Monthly Archives: March 2026

How God shines the light on who we are:

When God calls himself “light”, he means that his very nature is to reveal. It is inseparable from his being.
He reveals himself in all of creation. He reveals himself in the souls of humankind.
And like light, he reveals what lies in darkness. He cannot NOT reveal, for he cannot lie.

Human lie. Humans have darkness in the heart and hidden places where they think they are unseen. But God’s nature is to reveal, for he is light.

What we are seeing today which is so frightening to us is God’s revelation. Not only of himself, but also the darkness that lies in the hearts of evangelicalism.

God revealed the hearts of humans in the days of Jesus. He revealed their hurts to heal, the illnesses to take away, they pain and isolation to draw into community –

And he also reveals their darkness, their hatred, their schemes, their vicious lusts. He revealed himself to the woman caught in adultery and loved her. He revealed the murder and lies in the heart of the leaders of the Jews and they slunk away and plotted his death.

The heart of the huge evangelical corporate machine is revealed more so every day. There is no depth that they have not already reached and will continue to reach.

The broken contracts and promises of Reformed and Presbyterian churches are being revealed every day.

Donald Trump is a revelation. If those who claim the name of Christ will open their eyes, they will see their hearts revealed. It is an ugly, bloated, lying, lecherous, contract-breaking, amoral psychopath that knows nothing of love, beauty, wisdom, art or goodness.

The problem isn’t the slug in the white house. He is a mirror and that mirror is God’s light shining on who we are.

Look at your king, America. Look at the natives you tortured and raped and slaughtered in his bloated face. Look at the enslaved image-bearers you bullwhipped and traded like property to enrich yourself.

Look at the totalitarian dictators you set up throughout the world, impoverishing millions to rape their lands. Your golden ballroom and Temu-liberace decor in the oval office is a revelation of America. The dignity is erased for we had none. We tortured people of color, we raped women and children, we stole from the poor to enrich those that we already enriched and we called it the “American dream”.

And now the curtain is pulled away. Here is your god.
Let’s see if his bloated ugly corpse can save us in the day of trouble.

Before we reap what we sow, God is exposing us to the world. Will we move towards light and love and beauty and goodness, or will we continue to rape and pillage and destroy?

After this nightmare is over, we have a lot to rebuild. May we rebuild far better than we built. But maybe the first building has to come down.

Three years ago…

I have mixed feelings about this.

First, this is the week that my former denomination would hold its annual meeting. So those memories come up in my feed.

I remember how miserable those meetings were.

The horrible things that leaders of the church would say out loud.

The pride and entitlement that they didn’t earn

The hardened hearts and disregard of covenants

For the last ten years, I was just looking for an out. I stayed too long, but I kept thinking about the women and children still left there and the horrible things they were enduring and didn’t want to abandon them.

And it is hard to break away from the church of your childhood…

Then they tried me for “false teaching” without telling me what that false teaching was, tore my congregation apart, and left us to pick up the pieces. There were a handful of families left who hadn’t bent the knee to Baal, and we decided to sell the building and close the doors.

Three years ago, my wife and daughter and I said goodbye to my daughter, my son-in-law, and my grandchildren. We had one last breakfast at their house and hugged, and then left California for good.

This is where the mixed feelings come in. I miss them intensely and still get choked up.

I had a few very close friends that went through the fire with me and I miss them so much it hurts.

But when I think about everything else we left, there is a lightness in my heart and a spring in my step. I see the old pictures of our meetings and shake my head.

“I can’t believe I sat through that garbage. I can’t believe I participated in it.”

And I’m so, so glad I’m out. And I love our new town and our new community. I get asked so many times about “why I left California”, and it is always asked with a sort of hushed incredulous tone. I left because after spending most of my life there, and being born and raised there, it wasn’t home.

My niece told me a while back “You were just in the wrong circles…”

For the first time in my life I feel like I’m home, like I belong, like this is where I fit. I think she was right.

I know my old circles think that I’m a far left, liberal lunatic, who has gone off the rails. I know that they tell each other that I left the safety of the “church” and now I don’t have any rails on my thinking…I know that I am the topic of many conversations as a warning…but I don’t care.

Those in the cave never understand the ones who got away. Those who are afraid that God will punish them if they step out of line will never understand a God who loves freely and unconditionally and calls us to freedom. To release fear and suspicion and hatred of the “other”.

But those who got away understand completely. They are my people.

A lot has happened in three years. My thinking has become for firm, and less dogmatic all at the same time. The destruction caused by conservative Reformed churches is reaching its peak and will burst soon.

For those who don’t know, Pete Hegseth is a member of a cult lead by Doug Wilson, who has been corrupting Reformed churches for thirty years. Those who think like Wilson, have his books on their bookracks in church and follow him were those who destroyed my congregation.

The breaking of covenants that I saw repeatedly in my denomination is now carried out internationally and is destabilizing the whole world.

This is one area that I really wish I wasn’t right about. But I had warned about it for years. And then I see the architect of patriarchal rot standing in the Pentagon “preaching” and I say – I was right about this.

Those who whisper in hushed tones about feminism like it is a dirty word; those who crush the poor and the widow, those who mock the orphan and the fatherless…

By the way, in those circles a “feminist” is a woman who expressed disagreement with her husband or her (male) church leaders. They believe that “feminists” must be defeated or society will fall apart.

But this rot will tear itself apart. We live in similar times to Isaiah, who wrote to the faithful outcasts:

“Fear not, says your God, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”

And he never has. Even through fiery trials, hard times, hard goodbyes, nights of vomiting, heart palpitations, heart attacks,

He is still there, walking with us. He hates what is happening because he hates injustice and cruelty. The one who loves me also loves Iranian schoolgirls and hates what happened to them. And he will come in vengeance when the time is right.

For now, he is giving us all a chance to reflect and turn away from this course before it is too late.

But I fear it might be too late.

Hold on. Be kind to each other. Encourage your neighbors. Give to the food banks. Fight for justice and integrity, and walk humbly with your God, and he will lift you up.