iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Maturity as a Christian is listening to criticisms against your denomination, your interpretation of scripture, your entire framework of viewing the world, and engaging with the criticism with curiosity with the intent to understand the person in front of you.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If somebody you loved wronged you or injured you, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you are able to forgive them if you want to. You can forgive them if they repent. You can forgive them before they repent. You can even forgive them even if they never repent. That's how love works.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I have finally exhausted my supply of author copies of Turtle Heaven, which means I need to re-stock. The next batch should arrive in a few weeks, which means if anybody wants a SIGNED copy of my novel mailed to them, let me know!

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A careful read through scripture does not help you know God more than it helps you to understand humanity. The end result of the readings is not that you become more like God, but that you become more human. Love your neighbor. This is where divinity lives.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Love your neighbor, and be unburdened by their expectations of you. Love in freedom of all that weight.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I sometimes wonder if one of the layered meanings here is that we must eventually leave our religious practices and identity in order to love our neighbor rightly.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I'm not saying I made a better Bible. I'm saying I made a better Bible tool, with note-taking, community commentary, and historic rabbinical notes that you can browse through. This is the tool I made so I can study. I'm sharing it with folks who want to study the way I do.

Genesis 1:1 on the NEWPROTEST Bible (biblenp.org)

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Do you know what’s strange about the Proverbs 31 “Woman of Valor?” This word “chayil” (חַיִל) is translated as “valor” or “virtue” here, but it is translated quite differently exactly seven verses earlier.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

If “your faith has healed/saved you,” maybe it’s also true that “your lack of trust and your hopelessness is making you sick and killing you.”

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Most Christians agree that the world is corrupted by sin, but many disagree that this sin is demonstrated by institutionalized racism and sexism, power structures that take advantage of the weak, and a might-makes-right system of ethics.

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A lot of folks read Thomas's "my Lord and my God" to assert that Thomas is declaring that Jesus is God. I'm only half-interested in Thomas' thoughts as presented by the writer(s) of John, and more interested in what the writer(s) are trying to show us here.

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Dear Christians - The greek word for "save" (σῴζω, sozo) is the same word for "heal." The work God has tasked you with is also to care for the weak and oppressed, to lift up the poor and downtrodden, to bind the brokenhearted, and not merely to care for their after-death destination.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Christianity is so weird, because according to this very touching DM, I’m either doing this Christian thing correctly, or I’m doing it very poorly, depending on the church you attend.

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The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is less about who is being punished and for what reason, and more about the fact that God would have saved a city if there was a SINGLE righteous person in it.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The traditional ontological view of scripture is that God is the first of everything. I get it. It would make sense: “In the beginning, God…” However, prior to anyone knowing the scripture, there was a narrator. There was a storyteller.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

A theological musing I’m toying with… Genesis 1 shows 6 days, three of which are places; the next three are the things that go into those places: The celestial bodies dwell in the place of light and darkness (sky) The fish and birds dwell in the sea and sky The animals & people dwell on the land.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

If “he shall rule over you” is the result of the curse in Genesis 3, the intended design is the inversion of this. Perhaps the woman (associated with life and spirit) was created to rule over the man (associated with death and flesh).

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

So strange that people would read the wickedness and subsequent destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as a statement about “the gays” and not as an indictment on men.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Much of scripture is less about teaching moral uprightness and punishing wickedness, and more about showing us the consequences of tilting towards things that are eternal vs tilting towards things that are perishing.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

In January, I'm participating in the Winter Solace again. I've been asked to be one of the breakout speakers, and the theme is "Grow." I will likely gear my session around the theme of the Garden , to show how many of our faith-positions are grown from the seeds planted in the First Book.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

That Jesus calls himself “son of man” in the Gospels is so interesting. We never refer to him that way. I’m not saying that we refuse to, but it just doesn’t really happen. I think there something important about that. We desperately want Jesus’ divinity, but what he gives us is his humanity.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I sometimes wonder if one person was responsible for naming the blackberry, the blueberry, and the orange.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Ok. So maybe having my app display a sparkling book titled “New Project” is a little mean. But it’s so pretty. It literally sparkles!

