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One of my old biology and zoology teachers died recently. When I knew him, he was an agnostic. He was pretty close to the Richard Dawkins corner of the swimming pool compared to the "Well, I suppose we can't really know anything, so let's all be nice to each other" people. He had a very Darwinian worldview and was very skeptical of religion. Evolution by natural selection was central to his life; his college roommate had even been the product of a German selective breeding pr

By Pastor Peaches Watkins Church, I came here today with a word. I came here today with a ROAD MAP. I came here today with some CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT. Because somebody in this building has been trying to BUILD THEIR WAY TO GOD with absolutely no permit from Heaven. And I came to tell you: PUT. THE HAMMER. DOWN. PUT THE TWO-BY-FOUR DOWN! PUT THE LADDER DOWN! BACK AWAY FROM THE SCAFFOLDING! BECAUSE JESUS ALREADY DID THE CONSTRUCTION! Now I've been watching some wrestling promo

I want to tell you about the time a man pulled his pants down in front of my wife and me on Hollywood Boulevard. I guess I want to do that because human beings are, by design, meaning-making engines. If we step on a crack, we wonder about our mother’s spinal integrity. If we drop a piece of toast, we evaluate the butter-side-down trajectory as a cosmic commentary on our life choices. If a parking lot door-dinger hits a sudden patch of black ice and damages their car years lat

Every time I think I can take a break from beating certain dead horses about disgraced pastors, some Righteous Gemstones reject tends to pop up and give Christianity a black eye over the same stuff over and over again. I feel like Jude. He wanted to write about great things like salvation, but he’s only remembered for his letter stating that the perverts promised in 2 Peter 2 had arrived. I was going to leave the sex stuff alone for a while, but I guess the Spirit wants me to

Working hard makes me sweat. This is unfortunate. Sweat can contribute to acne. And acne, at least in my case, can become inflamed enough to contribute to headaches. I have an overwhelming desire to scrape the zit off. Scraping it off feels productive. There is something deeply satisfying about feeling the evidence of the problem removed. There. Fixed it. I have accomplished something. Except I haven't, because now I have a wound, and the wound takes longer to heal than the z

Associate Pastor Leon “Peaches” Watkins walked onto the platform, set his Bible down, and held up one shiny Granny Smith apple. "I'd like," he said, holding it up to the light like a jeweler, "to apologize to apples." The room blinked. "They been catching strays for thousands of years." There was laughter. "The Bible don't say it was an apple." He looked at the fruit like it was an old friend he'd wronged. "This innocent little fella done had the worst public relations campai

Brother Zeke often said that God had a funny habit of putting churches exactly where people who already had churches thought churches shouldn't be. Ours maybe used to meet under a pool table at Buffalo William's Wings & Things, moved to Zeke’s former coworker's living room until the fire marshal developed concerns that could best be summarized as "all of them," and eventually rented a storefront between Cloudz N' Puffz Vape & Hookah Emporium and the Velvet Peach Gentlemen's

Zeke had owned the denim jacket since before the church existed, back when it was just a Bible study and everybody still called him "the guy who keeps bringing up Greek words." He'd paired it that morning with denim jeans that did not match it in wash or intent, a t-shirt underneath, and — after twenty minutes of standing in front of the bathroom mirror having a conversation with himself he would never admit to having — a pair of aviators he did not need indoors. He drove to

Preface: Why This Matters Now Every few months another story breaks. The details differ, but the pattern is agonizingly familiar: a trusted man in a position of spiritual authority — someone who preached sexual purity with visible zeal — has been quietly destroying the lives of children or other vulnerable people for years, sometimes decades, while the institution around him looked the other way or actively covered for him. Outsiders notice this pattern. They bring it up on t

The sign above the vape shop had been flickering since March. Next door, the sign for the church did not flicker, mostly because Deacon Fitz had rewired it himself using a YouTube tutorial and prayer (the neon sign that is, not the handwritten one, of course – the handwritten one said “Non-Denominational, All Welcome, Parking In Front Only Please Ms. Debra We See You”). Fitz’s repair had held steady for two years running, which everyone agreed was a miracle roughly on par wi

