Listening and Reading highlight some of the resources I accessed during 2022–2024. These pages also have a few links from 2025.
The lists are mainly in order accessed from most recent. The references in Learning to Love Wisdom, Redefining, Living in Love and Freedom and Trinity – Worship and Wonder contain the most detailed reference lists in my books.
Reading 2025
In addition to these links, I have found the following publications on the book of Revelation, some of which I have mentioned in my Listening links, worthwhile in different ways. My own previously published notes from a series of studies on the book of Revelation are in One in Love and Freedom in Living in Love and Freedom (pp. 67–103).
- Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple – Scot McKnight KR 211
Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple - Revelation: A Love Story With Dr. Rob Dalrymple
Revelation: A Love Story - The book of Revelation: Robyn Whitaker – B4NP Episode 259
Revelation for Normal People - Duvall’s New Theology of Revelation Book – reviewed by Nijay K. Gupta:
A Theology of Revelation: God’s Grand Plan to Defeat Evil, Rescue His People, and Transform His Creation - Engaging Scripture with Nijay Gupta: Up to Date (Revelation Commentaries) includes
Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes Paperback by Tremper Longman III - Revelation for today: Brian K. Blount – B4NP Episode 305
Scot McKnight
From Scot McKnight’s Newsletter
- What about ACNA? I have too much experience with this kind of story not to have guiding lines of thinking. Believe the victims as whistleblowers rarely lie; the accused will deny the allegations; there’s more to the story than is published; often more victims will come forward; the establishment will act to protect and to believe the priest/pastor; local congregations will fracture and fissure and sometimes fall apart; nearly all congregations will believe the pastor/priest and not the accuser/victim; spin will arise that confuses all over what actually happened; the establishment will gather round the priest/pastor and will rig the system against the victims; whistleblowers will suffer blow after blow that re-traumatize; the system will not show compassion and empathy; strategies will develop that favor one side and bias people against the other side; those in power will rig the system so independent investigators can be avoided. I could go on. Read A Church called Tov.
- Nowhere
- Before There was Inspiration There Was…
- Inspiration vs. What Else?
- Numbing by Gaslighting America
- What Needs to be Said Again
- Theopneustia
Chuck DeGroat’s Blog
From Chuck DeGroat’s Blog and Substack
- What is moral failure, anyway?
- The Storm Beneath the Symptoms | Why Nervous System Dysregulation Matters
- Trauma is a Bible Story
- 5 Years After When Narcissism Comes to Church (Wow! See my Redefining book)
- From a Hollow Man to a Whole Man
Pellucid by Wade Mullen
- The Weaponization of Perceptions: Part I
- The Gaslight Religion
- Shape Shifters and Face Dancers
- Also, The Coercive Cycle: A model for understanding how abusive tactics are learned and reinforced.
Marg Mowczko
From Marg Mowczko: Exploring the biblical theology of Christian egalitarianism.
Daily Devotional
From Daily Devotional.
- If You Don’t Learn to Weep, You Can’t Be a Good Christian
- Summer in New England
- Still Waters, Sharp Teeth
- Damn the Détente
- I Want a Jesus I Could Beat Up
Jason Goroncy
From Jason Goroncy
- The Heresy of Nicaea and the Jesus of Colony with John Flett
Nijay K. Gupta: Engaging Scripture
From Nijay K. Gupta: Engaging Scripture
Reading 2022–2024
Philip Jenkins
Scot McKnight
From Scot McKnight’s Newsletter
- Strange Worship – About fifteen years ago someone drew my attention to Christian dominionism in the USA. It was some weird stuff. I admit I thought it was a fad that need not be raised to the level of a serious concern. It is (now) and I was wrong. Christian nationalism (=CN) is a very serious issue. We now have a wonderful new, accessible, practical, and accurate sketch of CN in Drew J. Strait’s book, Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism.
- This link begins a series on Heather Matthews’ new book, Confronting Sexism in the Church. The series shares women’s responses to this book.
- Becoming More Narcissist Resistant – To recall where this series began: Kris [Scot’s wife], at the suggestion of a friend, checked out a book from our local library and began reading Ramani Durvasula, It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People. Kris, who is a psychologist, liked the book enough and knew about the many conversations we have had with abusive church leaders, that she suggested that we buy the book and work through it here on this Substack.
- Essential Workers: Everywhere and Nowhere – Candida Moss’s new book, God’s Ghostwriters, examines the place of the enslaved writing, copying, producing, and editing the texts of the New Testament.
- The Shadow Side of Salvation
- Do We Need a Fourth Quest?
- Why the Bible began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins by Jacob Wright.
- The Prophet and the …
- Being Real: The Apostle Paul’s Hardship Narratives and the Stories We Tell Today by Philip Plyming, reviewed in several posts.
- When Religion Traumatises – When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion, by Laura Anderson, describes religious trauma and is reviewed in several posts. This book grows out of Anderson’s PhD, and therefore shows all the marks of careful research, definition, and cautious conclusions.
- A Woman’s World (in the 1st Century) – Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Gospels, by Holly Carey, is reviewed in several posts. The women of Mark’s Gospel do what disciples are supposed to do when the Twelve/disciples do not do what disciples are supposed to do.
