Greetings. Welcome to the Church of Biblical
Sanity. I'm Andy Johnson. January 27th, 2026.
Now, I have nothing to say today that should
be offensive to any of those in the Christian
community. I'm not using hate language, and I
am not demeaning individual people. I honor your
spiritual path. whatever that may be. I honor
your beliefs. And you may disagree with what
I say. You may think I'm totally wrong in my
interpretation of Scripture, but that's okay.
I'm doing my best not to be offensive, but to
be biblical. So I will put the Bible verses from
which today's talk is from in the a YouTube thing
below so you'll be able to see that. So part
one is quick to listen. Now if you disagree with
what I have to say, let's talk about it. Let's
talk. And listening is an important part of talking.
St. James tells us about this and James First
verse, or first chapter 19, he says, my dear
brothers, take note of this. Everyone should
be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to
become angry. For a man's anger does not bring
about the righteous life that God desires. And
think about how many times anger gets in the
way. Anger is not good. So we are to be quick
to listen. Slow to speak. When we disagree, we
must be quick to listen. Be quick to listen.
Not listen to find a quiet space to jump in with
your talk. Quick to listen means one seeks to
understand. Quick to listen does not mean quick
to correct people or quick to convince people,
or quick to talk over people, or quick to silence
people. Neither does quick to listen mean that
you need to agree. You don't need to agree with
me. That would be a horrible thing. Quick to
listen does not mean you must convince others
of the rightness of your ideas and the wrongness
of theirs. You can embrace what is precious to
you, knowing that others are also embracing what
is precious to them, and our embracings are different,
and that's okay. Listening and talking with those
who disagree is how we evolve our thinking and
grow in our faith. And I'll be defining faith
in a minute too. But hearing the ideas of others
invites us to revisit our ideas, our thinking,
our beliefs, then either reify or strengthen
and revise our thinking. When we close ourselves
off from those who think differently, when we
surround ourselves in like -think and happy talk,
We cease to grow in this bubble. We become stuck
in time. This leads to cognitive inbreeding,
deleterious mutations. To grow is to change.
To stay the same is to wither and die. We must
be quick to listen. Part two, Pharisees. Now,
I bring this up because some have been extremely
slow to listen. In fact, they're not listening
at all. Now, last week I posted some Bible verses
to illustrate what I see as the hypocrisy of
some in the Christian community, primarily those
on the religious right. And I had some rather
harsh words, yes I did, but we have a license
to be harsh and a responsibility to use harsh
words when the situations warrant. Jimmy Swigert
certainly didn't hesitate to use harsh words.
So here are my harsh words, my biblically based
harsh words. With some in the Christian community,
there is a glaring juxtaposition between the
biblical text upon which their belief system
is based and their actions upon which their values
are based. Not all of Christendom, mind you.
Some. And It seems to glare most brightly from
the ones who constantly tell us how Christian
they are. So, one day I was reading the Bible,
and I happened upon Matthew 23 verses 27, and
it says, and this is from Jesus, quote, Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful
on the outside, but on the inside are full of
bones of the dead and everything unclean." Unquote.
There I go reading the Bible again. And some
are apparently offended that I would do such
a thing. How dare I read the Bible? Some of my
conservative, Jesus -loving Christian friends
have become modern -day Pharisees. They let us
know at every opportunity just how much they
love Jesus, but they're silent, sympathetic,
and compliant to a government that lies, abuses,
intimidates, bullies, steals, hoards, imprisons,
and now kills people. And I'm talking about the
Ice Gestapo. Now when I read biblical scriptures,
this seems to be the sort of stuff that's looked
down upon. When I read biblical scriptures, it
seems instead to promote responsibility, kindness,
compassion, and care. These seem to be rather
dominant themes. When I read the Bible, maybe
I'm getting it wrong. Now some of my conservative,
Jesus -loving Christian friends are somehow able
to justify what Donald Trump and his mass Gestapo
agents are doing. They support a president who
lies, abuses women, breaks the law, covers up
the Epstein files, ignores the Constitution,
and uses the power of the office he has been
given to take Greenland because, quote, we need
it, unquote. And in doing so, my conservative,
Jesus -loving Christian friends are doing the
same by proxy. How is it possible not to see
you as whitewashed tombs dead bones. Everything
is unclean. There's no love and compassion inside
you. Part three, lies and the people of the lies.
Last week, some of my conservative, Jesus -loving
Christian friends took umbrage with my Bible
-based conclusions. They were offended. So what
did they do with their offenses? They contacted
the Facebook gods and said I was posting offensive
things. How dare I use biblical scripture to
make a point? Apparently their belief system
is so fragile that it offends by my selection
of biblical verses. Imagine that. So you silenced
me for a week by claiming my post to be offensive.
I cannot respond to those who respond to my posts.
I can still post. And I call you frauds and hypocrites,
people of the lie. There was nothing offensive
here. And as long as you don't use hate language
or engaged in unwarranted personal attacks, I
will not block or delete any of your posts. Tell
me what I should think in differently. I will
be quick to listen. Please tell me what I got
wrong. Make a case for your point. This is how
one is quick to listen. So part four, not people
of belief. Are you people of faith? The scriptures
have much to say about faith. Hebrews 11 .1,
quote, now faith is confidence in what we hope
for and assurance about what we do not see, unquote.
Faith is different from belief. We often get
those two mixed up. Belief is being certain that
a thing is so. You are certain that a bridge
will hold you up. You believe it will hold you
up. That's Belief. Faith is stepping out on the
bridge. Faith is stepping out on your biblical
principles. Faith is living your values. Not
just believing your values, but living them.
And some of my conservative, Jesus -loving Christian
friends are people of belief, not people of faith.
Am I judging you? No. I'm simply applying scriptures
to you. Now, if you're basically a bad person,
a selfish person, an evil person, or a narcissistic
person, and you support Trump and his ICE policies,
I have nothing against you. You're living your
values. That's what you do. But if you're claim
to be a quote Bible -believing Christian, I would
say to you a little less belief and a little
more faith.