Creative Studio

I offer this piece in two voices: the one I had fifteen years ago, and the one I carry now. The first half is taken from a blog post I wrote as a believer, convinced of Eden’s historic value, the Sabbath, and the outward-moving love of God. I have left these words mostly untouched, because…

Misused History and Manufactured Certainty I recently read an essay called The Truth Will Set You Free. It was written as a sincere critique of Christian participation in practices the author deemed impure. It spoke of divine names, corrupted traditions, and a call to return to a faith untainted by history or human hands. But…

Tracing ritual sacrifice, blood and smoke from Canaanite altars to the cross. This essay argues that temple ritual, human sacrifice and communion all arise from the same shared ancient grammar of sacred, violent devotion.

Growing Up in a Theology of Hurt I grew up in a faith that treated suffering not merely as an inevitable part of life, but as something close to sacred. Pain was not only expected. It was encouraged. It was framed as evidence of devotion, proof that one was truly walking the narrow way. In…

A Belief Without Burden My earlier essays explored why I no longer see Christianity as morally coherent and why, despite its claims to be a spiritual family, it repeatedly fails to generate the community it promises. But these questions, important as they are, rest upon a deeper one. Before we can ask whether Christianity is…

Before we learned to pray, we learned to kill in reverence. The sky was awash with deep violet hues as the sun, with practiced bravado, threatened its ascent from beneath the horizon. The boy lay awake under the widening heavens on the roof terrace of his family’s house, a single-room dwelling of mud and straw.…