Hello, World!

Introducing myself to Substack

Two summers ago, I pretty much quit social media. It was taking far more than it gave, and I’m deeply concerned about how social media companies operate—the algorithms, the firehose of short-form content, the farming of anger and dissatisfaction.

So, I quit, for the most part.

But I still have some things to say. And in conversations about my thesis—rejoice with me, for I turned it in last Friday!—and other areas of the Bible that I’m passionate about, people keep asking me if I have a Substack.

So I’m here to write about the Bible.

What Is This About?

If you stick around, you’ll hear a lot about my thesis topic, which is slavery + status + sexual ethics in 1 Corinthians. (Elevator pitch: How might the enslaved, who did not have the legal right to defend the boundaries of their own bodies, have heard Paul’s sexual ethics teachings?)

We’ll talk about difficult texts that force us to wrestle with God, about the rich web of connections that run through Scripture, about how the Bible is a wild, untamed story of God’s work in the world, not a tidy manual of systematic theology. We’ll meet lesser-known biblical characters and dust off obscure verses—and engage some modern controversies along the way.

For the time being, none of my posts will be paywalled. If I ever write on more personal topics or on issues where I’m still tentatively feeling out what I think, I may choose to put those behind a paywall for the illusion of a little privacy. I welcome any paid subscribers who choose to support what I’m doing here, but for now, at least, I want to operate from a mindset of abundance—giving freely and accepting God’s gifts with gratitude.

A Little About Me

I’ve been married for twelve years to Brendan, best of men and best of husbands. We have three cats.

In my previous life, I was a fantasy fiction writer/editor, which fuels my love of the Bible-as-story. My new mission is to use my writing and editing skills to help bring great biblical scholarship to the Church in creative ways. For anyone coming to this post from my fiction circles—yes, I’m going to finish that long-overdue conclusion to the Fire Dancer trilogy as soon as I possibly can. I also owe a book to a cowriter. (Sorry, Andrew!) Beyond that, I expect I will return to fiction at some point, but I don’t know what that will look like or when it will be.

I believe that the Bible is true. I believe we should honestly wrestle with hard passages, searching for relevant pieces of ancient context and for connections to other biblical texts to help us understand what God is doing. I believe we should be honest when we don’t know something and humble when we’re pretty sure we do. The scariest thing about blind spots is that we can’t see our own.

As I have lingered in the Bible’s tensions, I have found the text to be a well of life. It does not give easy, pat answers; like life, it is layered, rough-edged, messy. It demands that I wrestle with it, refusing to let go until I have received a blessing. And why would it be any other way? The Christian life is not a series of propositions, but the story of God’s work in a sin-haunted world, a story God invites us into.

Let’s explore the Bible together.