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

This writing tool is starting to get some legs! There's still room for a few more if you want in. Reply and I'll send you a link.

7 writers - 12 projects - 8,310 words
written 1,020 today - 6,337 this week - 8,612 this month

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Maybe you know me as the guy who posts about Genesis. What you might not know: I'm writing a book about dismantling my Christian faith and following the evidence to a different place. Somewhere new. And somewhere very old. It begins where the Bible begins. It's a journey through The Beginning.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

When the people of God pursue righteousness by way of defending the weak, lifting up the broken, aiding the orphan and the widow, they become the extension of what God is doing. They become the answer to the prayers of those who cry out, “who will rescue us?” The plural of “I AM” is “we are.”

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

write.newprotest.org It's built. If you want to try out a fully featured writing tool, and you're on a contemplative path through faith and want to document your journey, this is it. Give it a try.

write.newprotest.org

NEWPROTEST Writer. A quiet place to write what you've seen.

A calm, distraction-free writing studio for faith-adjacent stories. The kind that are witness, not lesson.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

In Genesis 35, God identifies himself to Jacob as the one who met him in his fear. As the God who was there in his darkest hour. Perhaps this is how God truly meets all of us. And perhaps when God says, "fear not," God isn't talking about himself, but rather about the thing you're facing.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

The Scriptures are not there for the theologians and the scholars. It’s not there for the rulers. The Scriptures are there to comfort those who mourn. To bring hope to the dying.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I often wonder about the ontological view of a short-lived mayfly that only lives long enough to watch the tide come in. What must it imagine will happen to the world after it dies?

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

I don't typically agree with him, but he's quite compelling here.

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I'm now at Genesis 34 in my years-long study of Genesis. This is the chapter about a young girl who gets violated by a wealthy and powerful man who thought he could possess her, just because he was wealthy and powerful.

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The first one to repent (declare the harm, own the responsibility of the harm, seek to make restitution for the harm, accept the consequences for harming) wins.

The evidence seems to indicate that being rich and powerful is a curse. May it never happen to me.

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All of the -isms and -phobias of hatred (racism, ageism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia) tell followers of Jesus precisely who we are meant to love first, if only we would listen.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Perhaps every reader or hearer of scripture who comes to discover that God is for them and not against them must acknowledge their own "model of atonement," and carry with them their own unique story of the way God redeemed them and made them whole.

jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Sometimes, I think about the way the KJV includes "unicorn" as a translation of the wild ox in Numbers 23:22 and Job 39:9-10, and think about all the sermons that must have been built around the idea, and how much Christian artwork included it, and how much it shaped culture... and it cracks me up.

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jovial_cynic @jovialcynic.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Fun fact: In the four gospel accounts, there are SIX different Marys identified. Mary, the mother of Jesus Mary Magdalene Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus Mary, the mother of James and Joses Mary, the mother of James (the Less) Mary, the wife of Clopas

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Too many people have their theology exactly backwards.

So many "but Leviticus and Hebrews says that blood is required for forgiveness!" as though it's some kind of special ingredient in God's spell book in order for Him to have compassion on our brokenness.

The depth of wickedness is breathtaking. It's hard to read these E-Files without feeling like I have to gasp for air. The darkness it contains is choking the life out of all of us. It's hard to have hope that things can be made right.

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Maybe it’s simpler than we’ve made it. Maybe “forgiveness requires the shedding of blood” isn’t a teaching about the mechanism of forgiveness and salvation. Maybe it’s meant to get you to look at the story of when blood was first shed.

Perhaps the cross isn't the mechanism of forgiveness. Perhaps the cross is simply man's brutality, and Jesus is suffering at our hands the very suffering we impose on one another. God taking on our wounds, and allowing himself to be slain. And yet... forgiving us anyway.