The book is moving forward. The manuscript is being imported into InDesign. A handful of guest pieces are out for review—submissions to Sojourners, Relevant Magazine, Christian Century, Branded Way, and a few others. Those articles are a way of chipping at the larger conversation this book is meant to crack open. The interviews with Branon Munday are also picking back up soon. Next, we’ll be digging into the etymologies and biblical concepts that start unfolding in Sections II and III of the book.

While I’m finishing up, the bigger plan is to get this in front of some official review targets, then let it stand on its own. Between past posts and highlights on Drunk Pastor, and the guest articles either out or coming out, this post and the next one are both the last book-based posts, and they are also the introduction to my book. I’m hoping this and the next one set the frame and invite the readers this book was written for. A recent draft is up on Patreon as a PDF for those who want to see it raw and unpolished.

Other than the above, the main focus of the Drunk Pastor front is to finally get a newsletter out. Stay tuned to the Existential Hangover newsletter and social media for more updates and content.

Before We Dive In

This isn’t a normal book, so don’t feel like you have to read it like one.

It’s not a textbook. It’s not a memoir. It’s not a theology manual, a self-help guide, or a piece of apologetics with fill-in-the-blanks at the end of each chapter. I threw out as many assumptions as I could—and tried to conceptually burn down modernity back to Earth. What you’re holding is the phoenix: the mustard seed that shattered my world and flipped it upside down. Or at least, my attempt to capture the contours of a whole new world I’d stumbled into. It was something I had to write, and then had no idea what to do with.

Still, something needed to exist. Not for everyone, but maybe for enough of the Us I knew were out there, also wondering: WTF is going on? For the ones who don’t quite fit anymore, who still care enough to wrestle, but don’t buy the scripts we’ve been handed. For the thinkers. For those tired of thinking. For the burned-out believers. For the ones who are hungry and don’t know what to do with it. For the leaders who can’t pretend anymore. And for the people who no one would expect to pick up a book like this, but do.

We cover a lot of ground in here. Sorry, not sorry? Also, while I had fun writing this, it was a roller coaster for me. Now, I’m hoping to drag a few others along. Philosophy, psychology, Scripture, mysticism, trauma, ego, the structure of the brain, the symbols we live by, the worlds we live trapped within, the things that break us, and the Truth that remakes us. Some parts are clean. Some are messy. Some of this will take time to chew on, maybe a long time. And that’s okay. It’s supposed to. 

Even if you’re not into it, you might want a Bible nearby. If you’ve lost your taste for it, I get it, but stick with me. I promise we’ve been taught wrong. If those previous sentences made you cringe, stick with me anyway. The same promise applies. I mostly use the ESV, but feel free to check other versions. Use your phone. Bible apps. Whatever works. You’ll probably end up looking up some definitions and names. Maybe even add a book or two to your Amazon wishlist. Use your favorite LLM to ask what it thinks. Take a picture of a section and ask questions. Skip the specifics I’m wrong on, but at least look them up. Make fun of it with your friends. Crucify it on your socials. Tar and feather it in your group chats. That’s part of the point: here’s my 2/7 off-suit calling everyone’s bluff.

This is about beginning a long-avoided conversation, not a lecture. I invite you to have a relationship with this book—not just read it, but interact with it. Disagree with it. Call me names. Get weird with it. Mark it up. Go down rabbit holes. Come back to it later. Re-read a page because it haunted you. Or walk away from a section because it hit something you weren’t ready for yet. It’s part of the process.

“Where words are many, sin is not absent.” And this is a behemoth of words. In part, they’re overdue, maybe penance for the sheer volume of my past sins. This book felt like mostly risk. Then, I became okay with that. There was nothing to lose. There are mistakes—typos, redundancies, tangents, contradictions. It is what it is. This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about progress. It’s about finally being real. It’s about writing what I wish someone else had written for me, and others; not something polished for a platform, or a single perish, but something honest enough to bleed through.

I’m a recovering pastor, not a tenured scholar, and a bit of a wanna-be “armchair” everything. I’ve been to three universities and walked away with one degree. I’m a polymath, especially now. Learning’s always been fun for me, and also a problem. Writing this nearly wrecked me. Then it put me back together. Not because it was hard to write (it was), but because it demanded honesty from me.

