nakedpastor

My rock, my raising
I was raised in Christianity and the Church, in Canada.
I read the Bible from beginning to end
and underlined anything that meant something to me.
To me the Bible was “inspired, infallible, and inerrant,”
descended down from God as a perfectly factual document.

I learned and I found
I attended a Pentecostal Bible College in Springfield, Missouri,
and got my degree in Biblical Studies.
There I fell madly in love with Lisa,
a southern girl from Alabama.
We got married two days after I graduated.
That fire still burns hot!

And then it began
We moved to Boston where I studied at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
and got my Masters in New Testament Studies. Just before graduation is when
my deconstruction began.

The new knowledge hurt It was a traumatic moment. I’d just read a book that undermined my belief in the inspiration of Scripture. I was devastated.

It rocked my foundations
Lisa had to physically shake me
to make me get my act together
so that I could attend the graduation ceremony.
Here began the slow, painful process
of the gradual but radical change in my beliefs.

And my world began to crumble
The Bible was the foundation stone upon which my beliefs were built.
Once this fundamental belief was eroded, the whole structure of my faith
began to crumble.

I tried to keep things together
Nevertheless, I forged forward, getting ordained into the ministry,
and serving as a pastor for about 30 years. All those years, like a slow glacial melt,
my deconstruction spread throughout my system, causing me great theological and spiritual anxiety.

There had to be a breaking point
How could I reconcile my own spiritual insights with the Bible and what I’d been told to believe? Could I really believe in love and grace and a compassionate God when billions of people were excluded from this love?

I saw the bigger picture
I was extensively versed in Christian theology. But I also read philosophers, physicists,
Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, atheists, and so many more, who seemed to be speaking,
at a certain level, the same language.

I made the connection
Finally, in 2009, I experienced a profound epiphany. In a flash I saw that we are all connected, one, at a deep and fundamental level. I saw that there is one reality, but
countless articulations of it.

I saw the division and the vision
I saw that the only thing that seems to divide us is language. Words that express ideas…ideas that are attempts at articulating our individual interpretations of reality.
The one reality we all live and are connected within. This new vision compelled my work and I began sharing my insights online.

We lost almost everything
In 2010, I decided I had to leave the ministry and the church in order to keep growing. The pressure to leave was strong. We lost friends, our community, my vocation and income, our sense of purpose and destiny, and so much more.

Was love enough?
Our marriage was stretched and strained as we tried to figure out what was really the glue that held us together: sharing the same beliefs and working together in the church, or love?

We decided it was love.
This was just another lesson proving to me that it is not compatibility of beliefs that makes relationships and community work, but love. I saw that love unites, while ideas and words divide.

A vision of love and unity
I now believe we are all deeply connected. One. United. I strive to articulate and encourage this oneness, but also speak truth to the powers that attempt to deny it and divide us. Instead of serving a local church only,
I now serve people all around the world online.

That’s why I created this community🧡
A place to use my art to push the boundaries, challenge your thinking and create conversation.

I believe everybody deserves the right to explore their spirituality,
express their doubts and beliefs without restraint,
and to be supported on their personal journey.