CWR Blog
Christianity Without The Religion BLOG hosted by Brad Jersak.
faith
Q&R with Brad Jersak – “C.S.I. Jerusalem: Who killed Ananias & Sapphira?”
Question:
Dear Brad,
I have read your book, A More Christlike God, and I am on board wholeheartedly, knowing that we are still learning every day. I have given your book to a friend whose worldview has shifted dramatically. Yesterday he asked me, “What shall I make of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) in light of the "unwrathing" chapters in Brad's book?” It is a problematic text. Where have you landed on this one? Thanks for all you do … Faithfully reading your CWR blogs.
Response:
Because of my conviction that Christ revealed that our Abba ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
July 1, 2025 - Quote for the Day:
“Many Christians are missing the point of Revelation because they’re reading it as though it were a newspaper, with verses lined up and seemingly corresponding to an event in today’s news, or the news they’ve been told will almost certainly be printed in the newspaper in the next month or next year.
Reading the book of Revelation as if it were an advance copy of next week’s or next month’s newspaper has resulted in many people losing faith in God when world events don’t work out the way they were told they ...
Whose Side is God On?
Is there any place in the kingdom of heaven for human partisanship and sectarianism? Join us for fresh insights about our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.
Everlasting Grace—How Expansive Is God’s Love? – Steve Orr
This question is posed in a pop music hit by the Bee Gees, which is among the top 500 greatest contemporary songs.
Despite the pop culture overtones, this is a serious question. "How deep is your love, 'cause we're livin' in a world of fools, breakin' us down."
There are spiritual overtones: "I believe in you. You know the door to my very soul. You're the light in my deepest, darkest hour. You're my savior when I fall." "It's me you need to show, how deep is your love?"
To this I would like to ask another question: How deep is God's love?
I believe the ...
The Lost and the Found
The gospel often turns our expectations upside down — so that those who think they are religious found — who think they have it made — may actually be lost. And those who think that God has given up on them — there just might be hope.
Strategic Planning Update – Ed Dunn
This Month at PTM - July 2025:
Watch a short video and the message on "Strategic Planning Update for PTM" by Ed Dunn as he updates us on the latest from Christianity Without the Religion and Plain Truth Ministries.
https://vimeo.com/1094495218
Forgiveness – A Wonder of His Love – by Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from July 2025:
Of all the scenes I recall from “Forrest Gump” (one of the memorable movies I shall probably ever see), I will never forget the heartbreaking scene when Jenny, Forrest’s long-time girlfriend and finally, for a short time before she dies, his wife, returns home. She and Forrest are walking down a country road toward the house where Jenny lived when she was a little girl. When Jenny sees her old house it unleashes a tidal wave of toxic memories – a raging river of agonizing flashbacks, including the sexual abuse to ...
Join Us For Our Sunday Sermon
"We Need a Bigger Boat"
Join us for our Sunday Sermon:
Many characterize their religious church or movement rowing away from the sinking ship of "the world". They are "saved" and the ship of this world is going down, and anyone not on board their lifeboat deserves to be lost.
https://www.ptm.org/mp3/FreeDwnld/CWR593.mp3
Link to Christianity Without the Religion - Sunday
We hope that our articles and resources bring comfort, hope, encouragement, and healing to our readers. If you’re experiencing that, please subscribe freely, share freely, and, ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
June 28, 2025 - Quote for the Day:
“When I was a young boy my mother and I used to sit on my grandmother’s front porch, on North 8th Street in Herington, Kansas, looking into the summer sky. I never knew my father, since he was killed when I was only 15 months old, so my mother would tell me that my father was one of the stars twinkling up in the sky. So because my mother, the ultimate authority in my world at the time, told me so, I thought my father was ‘up there’ with God.
As I grew older I realized that my father was not a twinkling star ...
A Different Gospel
Are you hearing the “real thing”? There’s only one gospel of Jesus Christ. All other gospels are pretenders and imposters. As Paul says, “a different gospel … is really no gospel at all” (Galatians 1:6-7).
