“Let’s spend a minute, or ten, and talk about Satan. In the western world, the story of Satan is very very common, very well-known. Would it surprise you guys to hear that that story has basically zero actual Biblical basis?”
“These last five years were absolutely fascinating. I have never seen such loyalty, such fanaticism, such militant devotion to any particular politician in the U.S., and that it was Donald Trump of all people that inspired it really boggles my mind.”
“I’ll be honest, when I was a kid learning about Abraham, I didn’t really understand what the big deal was with him. I didn’t really ‘get’ why he was so praised because, as near as I could tell, his entire contribution to the Biblical story was that he had a kid. Which… I mean, he was married. Those people tend to do that.”
“As we sing His praises and participate in the service accoutrements, this somehow invokes the presence of God, resulting in His ‘inhabiting His praises’ and blessing the church with His Holy Presence or some such thing. I was always of the impression that God was everywhere all the time. So, not really sure why they would make a big deal of Him being at any particular occasion, including services, which should be sort of a ‘duh,’ but whatever.”
“As I understand it, getting permission to stay long term is going to be extremely difficult. My initial thought was that, since by the time I’ll be ready to head out there, I’ll have graduated from Torch and have two Bible-related degrees, I could get a job at a church with an English-speaking congregation and get some kind of work visa. I now know that that is completely out of the question.”
“I believe that discernment is just as relevant in modern times, in modern Christian culture, as it was back then because there’s a lot of emphasis in modern Christian culture about ‘following the Spirit,’ about ‘being led by the Lord.’”
"It’s time that we as Christians stopped selfishly asking for more miracles and wonders of a God who had already extravagantly blessed us beyond what we ever deserved. It’s time that we as Christians stopped basing our faith on the expectation of Him constantly reaffirming it with when He has already given us more than enough reason to love Him through eternity and beyond. It’s time that we as Christians stop waiting around for 'the voice of God' when we already have it readily available anytime we want. It’s time that we as Christians refocus our faiths around the sole objective source of communication we have from Him – the Bible."
"Given Australia’s infamous origins and the very imminent probability of horrifying death that accompanies basically every conceivable activity its inhabitants engage in on a daily basis, I was always curious about what church life is like out there. Does their theology emphasize the afterlife more given the likelihood that they will all die as soon as they step outside? Has Satan been portrayed in their artwork as spiders and/or octopi with fangs the size of Fender Precision Basses? Instead of 'He’s got the whole world in His hands,' do they sing, 'He carries the whole world in His pouch?'"