We can critique concepts without criticizing other Christians

 Having personally known Bruce Gibson for over 10 years, I know he is compassionate, kind, loving & caring. He recently published, “Rediscovering the Good news of the Gospel," after reading it, I feel It would be shameful for anyone in our community to slander Bruce’s reputation and regrettable if church leaders “banned” this book based on its provocative perspective, I want to be considerate with my comments about Bruce’s book because I believe his intentions were wholesome and he’s a man of integrity. 

Bruce’s book is worthwhile because there are too many people who are insecure about God’s love and who work hard to earn their salvation, which is basically Bruce’s objective, but secondly, we quickly cut off people who question our views and we have lost the art of dialogue or the ability to embrace people who we think are wrong, therefore are we able to accept believers we disagree with, are we able to refrain from judging them, and can we reexamine our core essentials of the Faith? That is the ultimate value of reading this book because it’s possible to critique a concept without criticizing other Christians, we can disagree about doctrine without demonizing other disciples -- many people are either overconfident or completely insecure in their beliefs, they either choose to avoid differences of opinion based on the fact that they are certain of what they know, or, they are fearful that the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. 

Being misguided and mistaken isn’t the equivalent of being malicious or misguiding others, Bruce asserts that the blood shed at Jesus’ death wasn’t for our forgiveness, in the parable of the unforgiving servant, he wasn’t tortured when the King handed him over to the torturers, in fact many of the rudimentary elements of your traditional faith will need to be re-examined.  You will find yourself opening your Bible and asking yourself, Why do I think what I think, does sin really separate humanity from God above or doesn’t it, is God motivated to act in human affairs by our prayer requests, is Bruce correct that hell possibly doesn’t exist and atheists who reject God outright are forgiven before they were even born?  

In the age of Wikipedia, WebMD, Legalzoom, and the wild wild West of AI, we have severed the strongholds of elites/experts and Bruce readily admits he’s an attorney, not an academically trained theologian -- I would add you don’t have to be trained in New Testament Greek to understand the English translation of the Bible, but you do need an education in Greek if you want to make arguments from the Greek or reference the Greek to argue your case.  There are a variety of past tenses, for example, “I bought vodka, I wasn’t planning on drinking it all but once I opened the bottle I drank it all and I got drunk, when I woke up hungover, I felt remorse and now I regret the whole thing.”  Greek has the aorist (a simple past action) the imperfect (a continuous past action) and the perfect (a past action with ongoing results) each distinct tense conveys nuances of completed, ongoing, or stative actions in the past; these distinctions are absent in Bruce’s book.

The book is implying inclusivism, that everyone is already forgiven because grace is basically boundless and irresistible, asserting his confidence that even after a person dies they still have hope of a second chance, it’s not simply “Once saved always saved,” instead it’s all saved always saved, Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, pedophiles, atheists one and all.  But being assured of salvation that’s available to all, does this make it automatic to all? 

In an effort to demystify God and make Him fully comprehensible, to erase the dreaded question of how could an all-loving God send anyone to hell for all of eternity by reducing God’s love to a one dimensional “either/or” and rejecting the “both/and” elements Bruce unintentionally creates a neolegalism, unconscious that Universalism undermines our free will and binds God contractually to have to forgive, depriving God’s discretion, robbing Him of His prerogatives to do as He pleases, and it erodes the “Lord’s Prayer” since God knows what we need and what others need so don’t ask because if you do ask, you misunderstand God’s heart.  

The pain of paradox is front and center here, what do we do when two truths appear to contradict each other and we find it pure emotional torture to acquiesce?  For example, how do we reconcile God’s demand for justice with His merciful love? When we are confronted by a doctrine that confuses us, or that makes us uncomfortable, psychologically we create a compromise to ease the tension we can’t resolve internally or intellectually. 