- A Genuine Apology – From Chuck DeGroat’s Tweet: ‘I’ve worked with hundreds of folks over 25 years from all different stripes, backgrounds and faith traditions, and you know who has the hardest time with @wademullen’s great graphic below? Christian leaders. “Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” – St. Augustine’.
- Readying to Reconcile, By Amanda Holm Rosengren, is a sermon on the Joseph narrative in Genesis.
- The Quest for Power and other newsletters on Andrew Whitehead’s American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church
- McKnight writes: ‘The quest for power reveals more about character and sin than any measure I know. Nothing comes closer to wanting to be God than a yearning for control, to be in charge, and to eliminate anything and anyone that gets in your way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as a famous line goes, and the more powerful a person becomes, or even desire to become, the less that person’s morality looks like Christ. Power distorts perception, especially self-perception, and it corrupts one’s following of Jesus. Even those opposing those questing for power can be seduced into the power trap. Narcissists cannot avoid competing for power, and neither can they avoid retaliating against those who check their power. They can’t stop themselves because their aim is power.’
- Great is Artemis! and other newsletters on Sandra Glahn’s Nobody’s Mother
- Still Here and other newsletters on Daniel G. Hummel’s The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation.
- The Other Evangelicals and other newsletters on Isaac B. Sharp’s The
OtherEvangelicals. - Holy Saturday’s “Meanderings”
- Without Curiosity, We’ll Never Learn
- The Trust Revolution
- No Longer Welcomed
- COVID-19’s Impact on the Church
- Not Your Grandmothers’ Church
- Theological Diversity in the Local Church
- Reading While Female
- When No Longer Wanted
- Revelation, We’ve Got a Problem
- Some Terms are Just too Clear
- etc.
Engaging Scripture with Nijay Gupta
From Engaging Scripture with Dr. Nijay Gupta
- Am I Not a Human and a Sister? – Nijay Gupta quotes William Wells Brown poem Am I Not a Man and a Brother, which, all too sadly applies to gender discrimination, ecclesiastical exploitation and spiritual abuse.
Chuck DeGroat’s Blog
From Chuck DeGroat’s Blog
- Narcissistic Systems: Perpetrators, their Protectors, and their Prey (Part 1: Identifying the Roles) and Narcissistic Systems: Perpetrators, their Protectors, and their Prey (Part 2: The Path Forward) by Kat Wilkins.
- Stilling the STORM Within
- When Narcissism Comes to Church: Further Reflections
Marg Mowczko
From Marg Mowczko: Exploring the biblical theology of Christian egalitarianism
- 5 Flawed Ideas About ‘Headship’ in Marriage
- Submission & the Saviour in Ephesians 5
- Were there Women at the Last Supper?
- An Overview of Women Ministers in the Early Church
- A Note on the Mystery in Ephesians 5:31-32
- The Structure and Language of 1 Corinthians 14:26-40
- What does “saved through childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15) mean?
- Women and men and ministry in first-century churches part 1, part 2, part 3
- Why 1 Timothy 2:12 shouldn’t be used to ban women ministers
- Jesus Called Her ‘Woman’
- The Holy Spirit as Mother in Early Syriac Texts
- Paul’s Theology of Ministry: 1 Tim. 3:2 and Priscilla
- Paul’s Theology of Ministry: 1 Timothy 2:12
- Paul’s Theology of Ministry: 1 Corinthians 14:34–35
- Common Misconceptions about Christian Egalitarianism
- The Biblical Basis of Egalitarianism in 500 Words
- An Overview of Paul’s Use of Kephalē (‘Head’)
- ‘Brothers and Sisters’ (Adelphoi) in Paul’s Letters
- Authentein as Bad Behaviour in 1 Timothy 2:12
- etc.
Word from the Bird with Michael Bird
From Word from the Bird
- N.T. Wright on Romans 8:3-4 – Penal Substitution, but Perhaps Not as You Know it!
- The Priority of John? Can we date the Fourth Gospel before the other Gospels?
- The Transfiguration of Christ – A review of Patrick Schreiner’s new book
- Galatians 3:28 – Neither Male and Female: Thinking about Unity and Equality in Galatians
- Is the Nicene Creed Biblical?
- God and Christ in Irenaeus
- Did Jesus Descend to Hell?
Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr
From Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr
- Why do we devalue women’s work in Christian Institutions?
- One Year of Marginalia: Here’s to the end of Christian patriarchy! A medieval origin story …
- Let’s talk about Patriarchy, again – the patriarchal bargain
- Let’s talk about Patriarchy, again, and Barbie – the impact of complementarian theology
Aimee Byrd
From Aimee Byrd
Daily Devotional
From Daily Devotional
- Exposed
- Replacement Theory
- Insurrection 2.0
- What Mary whispered
- Deterring wickedness
- Lower power
- Space for grief
- Sufferings and Glories
- A Long Way Off
- 10 Things Jesus Never Said
- Seeing the Backside of God
Jason Goroncy
From Jason Goroncy
- On history’s eradication of memory
- ‘Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light’ (Julius Henry Marx)
Conversations Along the Way 