Q&R: Reading Biblical Threats – Brad Jersak
Question:
How do you read difficult passages in the Bible like "the weeping and gnashing of teeth" and the seemingly threatening passages in the Bible?
Response:
I believe it's always essential that we start with Jesus' revelation of God is infinite Love and that Jesus' heart is to restore all things and all people through his victory over satan, sin and death through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The apostle Paul then anticipates Jesus' end game: the summing up of everyone in Jesus (Ephesians 1) and the final outcome where every knee ...
Hijacking Christianity
Religious legalism may seem to have the same external signs as authentic Christianity, but it’s going a different direction. A hijacked plane still has all of the external signage outside that identifies it as an airline with a commendable mission — but internally, a different mission is being planned. There is more to real Christianity than meets the eye.
July 2025 Plain Truth Magazine
The July 2025 Plain Truth magazine is now available for your reading pleasure. Check out the articles and items linked below.
Articles:
Beyond Mere Civility – pg. 1
Christ Is Our Encouragement – pg. 2
Free in Christ – pg. 5
Heaven – More than a Memory – pg. 7
Quotes & Connections – pg. 8
CLICK HERE to read now
We hope that our articles and resources bring comfort, hope, encouragement, and healing to our readers. If you’re experiencing that, please subscribe freely, share freely, and, if you’re able, please consider ...
July 2025
CLICK HERE to read now
(PDF Format)
Articles:
Beyond Mere Civility – pg. 1
Christ Is Our Encouragement – pg. 2
Free in Christ – pg. 5
Heaven – More than a Memory – pg. 7
Quotes & Connections – pg. 8
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
June 25, 2025 - Quote for the Day:
“Christ-less religion convinces its followers that they have a need to be right on all the issues, and further, according to religion (especially fundamentalist religion) its followers believe that they need to categorize all those who differ with them as having less religious value than themselves. Out of such warped thinking comes terms like heathen, heretic, unsaved, unbeliever and pagan – words that are used to describe the ‘other side.’”
Originally published in:
Spiritual Soup for the ...
Prayer — Experiencing God
Christendom is filled with talk of “prayers that work.” But what about prayers that don’t “work”? Is there more to prayer than convincing God to give you what you want?
CWR Video – The Religious Version of the Prodigal Son – by Greg Albrecht
The Religious Version of the Prodigal Son
For other video shorts, with Greg Albrecht, Brad Jersak, Lucy Peppiatt, Brian Zahnd, Steve McVey, and others, visit CWRvideo.
We hope that our articles and resources bring comfort, hope, encouragement, and healing to our readers. If you’re experiencing that, please subscribe freely, share freely, and, if you’re able, please consider donating freely toward paying it forward by clicking the blue giving at the top of your screen.
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
God’s love is so much more than the popular definition of love that often leads to roller-coaster-ride like relationships that rely solely on infatuation and sexual attraction. Worship with us as we reflect on the love of Christ — a love that loves us into loving.
The Gathering Storm of Fundamentalism – by Greg Albrecht
It is one of the most explosive issues facing our world in the early years of this 21st century. Political and religious agendas around the world are bullied and coerced, reacting to a virus-like spiritual plague of religious fundamentalism. The Islamic fundamentalist reaction to Western imperialism and decadence is said to be a counter-attack on the "great Satan's" of our culture (materialism, immorality, secularism, humanism, science and technology), all of which are blamed for taking our world to hell in a hand-basket.
Though the eyes of the world are currently ...
Reflections Along the Jesus Way
June 23, 2025 - Quote for the Day:
“1) In terms of your relationship with God, do you think of what you do as more important that what you are?
By God’s grace, we are friends of Jesus. He offers us that intimate relationship so that we can…bring forth fruit (John 15:16). We are enabled to bring forth the fruit Jesus desires because he is our friend. Our flesh is capable of bringing forth fruit. But, if we are not friends of Jesus then any fruit we produce is not worthy of him – it will always fall short of the kind of fruit he ...
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