I can understand that based on what I blog and what I share on social media that it might be difficult to determine whether I am a liberal or a conservative Christian. Although a recent Twitter (X) poll suggested that more people see me as a liberal Christian: So in preparation for my blog post on the type of Christian I am, what do you think? Am I a liberal or a conservative Christian? Interpret this as theological and/or political as you wish. I purposely am only giving two options. — Stephen Bedard (@SJBedard) April 5, 2024 I will confess that this was not a very fair question as those ..read more

Some conservative Christians recently expressed outrage that President Biden proclaimed a Trans Day of Visibility to coincide with Easter. For some, this felt like a direct attack on Christianity. But was it? It is important to note that the Trans Day of Visibility has existed on March 31 since 2009 and was not created by Biden or his administration. So what did Biden do? What the President did was to issue a proclamation acknowledging the existing Trans Day of Visibility. You can read an article on Biden’s actions here. So what is the connection to Easter? Is the Trans Day of Visibility desig ..read more

What does the Bible say about transgender people? Does the Bible say that being a transgender person is a sin worthy of hell? Many today would say so. The truth is that the Bible does not really address what we know today as a transgender identity: a person who identifies as a gender other than biological sex they were assigned at birth. This concept is fairly recent and ancient peoples would not have understood anything such as gender dysphoria. The closest the Bible comes to addressing a transgender identity is a couple of passages. A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man p ..read more

Christians, all along the theological spectrum, develop their beliefs over time, taking positions on certain issues. But how do we determine our position, especially when there are so many issues and multiple interpretations about what is the right way? I am going to focus here not on what to do, but on what not to do. There is a lazy way of determining what position to take. This method is based on a conviction that the culture war between conservatives and liberals is the primary lens by which to look at reality. What I have seen people do, and this equally pertains to liberals and conservat ..read more

I purposely titled this post wrestling with prayer rather than wrestling in prayer, although the latter is a good thing to do as well. Even though most Christians believe in the importance of prayer, we rarely ask the hard questions about the nature of prayer. If I asked a random group of Christians from a variety of traditions if they believe in the power of prayer, I would likely get quite a few affirmatives with a generous amount of amens. But how does prayer work? What happens when we pray? What should we expect? Here are some important questions. Does God take into account our prayers? At ..read more

I have been involved in Christian apologetics in one way or another for most of my adult Christian life. Over that time, I have become disillusioned over some aspects of what I call the apologetics industry. But this is not to the time to vent about that. There are many who believe that time for Christian apologetics is over. There are many arguments for its demise. Some see it as too closely tied to evangelicalism. Some see us as being in postmodernism which makes apologetics obsolete. Some see apologetics arguments as haven been shown to be false. I believe that claims of the death of apolog ..read more

Imagine you meet a person and they tell you that they use the pronouns they/them or you encounter someone you know was born as a male but now identify as female and request that you use she/her as pronouns. What do you do? For those who want to be respectful but worry that using their preferred pronouns might be lying, how do we wrestle with this? I understand that there are some who feel that transgender and non-binary rights are something to be fought at all costs because of the culture war. I am not speaking of that situation, as there is no changing of minds. I just want to ask of whether ..read more

There has been a recent uproar as a satanic image had been placed in the Iowa Capital Building. Now Christians frequently describe things they don’t like as “satanic.” In this case it was a display erected by the Church of Satan and so was literally satanic. Since then, a conservative Christians has destroyed the display. There are probably many Christians who see this man as a hero. Destroying a satanic image sounds like taking a stand for God. Why this display was a problem Part of the reason many Christians had been calling for the removal if not destruction of the display was found in Old ..read more

There has been some recent discussion online, based on comments by John Piper, that walking away from the church is the same as walking away from Christ? Is this true? What I think is ironic is that much of the agreement of Piper’s statement comes from Reformed circles which believes in eternal security. This means that a Christian cannot lose their salvation under any circumstances, including leaving church. Now I know what the response will be. If someone walks away from the church, they must not have ever been a Christian in the first place. The problem with this well worn argument is that ..read more

I believe that attitudes toward 2SLGBTQA+ people within our churches is the most divisive issue among Christians. This is a debate not just between Christians and non-Christians but also between Christians. Some more conservative Christians might reject that statement since “You cannot be a Christian and support same-sex relations.” Therefore, the debate really is between Christians and non-Christians. Or is it? At this point, I am not even discussing what the weight of scholarship says about those passages that refer to same-sex activity. I only want to respond to who is in orthodox Christian ..read more