Even though I found his perspective unpersuasive and unconvincing, the book was thought provoking and is a compelling case to reexamine the necessity of an ownership of our faith because a complacent faith is a stagnant faith and once every so often it’s beneficial to have your perspectives challenged, something to jar you into questioning what you believe and why.  It truly is essential that we return to the Bible and review, periodically, our understanding of primary essential doctrines.

Click here for original article in the Timesnews

Why unity is better than uniformity and Why do we turn to violence and turn away from talking...?

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then our attitudes are more powerful than gunpowder or ammunition.  Yet, our culture has normalized hating the people we disagree with — apparently we all want to be the one holding the microphone controlling the conversation.  But this is to our detriment because when we lose confidence in each other, we lose confidence in ourselves.  We are like cars merging on the highway refusing to yield to one other, causing a catastrophic pileup from our inability to dialogue.  

What is interfering with our ability to hold civil conversions?  Like boiling all of the flavor out, we’ve rendered all of our views down to “either/or” thinking and we’ve lost the “both/and” option because not only do we disagree on what’s best for us all or the path towards whatever is best for us, we lack a mutual respect for opposing viewpoints.

Why can’t the government just make us behave nicely?  Growing up we never had a house key, when I asked my dad why we didn’t lock our doors he told me, “Locks keep honest people honest.”  Stringent laws will not solve our society’s differences, especially the ones that turn violent.  

We need to really examine why we turn to violence as a solution and ask, is all violence preventable?  London England plans to make the purchase of pointed kitchen knives off limits, which makes you wonder how far can a nation go in their attempts to regulate what a criminal can get their hands on.  

As Cain conspired, he never conceptualized or considered a carbine — when deranged people are determined, there’s little to no deterrent that can distract them from devastation.  For example, if we had the ability to legislate morality effectively, then the citizens of Chicago could enjoy walking their streets at night and their rowdier residents wouldn’t look like Swiss cheese every weekend.  

Do differences generate violence?  Any student of the four Gospels knows that Jesus surrounded Himself with a diverse group of apostles, He had tax collectors and fishermen and zealots; the early church had to learn how to deal with different views, if you read the Gospels and Acts it is abundantly clear.  Tragically, we’ve lost sight of the value of diversity as political violence now seems to be an acceptable fact of life.  

There are certain people who we either idolize or demonize, polarizing personalities have the ability to capture our attention, they attract likeminded people, and of course they infuriate people who refuse to be influenced by them.  When it comes to polarizing people, we are either impressed with or intimidated by, we are either drawn to, or threatened by them.  Mature people know how to ignore ideas that are illogical, without feeling the need to shame or insult the people who promote foolishness, immature people on the other hand feel the need to slander everyone and anyone who holds a contrary view that’s different from theirs, but wise people can listen to people with whom they disagree and learn from them too, without feeling hostility towards them.  

Much of the empathy and sympathy that many progressives expressed last month seemed clouded by caveats and clichés, conservatives lack a stellar record of supporting detractors who suffer as well.  What we need is unity, not uniformity -- indoctrination is abominable and conformity is claustrophobic.  Tolerance for and common respect for the rights of others to form and articulate their own views is what is needed now more than ever. 

We have to be willing to accept challenges to our perceptions, if we are to challenge the views of others. We must hear people out as we would like to be listened to. We must give people the same benefit of the doubt that we ourselves wish to receive. We have to find common ground with which we agree upon and build upon that and offer the same amount of acceptance that we would hope to be accepted by.

Consider I Peter 3:8-9 &:15, “[8] Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. [9] Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing…, [15] but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect…”  When we lose sight of the reality that the people on the opposite side of the aisle are created in the image of God, that is when we have begun to idolize our ideologies -- we hold so much more in common and our differences are, for the most part, trivial and temporary.  

People who refuse to fight fairly aren’t winning arguments, they’re losing credibility.  Our deepest problem is that we are selfish and the laws our government enacts are powerless to resolve that, violence is the fruit of and ultimate expression of selfishness, once we solve our selfishness all the rest will fall in place.  

Originally published in the Kingsport Timesnews 10/10/25 Click here for the original newspaper version