I thought I’d take a break from the typical content and write something solely for the sake of fun. I enjoyed brainstorming this with my wife the last few days. A little self-deprecating humor tastefully utilized, brings a smile to my face and pep in my step.
I’ve got some good stuff coming shortly on the following:
- How fundamentally wrong all SDA eschatology is
- What the church means when they say “study your Bible”
- Has the term Christian suffered irreparable harm?
- What does “let God take control” practically mean?
But for now….enjoy the lighthearted Razzies!
Annual Review Roundup
I’m super excited to share the latest reviews of my blog. Some of them are even real! (It should be fairly obvious which is which😉)
“It wasn’t the worst thing we’ve ever read.” – The Times
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever read.” – Ted Wilson (SDA church president)
“Well…I guess I don’t believe in a global flood anymore.” – Blog reader
“I’m cheering on his posts!” – Old friend [Let’s chat soon!]
“Not sure who this person is?” – The Atlantic
“Not bad, but does this guy proof-read anything?” The New York Times
“Definitely not faith* affirming.” – A beloved family member [*I think they are mistaking their religious dogmas for their faith]
“That Godzilla frog post was hilarious.” – Christian work colleague [See this post]
“My kids loved the frog story. But then I read them the High Priest story and now they want to do drugs.” – Internet mom [See this post]
“It’s not something you should read to your kids.” – Wall Street Journal
“There are some posts we didn’t hate reading.” – Washington Post
“We hated reading all of these posts.” – Answers in Genesis (my favorite figurative punching bag of misinformation. Here’s a funny post on them. )
“I wish he’d quit revealing all the problems we are trying to shelter our congregation from.” – Conservative pastor [Post on that]
“We’d prefer our members to not read any of this.” – Kansas/Nebraska Conference of SDAs
“We want all of our members to read this. Well…actually just the three posts on the trinity, but nothing else.” – Historic Adventism offshoot [These guys are cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but they love my posts on the trinity: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3]
“Thanks for correcting me on the lack of inclusion in our modern bibles of the Nahash story elements found in the 4QSamA dead sea scroll!” – Dr. Brian Doak [Your channel is a treasure Dr. Doak. Your calm and reasoned demeanor as you bring challenging scholarship into the public domain is much appreciated!]
“There’s nothing groundbreaking here. This is largely well-accepted old hat. Much of it isn’t even controversial up here in our ivory tower.” – Academic Scholarship Community
“I always appreciate your posts.” – Instagram follower and blog reader [And I appreciate you fellow deconstructioner!]
“Well, he’s not wrong on most of this.” – Random Professor of Biblical studies caught between classes
“I had AI read me some of this and I fell asleep.” – The Lincoln Journal Star
“We liked the parts where he found our doctrines compelling…and there weren’t any of those.” – Adventist Theological Society
“There are dramatic improvements in the production value and writing over the first batch of posts. My eyes no longer bleed when reading it.” – The Omaha Herald [That’s true. I should go back and re-write my oldest stuff. It’s a mess!]
“Where does this guy find the time to write all this?” – New parent that hasn’t yet mastered the art of working on a task for 3 minutes at a time, thus taking 10 days to complete a single post.
“I’m frustrated that we’ve never been exposed to this stuff before in our church.” – Blog reader [Me too buddy. Me too. Post on that.]
“He does a great job of making us look ridiculous, however we are more than capable of handling that ourselves. We don’t need the help.” – Conservative apologists (probably) [Post on that]
“Definitely not click-baity enough.” – The Examiner
“Refreshingly real. Keep saying the quiet parts out loud. Actually, say it even louder for the people in the back.” – Instagram follower
“I don’t appreciate that he never consults me for any of his writing.” – ChatGPT
“Your writing is an instrument of the devil!” – Angry Instagram lady
“Your writing is a great ministry to the complexity of reality.” – Happy Instagram lady
“You should probably take a class on how to use Canva.” – My wife (my biggest supporter)
“That’s what I was taught growing up!” – Also my wife (In reference to a very poor apologetic argument that I was debunking on slavery) [Post on that]
“You clearly are knowledgeable. You got a follow from me.” – exadventist subreddit user and blog reader [Thanks man. I don’t have time for reddit anymore, but hope you are well!]
“Probably true, but a bit brash.” – Instagram follower [You know what? That’s a totally fair observation. I happily take constructive criticism, and this is one I catch myself doing often…usually after-the-fact. Here’s to being better.]
“Can you please stop using sound reasoning and logic? That makes us uncomfortable. That’s not how we do things here.” – EGW estate
“If I ever become a teacher, and they pass a bill requiring the posting of the ten commandments on the wall of my classroom, I’m going to use your ten commandments malicious-compliance protocol.” – Close friend [Post on that]
“We heartily approve of the application and definition of the slang phrase “hermeneutical gymnastics” regularly found in this blog. We struggle to find a more appropriate term to describe said textual shenanigans.” – Oxford Dictionary
“This blog will 100% get this guy thrown in a labor camp under the new regime.” – Average informed U.S. citizen watching the slow horrific advance of fascism. [Maybe I’ll get a room with a window at least?]
That pretty much wraps up the reviews from the first year of this blog’s life. It doesn’t appear that I won any awards or nominations this year, and I promise I will deliver the same outstanding accomplishment next year.
Thanks for following along with me on this very interesting journey. Thank you for reading, for the comments, for the constructive criticism, and for interesting discussions you’ve privileged me to be a part of.
Let’s hope I can keep increasing the production value and content quality over the next year.
Peace!
Space For Doubt 
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