In this episode, I sit down with Zach Lambert, author of Better Ways to Read the Bible, for an honest conversation about how to read the Bible in ways that bring life instead of harm.

This isn’t just about finding better interpretations—it’s about recognizing how literalism, apocalypticism, moralism, and hierarchy have damaged real people, and learning to read Scripture through lenses that center Jesus, context, flourishing, and fruitfulness instead. Zach offers both deconstruction of harmful patterns and reconstruction of life-giving practices for engaging with the Bible.

Topics Covered

* How a college professor’s simple assignment to research women like Deborah, Junia, Phoebe, and Priscilla shattered Zach’s assumptions about women’s roles in the church, and why 80% of his class changed their minds after one week

* Understanding the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy as a recent invention designed to police theological borders by saying “if you disagree with our interpretation, you’re not a Christian”—a form of spiritual abuse that weaponizes God’s name for human control

* Why the “apocalypse lens” (obsession with end times, rapture, hell, and judgment) is so pervasive in American evangelicalism: it’s incredibly effective at controlling people through fear, and has influenced American foreign policy for 75 years through Left Behind theology

* Learning from a Jewish rabbi that the Bible’s authority comes from its multiplicity of truths—like a crystal refracting light differently depending on who’s reading—rather than excavating one singular “correct” interpretation for every verse

* Reframing “God hates divorce” through context and flourishing lenses: understanding that divorce commandments were exclusively given to men in a patriarchal society where divorce was often a death sentence for women, not a universal prohibition against leaving abusive marriages

* How humility and healthy diverse community are the essential ingredients for reading Scripture well—because white clergy’s unanimous biblical defense of chattel slavery wouldn’t have survived if they’d been in equitable community with Black people

Timestamps:

01:00 The Assignment That Changed Everything About Women

06:00 Separating Biblical Inspiration from Human Interpretation

10:00 Social Location and Who Gets Called “Just Theology”

16:00 The Chicago Statement as Spiritual Abuse Tool

21:00 Why Apocalypse Lens Dominates American Evangelicalism

30:00 Detoxing Harmful Patterns Through Humility and Community

35:00 Reframing “God Hates Divorce” Through Healing Lenses

42:00 What Makes God Angry According to the Prophets

45:00 Leading a Church Through Interpretive Diversity

47:00 Finding Zach’s Work and Upcoming Book

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, Kate Boyd sits down with Jared Stacy, author of the forthcoming book Reality in Ruins, for a nuanced conversation about why conspiracy theories have become so pervasive in evangelical Christianity and what the church can do about it.

This isn’t just about QAnon or stolen elections—it’s about understanding how evangelicalism’s theology of persecution, end-times anxiety, and individualism creates fertile ground for conspiracism, and how reclaiming the whole story of Jesus offers a way forward that doesn’t require us to become fact-checkers but truth-tellers in our own key.

Topics Covered

* Understanding conspiracy theory as “functional reality” that provides people not just a lens for interpreting the world but prescribes specific actions—like how belief in a stolen election motivated the January 6th Capitol attack

* Why evangelicals are particularly susceptible to conspiracy thinking: the combination of persecution complex, end-times theology giving conspiracies a “theological charge,” and modern individualism that seeks control through claiming secret knowledge

* How evangelicalism’s witness to the gospel grants conspiracy theories plausibility by packaging spurious claims as “what good faithful Christians believe,” making it feel like apostasy to question them rather than just correcting misinformation

* The historical pattern of conspiracy theories serving evangelical responses to cultural anxieties—from George Whitfield using gospel preaching to prevent slave revolts, to Cold War anti-communism, to contemporary fears about losing white Christian America

* Why confronting conspiracy theories head-on with facts or mockery only leads to deeper entrenchment, and what questions like “why do you need this to be true?” or “why is that good news to you?” can open up instead

* How the church can resist conspiracism not by becoming fact-checkers but by being constituted as Jesus’s body—a “place of reversal” where we discover we were wrong, rehearse the whole story of Jesus, and refuse to settle for anything less than recognizing full humanity in everyone

Timestamps:

01:00 Conspiracy Theory as Functional Reality

06:00 Why Evangelicals Are Susceptible to Conspiracy Thinking

12:00 The Theological Charge That Makes Conspiracies Plausible

18:00 Alternative Knowledge vs. Embodied Truth

24:00 Historical Anxieties Driving Conspiracy Theories

35:00 When Facts and Mockery Don’t Work

45:00 The Freedom to Be Wrong in Christian Community

54:00 Healthy Skepticism Without Conspiracy Thinking

1:03:00 The Church as Place of Transformation and Discovery

1:06:00 Finding Jared’s Work and Forthcoming Book

In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, Kate Boyd wraps up the year-and-a-half journey through 2 Samuel with returning guests Jenai Auman and Liz Daye, examining chapters 23-24—David’s self-congratulatory final words followed by a devastating census that reveals how little he’s actually learned.

This isn’t a triumphant ending to a great king’s reign—it’s a sobering reminder that David’s version of greatness cost 70,000 lives, and his idea of repentance always came after profound devastation that somehow never seemed to affect him personally. The contrast between how David sees himself and what the text actually shows us is the perfect capstone to understanding power’s corruption.

And a shoutout to Jon Pyle, Robert Callahan, and Amanda Waldron for being a part of the journey through books of Samuel!

Topics Covered

* How David’s “last words” in chapter 23 present his self-image as a just ruler bringing cloudless morning prosperity, immediately contrasted by the compilers listing “Uriah the Hittite” among his mighty men—a literary shade that reminds readers of David’s profound injustice

* Understanding why David’s census in chapter 24 was such a violation: it risked ritual impurity for the entire nation, mimicked divine power (only gods counted in ancient cultures), and served as the first step toward military conscription, slavery, and exploitation

* Why David’s choice of punishment—three days of plague affecting 70,000 people—reveals his continued pattern of self-protection, when he could have chosen three months of fleeing enemies with his “mighty men” that would’ve primarily affected him

* The devastating reality that David “makes things right with God” through sacrifice but never repairs things with the people harmed by his choices, mirroring modern patterns where abusive leaders go on apology tours without addressing the actual devastation they caused

* How the story ends not with David as hero but with God’s compassion for the land, contrasting David’s transactional understanding of hesed (loyalty) with God’s hesed (compassion)—showing what God actually values versus what David claimed to embody

* Why paying attention to prophets and moving toward justice and shalom matters more than celebrating leaders who buy their own hype, and how David delivering Israel into bondage (the census taking nine months—a gestation period) inverts God’s role as deliverer from oppression

Timestamps:

01:00 David’s Self-Hype Poem vs. “Uriah the Hittite”

07:00 The Mighty Men List as Twilight End Credits

14:00 Why the Census Was Such a Big Deal

21:00 David’s Cowardly Choice: 70,000 Deaths

30:00 Repentance Without Repair to the Harmed

38:00 Spiritual Bypassing and Weaponized Forgiveness

47:00 The Angel Who Wouldn’t Stop Judging

55:00 Measuring Success by Empire vs. Jesus

1:04:00 Final Takeaways from the David Journey

1:06:00 Finding the Hosts and What’s Next