Bil Aulenbach On the first Tuesday in November 2008, Annie and I were driving cross-country from the East Coast to the West to return to our home in Orange County, California. We were staying in a Motel 6 in not the nicest neighborhood in some Midwestern city and listening intensely as the election results were pouring in. … Read more
Jim Palmer, a former megachurch pastor, left that ministry because he could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy. He shared some of what he calls misguided religious establishment thinking. I call them dirty little church secrets. Much religion today is toxic, especially from ultraconservatives. It is rooted in fear, false doctrine (e.g., hell being a place), … Read more
I have an idea: let’s reinstate the death penalty nationally—but there’s a caveat! I concocted this brilliant idea after Robert Bowers, age fifty, was sentenced to death on August 2, 2023, for murdering eleven innocent Jewish folks and wounding six others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018. This … Read more
This week’s blog post is the preface to my new book, How to Make Love (the Agape Kind) with Jesus, available now. As always, let me know what you think. God is the same as nature. —Sister Julian of Norwich A six-year-old girl stood in front of her parents and emphatically stated, “Why should I … Read more
It look me ninety years to write my newest book, How to Make Love (the Agape kind) with Jesus. It started on October 28, 1932, when I entered the world, son of Ham, an Episcopal priest, and Pearl, my mom and a saint. As a PK (Preacher’s Kid), I fell in love with the Episcopal … Read more
Someone sent me a cartoon showing a little boy asking his teacher in Sunday school, “Why did God have to send himself down to earth to become his own son to sacrifice himself to himself just to convince himself to forgive us?” This is my exact feeling about the theology of the church. It just … Read more
My personal deconstructing process has spanned sixty-five years. For much of that time, the journey wasn’t necessarily a conscious thing but instead happened through a series of smaller events. Here are some examples: Because of my motorcycle accident, I had to wear a full leg cast for a year and stay close to my orthopedist … Read more
I started my deconstructing process in September 1957 on my first day in seminary when the professors started eradicating my Sunday school thinking, which went something like this: God was like Santa Claus, except a little meaner. He and his Son were perfect and lived in heaven. God was a Master Puppeteer who made everything … Read more
I have banned the Bible from our home. It is full of lies. The violence is horrendous. The contradictions are unacceptable. The racism is inexcusable. The sex is filthy. Many claim God wrote the Bible. That’s a total lie. It was written by lots of different men over a 2,500-plus-year timespan. At times, people are … Read more
In my ninety-one years, I have never seen someone running to be the dictator of our country. I thought we were a democracy. This dictator, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, promised to destroy leftism and “leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history.” That would include me, most of the folks in our church, and … Read more