Now, I’m asking something from you: however you do it, try to read to the end. Skip around to what calls you. If something feels like “old news,” move on. If you flat-out can’t stomach an idea, spit it out and keep going. Ask questions. Push back. Have fun. Correct me. Add to it. Argue. Discover. Whatever it is, just dance with me in this book.

With fear and trepidation, knowing full well how unqualified I am, I double-dog dare you.

In this book, there is one God-Damn-Blessed thing I’m trying to do with any human who reads it. Find that and test it. Let me know if you do. Even in the Scripture. Especially the Scripture. If you’ve learned to see the Bible as the problem, maybe tag along a bit. What if we’ve just been reading it upside-down? What if it was never supposed to serve Empire?

This book isn’t for everyone. But I think there are enough of us, it is. If something lands, even just one chapter, paragraph, or sentence, that cracks something open in you, then that’s it. That was the point.

Cards are on the table. I’m trying not to hide anymore. We don’t have to anymore. Never did.

Let’s walk out of the dark with new hearts and minds. I’m so ready for something different.

Aren’t you?

PREMISE:

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it—and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

From genesis to eschaton, we are what we believe.

The first Left Behind book was published in 1995, around the time I was ten. My family was attending a Baptist church in Idaho Falls, ID, a town roughly half Mormon. The golden Moroni on top of the LDS temple still catches my eye whenever I come to town. Before I became a Christian in ninth grade, my family began attending a Christian & Missionary Alliance church. My stepfather had started a Christian homeless shelter for men and was connected to other churches. During high school, I was a bit of a social butterfly, plugged into youth groups and parachurch ministries. My senior year ended with me as a dreadlocked wrestler who had started a Bible club at Idaho Falls High School, being torn between a pyrotechnic school and going to a Christian seminary.

Christianity, itself, was real to me. There was something about it that wasn’t possible to ignore. Before my ninth-grade conversion experience, my family made a trek to Boise’s Family Fest. I believe I was in middle school then. Aside from Newsboys and Phil Keaggy, the main thing I can remember was Tony Campolo’s message, specifically, how he ended it.

Near the end, he began sharing statistics about human suffering around the world: starving children, systems of oppression, and everyday injustice. After which, he shared how little it would cost America to make tangible impacts for each. Then, he said, “You know what’s worse than that? … What’s worse than that is you don’t give a shit.”

He stood there…in silence…for a long moment, his head slowly panning the room, like he was trying to make eye contact with every person there before delivering his next line:

“What’s worse than that is that you’re more pissed off that I said ‘shit’ than the fact you’re doing nothing about it.”

Christianity had just as much teeth and truth to it as it did heart. There was no doubt. It spoke of love, truth, joy, freedom, sin, pain, suffering, death, and struggle. It called out the bullshit of humanity. Yet, its Truth was difficult to understand and to hold.

From the beginning, Christianity came to me pre-fragmented. The denominational landscape was sprawling and contradictory. Early on, I sensed that no one had a monopoly on “the real one.” While in high school, I studied Mormonism seriously enough to post rebuttal essays on the door of the LDS seminary across the street from the high school, and somehow weaseled my way into one of their classes…which didn’t last long. Christian “apologetics” and “evangelism” were encouraged.

So, I was happy to play the part of a teenage Jesus Freak, song (still) memorized, writing anti-evolution papers in science classes, speaking at church events, and relishing a good theological throwdown. It felt meaningful. And it was also the beginning of a deeper search. Mormonism became a kind of red herring. Interesting and an easy target? Sure, but it also covered over what was behind my questions. 

It’s easier to find things that aren’t true out there than to find untrue things inside. It makes us feel better about our insanity.

Premise to be continued…

That’s where I’ll leave it for now. The rest of the Premise, the full 3,000+ words, will be shared soon. In it, I go deeper into my story and how all of this led to the book.

If you don’t mind a raw, unpolished draft, as mentioned, a recent PDF of The Son of Man and Its Mystic Awakening is up on Patreon.

More previews, guest posts, and interviews are on the way—keep an eye on social media and the Existential Hangover newsletter for updates. Once the book is out, my plan is to shift gears: focus on the work already in motion, and put more energy into building Drunk Pastor into something fun, useful, and real. On the personal side, I’m looking forward to pouring more of my heart into Stigma M&D, especially Every Human’s Journey, and the ongoing work of recovery.

For now, thanks for reading, sharing, and walking the Path with me.