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There may be spelling / grammar mistakes in my articles that make it through my editing, and that’s on purpose. I’m a recovering perfectionist (who was once VERY hard on himself) and one of the ways I’m learning to be compassionate on myself is by allowing mistakes to just … be.
Friends.
Back in 2021 I had Bart Ehrman come on the podcast to talk about his book, “Early Christianities” and a lot of people weren’t happy with me.
Bart is someone who I was always told to “stay away from" while in Bible College and seminary because.
Well.
You know.
“He’s an atheist!” and people told me he was “antagnostic” towards Christians and was out to destroy peope’s faith.
“Bart Ehrman is on a mission”, a professor once told me, “to derail the faith of Christians. He has an ax to grind against Christianity - stay far away!”
Being the rebel that I am, though, his books were some of the first ones I started to look at when I began to deconstruct and rethink my faith. I remember going to Amazon and scrolling through all of his books and stopping on one that immediately grabbed my attention: “Lost Christianities”.
I was absolutely BEWILDERED - “ChristianitIES? Isn’t there only ONE?!”
At that point in my journey, if I’m being honest, I was ready to toss in the towel on Christianity, the Church, and even Jesus. It all seemed to be a spiderweb of toxicity that weaponized the Bible to create fear and unquestionable loyalty while generating hopelessness in people with topics like hell, the Rapture, Judgement, etc. I grew up in that world and was coming to grips with some of my own wounds … and it didn’t feel like much hope could be found there anymore.
Bart’s book, though? It might have (literally) saved my faith.
The book talked about the history of Christianity and how rather than there being ONE narrow path, there were MANY different paths that believed MANY different things about God, Jesus, salvation, eternity, etc.
And me?
I was HOOKED; and by the time I got to the end I had gone through 52 highlighters and found myself having hope that maybe (just maybe) the Bible, Christianity, and all this stuff that I had studied and dedicated my life to through …
9 years of Christian School.
4 years of Bible College.
7 years of seminary.
15+ years of church ministry.
… maybe (just MAYBE) I could still find my spiritual home there.
Anyways.
So after combing through the book over and over and over again I reached out to Bart and to my surprise he said he’d love to come on the podcast to chat about it.
I was nervous.
I was sweating.
I almost vomited before I hit record.
BUT.
We went on to have a beautiful conversation (check it out HERE) as I encountered a man who wasn’t the antagonistic bully I was told he was, but was gentle, thoughtful, and encouraging of my journey.
He gained a dedicated follower that day and shortly after that I reached out to him with some graphics I had made to spread the word about our convo on social media along with some other graphics spotlighing a bunch of quotes from his book.
I shared them out.
He liked them.
And that led to another conversation about me making some of that sort of stuff to spotlight quotes from his blog.
Which led to me becoming a social media volunteer who (for 2-ish years!) made images every week for his blog posts.
Which then led to him giving me the title of “Social Media Director”.
Which THEN led to me designing graphics and creating content for what would soon become known as “Paths In Biblical Studies”.
What is “Paths In Biblical Studies”? Well, the official “mission” of Paths is to “make university-level scholarship on the Bible available, interesting, and completely accessible for anyone who is curious and eager to learn.”
And so whether you …
Are a nerd of all things history, religion, Bible, etc.
Are deconstructing or rethinking your faith.
Are a Chrisitan who wants to read and think more widely.
… there is something at Paths for you.
With a catalogue of over 60 courses taught by various experts in their field, you can find the most up to date scholarship on the Bible, various topics pertaining to Biblical Studies, and so much more.
This month Paths is celebrating it’s FIVE YEAR anniversary and to celebrate there are all sorts of discounts and deals going on that make the affordable courses all the more affordable.
Take a look HERE.
AND.
If you want to explore it all in the context of a community, check out the “Biblical Studies Academy” where you get access to ALL the courses along with a community of people who are on similar journeys. The anniversary specials extend there too, giving you access to the community and all the courses for FIVE WEEKS by only paying FIVE DOLLARS.
Anyways.
I share all of this with you not only because I hope you’ll sign up, but because I believe so much in the work Bart is doing and want to dispell some of the lies about him that are floating around my old circles.
Far from an antagonistic hater of Chrisitanity who wants to bring the whole system down, Bart is an encourager of questions, a supporter of those who have faith in God, Jesus, the Bible, etc., and an overall fun human being who is helping squash the fears that many of us were raised with and (in some cases) were severely traumatized by.
Christianity is stronger because of Bart Ehrman and so is my faith and the faith of many others.
Much love,
Glenn || SUPPORT / ART STUDIO