If you ever visit That Church by the Vape Shop, you might notice little Tucker outside handing a turkey sandwich to a possum that he has named Lazarus. "That's not a cat," said Brother Earl, from the shade of the awning, where he had been pretending to read a newspaper for eleven minutes without turning a page. "I know," Tucker said. "He's emotionally complicated." Lazarus blinked twice, unbothered, the way possums are unbothered by nearly everything. "I think he agrees," Tuc

Volume 1: "We Read the Rest of the Chapter" [Cue overly dramatic late-night infomercial music.] ANNOUNCER (with maximum enthusiasm): Has your pastor ever preached a sermon that somehow turned "It is finished" into "Actually... it's just getting started"? Did you leave church wondering whether Jesus saved you... or just handed you a divine group project? Did somebody preach 1 Corinthians 9 like Paul was training for the Salvation Olympics while conveniently forgetting half the

There are certain songs that accidentally tell the truth about God. The artists weren’t trying to, and they didn’t sit down to write with Strong's concordance and a cup of herbal tea. Truth has this stubborn habit of surfacing through the cracks in almost everything humans make when they're being honest. A band famous for screaming about insanity, war, addiction, and getting electrocuted in chairs somehow stumbled into writing what is essentially a New Covenant worship song.

That Church By The Vape Shop — Vacation Bible School, Year Two In an alternate universe in which the physical location plan for That Church By The Vape Shop panned out, we had ourselves another Vacation Bible School. Last year's inaugural VBS produced three genuine conversions, one accidental baptism of a neighbor's cat, and a water balloon incident that Sister Velma has agreed not to discuss further provided certain parties remain anonymous. This year, emboldened by that suc

The informal afternoon crowd had mostly drifted out by the time the real conversation started, the way it usually did at That Church By The Vape Shop. Brother Earl was parked at a folding table nursing coffee from his dad’s old mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST ACCOUNTANT, the kind of mug a man buys for himself because nobody else thought to. Pastor Peaches was working through a donut roughly the size of a tractor tire with the focused patience of a man who had clearly done this

I know this isn't fair. Real pastors spend hours preparing messages, and most of them sincerely love Jesus. They are not secretly plotting in underground volcano lairs while petting white cats and laughing about how they're going to ruin grace for everybody. And yet, sometimes when I’m sitting through a sermon, my brain hears something completely different than what is actually being said. Giving credit where it is due, the pastor begins well enough by paying lip service to

It was a typical afternoon at That Church By The Vape Shop. A brief note on the name, because visitors have questions: That Church By The Vape Shop is the sort of place you’d find located in a strip mall, which is a row of small businesses sharing a common wall and a parking lot that is never the right size for the number of people using it. A strip mall contains establishments such as a nail salon, a tax preparation office that is only open four months a year, a Chinese buff

That Church By the Vape Shop — Theological Digest Scene: That Church By the Vape Shop, Tuesday morning. The sanctuary smells like Pine-Sol, stale coffee, and whatever chemical compound they use to make gas-station breakfast burritos survive longer than some species of turtles. Sister Velma is stacking hymnals like defensive fortifications. Brother Earl has wandered in with a half-eaten corn dog, a task performed with the regularity of a spiritual discipline. Brother Zeke is t

By the time the visiting preacher arrived at "That Church By the Check-Cashing Place and the Questionable Vape Emporium," the neighborhood already knew something unusual was happening. Brother Clancy's church usually advertised revivals with a hand-painted plywood sign and maybe a balloon zip-tied to a folding chair if Sister Velma was feeling festive, but tonight there were fireworks — and not the legal kind. These were the kind that come out of a duffel bag sold by a man be

One of the strangest things about modern Bible discussions is watching people read ancient Jewish apocalyptic poetry like it’s a live emergency broadcast narrated by a caffeinated weatherman standing ankle-deep in a flooded Waffle House parking lot. “THE SUN HAS GONE DARK!” “THE STARS ARE FALLING!” “THE SKY IS ROLLING UP!” At which point somebody on YouTube immediately produces a four hour video with a thumbnail featuring flames, six blood moons, an AI-generated Jesus with g