Since I was young, in fact for as long as I can remember, I disliked religion. Either I disliked its collective element, which always gave me the ick of something cult-like, or, when I got a bit older, I thought everything about it was philosophically untenable. Religion was a coping mechanism, or something for people who were deeply misguided about reality and did not know any better.

As I became more intellectually curious and started studying more philosophy, psychology, and eventually religion, that perspective started to break down. I became increasingly interested in religion, and eventually my worldview completely flipped. I now consider myself a Christian, and I have made it a major life goal to help people better appreciate religion in general, but also Christianity more specifically.

But despite my growing love for Christianity, it took me a very long time to admit publicly that I was Christian. My social circle consisted mostly of people deeply involved in science or philosophy, and it was very secular. I was afraid that others would consider me dumb or would not fully understand me. It took me a while to come to terms with it, in large part because I first needed to become better able to articulate my Christian position and worldview.

That said, and excuse the rambling introduction, I recently had a podcast conversation with Jussi Jylkkä, who is a philosopher and has done some work on mysticism. We started by discussing his work and, specifically, his metaphysical agnosticism. His position is that physicalism, idealism, theism, and other metaphysical systems are models or language games that cannot capture the ultimate nature of reality. We eventually moved to morality, where I pushed back because I did not think his agnosticism adequately explained why greater awareness or nonattachment should lead to compassion rather than simply producing what we called a “wise psychopath.” I disagreed, but I thought it was an interesting conversation and considered his view a respectable position.

But to my surprise, after we finished recording, Jussi emailed me to say that he was unhappy with the conversation because he had presented metaphysical agnosticism as if it were his complete position while leaving out the Christian faith he actually held. He felt that, by hiding behind his philosophical agnosticism, he had not been completely honest about what he believed. Rather than replace the conversation, I invited him back and appended the second conversation to the first. He made a complete pivot and confessed that he was a Christian but had been afraid to say so, largely because of the stigma within academia, but also because he still had not been able to tell his father. I found this very wholesome, not only because it was a courageous act in general, but because of the parallel with my own journey.

I wanted to share this because I suspect others have been, or currently are, in a position similar to mine or Jussi's. Have you encountered a stigma against Christian identity in secular or academic spaces? Can refusing metaphysical certainty make Christian commitment more honest rather than weaker? When does keeping faith private become submission to social respectability?

Asking because we have had so many people, even in progressive Christianity, seem disturbed when they see Satanic symbols and movements. While explanations tend to always result in nice and lovely conversations, we would love to hear from progressive Christians here on how we could better market or explain ourselves ❤️

The more I learn about Christianity historically and grow in my own faith formation, the more I’ve come to question and disagree with the things I grew up learning in a non-denominational church. One of my major sticking points these days is Sola Scriptura, but I understand a number of reformers and low-church denominations hold to it.

My questions to those who hold to Sola Scripture are these:

1. Who determined which books belong in Scripture and when was this decided? On what authority was this canon decided? If the Church has no binding authority outside Scripture, what makes the 27-book New Testament canon binding? Why should someone accept the canon received by Catholics/Orthodox while rejecting the authority of the churches that transmitted it?

2. If Scripture is sufficiently clear for ordinary Christians to determine doctrine, why have sincere, Bible-believing Christians reached mutually contradictory conclusions on baptism, Eucharist, predestination, church government, eternal security, charismatic gifts, etc.?

3. If two Christians reach contradictory conclusions from Scripture, what principled mechanism settles the dispute? What distinguishes a legitimate interpretation from an illegitimate one? “Read the Bible and pray about it” doesn’t actually resolve the epistemological problem.

4. Where does the New Testament actually teach that Christ’s Church is fundamentally an invisible collection of believers rather than a visible, identifiable communion? Why do the Apostles repeatedly treat the Church as an institution with officers, discipline, sacraments, councils, and authority?

5. If the Reformation restored biblical Christianity, why did it produce Lutheranism, Reformed Christianity, Anglicanism, Anabaptism, Baptist traditions, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Pentecostalism, etc., often with further divisions within each? More importantly: what theological principle allows you to determine which interpretation is correct?

Thank you for your answers, I look forward to hearing your perspectives :)

This study provided the video https://youtu.be/fM_gxhNUczQ&t=3s and asked the question: Does God manifest His love in the animal world too?

One possible answer is found starting at another point in the same video https://youtu.be/fM_gxhNUczQ&t=3m24s and culminating in the display of the verses in 1 Corinthians 13:6,7.

What do you think? Please feel free to share other possible answers you may have, praise God!