedom of encountering a God too wild and vast to be contained by any label. This is also posted in video format at https://youtu.be/8DPVnnOcqJ0

Did you grow up feeling really squeamish about Jesus' assertion from the Sermon on the Mount that if our eye offends us, we are supposed to gouge it out? I sure did. It seems particularly over the top, even for a radical like Jesus, and I reckon that we'd assume the only people to follow that teaching are probably mentally disturbed. But I think there's something really deep and really valuable that is hiding in that brief teaching, and I'd love to open it up for our thinking today. You can also watch this at https://youtu.be/RvBd1BnG0lo

I've been so deeply disappointed in watching famous preachers and worship leaders kissing the ring of this antichrist administration. The Pentagon worship services established by Pete Hegseth are not in keeping with the founding and the character of the United States of America, and the preachers and worship leaders supporting them have abandoned any pretense of serving the church universal, and have taken sides with the empire that stands opposed to righteousness. You can watch this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I8EcxK6ENM

Some things are Truth, but not true. What if everything most Christians have assumed about Armageddon is wrong, and if our holy calling is to love our enemies and lay down our lives in peace, not to march out in war against them? You can view this as a video at https://youtu.be/3CEtxslXvhE

Most of the time that conservative Christians encounter the doctrine of universal reconciliation, they usually describe it with a bunch of caricatures, and I thought it would be useful to discuss those caricatures and contrast them to the truth about this doctrine. You can also read this in blog form at https://crucibleofthought.com/why-many-evangelicals-misunderstand-universal-reconciliation/ A video version can be found at https://youtu.be/PYjql3T3VQA

What do we do when our government becomes untrustworthy? I've been wrestling with this question for a while now. And everything I see coming convinces me that we're in for a REALLY rough ride in the near future. So what do we do about it? I have some ideas that won't fix any of our nation's problems - but they will give us a roadmap for bringing the love of God to those around us, even as the darkness grows. You can watch this episode at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IXpfeZ-wnE

This week we watched another George-Floyd-like expression of extreme injustice by a government official take place in front of, and despite the obvious presence of, multiple cameras. In fact, that official was even captured on camera recording his actions on his own personal cell phone camera. The horror and outrage that so many are feeling today is understandable. But I'm wrestling with the definition of justice that I inherited from my evangelical upbringing, and my personal expectations of what God will do about the injustice, and how I was raised to think and pray about events like we see unfolding today. And the long and short of it is, God seems to expect us to do a lot more about the injustice, than we are comfortable admitting to ourselves. You can also watch this episode at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcFdo_U4_c

What if the thing Christians call "hell" was effectively just a welding torch, designed to join us all into one? What if we could become one, without all that heat and fire and pain? Let's talk about becoming one, and how it relates to something the aerospace industry calls "cold welding" or "vacuum welding." You can watch this in video form at https://youtu.be/Teaf6POYL50

I'm joined by Paule Patterson and Andy Luiten to discuss the state of the American church, and her relationship to prophetic voices calling her to account. How did the church get here? What factors are at play? Can we learn anything from the counseling professions as we think about whether the church can recover from its challenges? You can also watch this at https://youtu.be/-cL9POzUh5k

Paule Patterson and I talk about awakening and enlightenment, then the very opposite: the idea of kenosis, of dying to self, of ego death. What does it mean for the Son of Man to experience a mystical awakening? How do we need to die to self, to experience a death of our "ego," to become truly alive? Is this an individual thing, or can it only be experienced in community? Paule and I explore these questions together. You can also watch this episode at https://youtu.be/7CllsdnY9oc

In my fifth conversation with Paule Patterson about his book "The Coming of the Son of Man and the Mystic Awakening", we discuss ways that the Bible adopted language from the empire around them, but subverted that empire in the very adoption of that language. You can also watch this as a video at https://youtu.be/HR9cRpFCxQQ

Life and death are impossible to separate. And inevitably, life itself springs from death. It doesn't ease the pain of loss, but we can take comfort in the rebirth inherent in the process of life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXlIvBgsYmY