In 1985, when I lived in Marysville, Washington, my good friend Dave Aldrich sent out his annual Christmas letter. A Berkeley grad, activist, and FDR Democrat, Dave was convinced that Republicans have been working to unravel the New Deal since it was enacted. Needless to say, he was not a fan of the Reagan Administration at the time.
In his annual holiday letter, Dave went on a two-page, nonstop, political rant about everything that was wrong with the country, railing against Republicans using George Will-level vocabulary, and then signed it “Merry Christmas.” It was the funniest Christmas letter I have ever received.
I’ve often been tempted to steal his idea, but there’s no way I could ever match his wit or vocab, so I’ll just admit up front that, after the cruelty I witnessed in 2025, I seriously considered it.
I’m thankful that I don’t need to, because for those who reached this site via a link from me, I’d be preaching to the choir. It was encouraging to see you out at the protests. Keep up the good work. We all know the assignment.
Other than living in Orwellian times, there were a lot of positives to share about this past year.
To say that retirement is agreeing with Donna and me might be the understatement of the year. We are both thriving. After spending the first couple of years in retirement getting health issues out of the way, we feel we’re engaged in fulfilling activities independently and with friends, family, and each other. We appreciate the freedom that comes with being retired and don’t take it for granted for one second.
Donna joined the Dahlia Society and is learning how to fill the yard with … more dahlias. There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. Some people are really into it. They have shows and competitions with people judging dahlias that cost hundreds of dollars… for a flower. Donna isn’t like that. She just wants to learn how to make our little plot of land beautiful with dahlias and meet like-minded people. She’s been able to spend more time in the shop doing her art projects. Bold ideas are starting to surface. We’ll keep you posted.
Donna’s mom, Janet, turned 95 this past year and is requiring more care than in the past. We’re thankful that she’s agreeable in her environment, and that the staff at her care center enjoys her. Donna has reached full stride as a sports fan this past year. The very thought of March Madness brings her immense joy. She’s now an avid viewer of sports on television, especially when it’s playoff time. When I look at our shared calendar, all the Duck games and times are already listed. Her golf game gets better every year, and the sports attire section of her closet is growing. I picked the right wife.
I spend my days making difficult decisions among my seemingly endless list of hobbies. I’m still involved in sports officiating (added volleyball to the mix this year), get out for some golf, walk with my buddy Dan, and am still writing the same book I wrote about last year (It’s Complicated, Isn’t It?”). It’s a work in progress. The more I write, the more I discover. I spent considerable time in the music studio this year, recording songs and putting them out on YouTube (William Toner).
Our travel schedule included exotic destinations like Seattle, Neskowin, Port Townsend, and Altoona, Washington. We have adopted a ‘short getaway’ strategy that fits well with our lifestyle and retirement budget. We try to pick places where we can bring Pickles because Pickles is spoiled, and snorts if we leave her at home.
I helped my son Robby build a shed this past year from a set of plans he bought online (see pics). Those who know me know it wasn’t work, it was all fun. I love building stuff, though I’m far from being a pro. What we didn’t know, we figured out. Emilia helped by adding artwork to the project with her felt pens. Rob and Ariana thought it might even be too helpful.
Two days ago, we welcomed Nicholas William Toner into the family. Proud parents Dan and Emily are now a family of five, complete with 3 car seats in the back. We really enjoy hearing what comes out of the mouths of babes. It’s hard work raising a family, but when the kids crack you up with what’s on their mind, it’s all worth it. When we see Gwennie and Ellie, they never disappoint.
We are looking forward to seeing Kelli and the boys at Christmas and learning about their football season. Kaden graduates this year, and Karter is a Freshman. We are very proud of the young gentlemen they have become. Sports fanatics and good students. What more could you want?
With that, in no particular order, I leave you with some memories from 2025.
James Carville famously quipped, “It’s the economy, stupid.” We know that the Biden / Harris ticket took it on the chin for the price of eggs. That’s why democrats would be wise to latch onto the latest catch-phrase, “The affordability crisis”, and make it a party platform message until republicans are so sick of hearing it that they run for cover. They should repeat those three words 20 times a day, every day, running up to the midterms.
Trump likes to pretend there’s no problem, but the grocery bill doesn’t lie. Everything is up, and there’s no relief in sight. Outside of the kitchen table, everything else is up too. The tariffs have increased the price of cars, clothes, furniture, appliances, and lumber, just to name the biggest hitters. And then there’s health care. Premiums have skyrocketed to the point of pricing people out of insurance entirely, and they haven’t even cancelled the Affordable Care Act yet.
So keep saying those three special words, my friends. The affordability crisis. They don’t like to hear it, but they can’t deny it. It’s a winning strategy, and besides, what goes around comes around.
I believe we are about to see karma come full circle. Donald Trump has used people his entire life. Many have gone bankrupt in servitude to the teflon Don. Michael Cohen was useful until he wasn’t. Rudy Giuliani got taken to the cleaners for his association with Trump, and Trump hasn’t helped him one iota. So long as they provided him with some benefit, they got a seat at the table. Once the benefits stop, you’re out.
Trump is under the illusion that his populist movement has been successful. What he doesn’t realize yet is that Peter Thiel, Sheldon Adelson, Harlan Crow, and Ken Griffin have been using him. While he’s been useful to the mega donor class and the Republican Congress, they have looked the other way and put up with his tantrums.
What is going to be interesting in the next year is to see how long it takes for the mega donors and Republicans to throw Trump under the bus. He’s already a lame duck. If he’s as ill as what our eyes are seeing, he could be subjected to 25th Amendment treatment at any time. You can bet that the people holding the purse strings have been thinking strategically for some time now, and that there’s no way they are going to go down with the ship.
I think he’ll be out in ’26, assuming he lives that long. The MAGA movement has run its course. The thrill is gone.
Because ridding the United States of Obamacare isn’t enough for Republicans and the Project 2025 folks, SNAP benefits are expiring in most states this week. Now you can get sick and be hungry at the same time. While I abhor the cruelty, I love the strategy of the Republican party. Can you say self-mortification?
Meanwhile, Elon Musk was able to secure a staggering one trillion dollar package from Tesla shareholders, should he meet certain targets. How long can this shit go on?
What should be our mindset when we open the Bible? How did these books come into being? This is a core question that isn’t often addressed. What other essential questions must we ask ourselves about our belief in Biblical texts?
Most folks don’t think very hard about using the phrase “the Bible.” We often assume we’re communicating with people who already agree with us about what “the Bible” is, but that’s not always the case. Scholars hold that there is no single Bible because the Bible as we know it today is a collection of texts written by more than one hundred authors and as many or more editors who wrote, edited, and compiled the Bible in three different languages across two continents over the course of eleven centuries. The Bible is the result of a compilation process — and there have been many compilations.
In the 21st Century, the most popular translations include, but are not limited to, the King James Version (KJV), the New International Version (NIV), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New Living Translation (NLT), and the New American Standard Bible (NASB). These versions trade off readability and fidelity to the original texts to appeal to different audiences with varying goals when reading the Bible.
Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Univocality
My starting point is to ask three relevant questions. 1) Is the Bible the inspired word of God? 2) Are biblical texts inerrant? 3) Do Biblical texts speak with one single, unified, and consistent voice and from one single, unified, and consistent perspective?
Since no supporting data exists for any of these beliefs, they can only be asserted. In a discussion about what the Bible says, those assertions can mean anything only if the participants agree to grant them that authority.
While the Bible can occasionally be used as a historical document, it contains many gaps. Some suggest that this is where many biblical innovations have been carefully curated to fill gaps in stories lacking critical details. Dan McClellan, a modern-day biblical scholar, strongly advocates interpreting the books of the Bible literarily rather than literally, considering the author’s rhetorical goals. He offers the following explanation:
“Every last word of the bible is a piece of literature, meaning a human author wrote it down with a specific literary genre or combination of genres or innovations on literary genres in mind using conventions and idioms and allusions to try to draw out their rhetorical goals which usually had more to do with the structure of power, values, or boundaries than with just reporting on an event. And so we don’t do justice to what the authors were trying to convey with their texts when we ignore all that and just imagine how these things would have happened historically. In addition to the fact that that’s not what the authors want you to do with the text. Most of what we have in the Bible has no historical reality behind it. The stories in the bible are overwhelmingly literary creations, so they never existed on anything other than a literary level. So, when we try to create a historical background for what is going on, we are merely making things up, which will not lead us to a better understanding of what the author was trying to convey; it will lead us to a worse understanding. The authors had several objectives in mind when creating the texts, and if we overlook these, we will not have a good chance of understanding what made those texts meaningful and valuable to them. Instead, we will overwhelmingly subordinate the texts to our own rhetorical goals — what we want the text to do for us.” — Dan McClellan
Though not his primary goal, McClellan undermines the foundation of the Church’s basic tenets. Adam, Eve, Abraham, and Isaac are post-biblical innovations, along with the Trinity, Original Sin, the Virgin Birth, and Biblical Inerrancy. McClellan is an educator and, thankfully, an honest voice sharing his knowledge with anyone who will listen without regard to whose feathers might get ruffled.
His opinion appears to be in the minority regarding the views of church leadership, but is he wrong? Or is he a trailblazer? He’s got an enormous following on social media over 1 million followers, and those who challenge him on an intellectual level usually lose badly. Facts matter.
Inspiration
Many Christians believe that Biblical texts were divinely inspired. To quote The Moody Bible Institute:
“We believe that the Bible is God’s Word. Moody Bible Institute’s doctrinal statement affirms, “The Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, is a divine revelation, the original autographs of which were verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
What are the criteria by which we determine whether any given statement in the Bible is the inspired word of God or not the inspired word of God? Does the Bible claim to be the inspired word of God?
Many point to 2 Timothy 3:16, which says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness,” as definitive proof of biblical inspiration. But can a biblical text point to itself as scripture? Scholars point out that the author was writing in the late first or early second century CE, but they wanted us to believe they were Paul writing in the 50s or 60s CE. They also point out that 2 Timothy 3:16 wasn’t itself understood as scripture by its author. The most likely interpretation is that the author was asserting the life-giving qualities of the scriptures and their utility as rhetorical instruments.
When I think of the term ‘divinely inspired,’ I envision God hovering over an author, dictating exactly what to say. Or maybe he doesn’t hover over the person. Since he’s God, perhaps he simply inserts the exact thoughts into the author’s head before they begin writing, and that takes care of it. Physical presence would not be necessary because with God, all things are possible. In any case, the claim divinely inspired implies with certainty that a text is the word of God. This asserts that “The Bible is divinely inspired” all the more difficult to accept as a true statement. The Bible contains between 66 and 73 books, depending on one’s religious affiliation. This translates to approximately 31,000 verses or roughly 800,000 words. God said all of this through scores of prophets penning scripture for him? Really? That’s seems far-fetched.
The problem for apologists is that the phrase “The Bible is divinely inspired” is binary. It’s either the case that every single text is something God said indirectly, or it’s not. They can’t have it both ways.
Psalm 137 presents a challenge in this regard. The story recounts the Israelites’ sorrow and exile in Babylon. Scholars describe the story as a Revenge Fantasy. Verse 9 is an example of how the Israelites’ bloodlust feelings about being mistreated: “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” Apologists claim that, in this case, it’s NOT God speaking. But… I thought you said ….
Numbers 31 and Samuel 15 are also examples where it is indisputable that the God of Israel repeatedly commands the slaughtering of innocents. But… I thought you said …
On the issue of slavery being condoned by the Bible, the books of Leviticus and Exodus condone the practice of slavery. So this is God speaking?
It’s interesting that Church pastors who wrestle with these issues when confronted by their parishioners — their interpretations of the Bible get more nuanced. Of course it does.
Inerrancy
Many of the faithful refer to the Bible as “The single source of truth”, yet it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to find discrepancies that easily squash that assertion. The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 differ significantly, leading to different chronologies and ancestral lines. The differing resurrection reports in the Gospels (e.g., who arrived first at Jesus’ tomb, what they saw and heard) contain discrepancies. The Biblical age of the earth (6,000 to 10,000 years) conflicts with the consensus scientific view of ~4.5 billion years. There are issues with census counts, timelines, and scientific descriptions (e.g., flat earth) that do not align with modern knowledge.
Biblical texts have been copied and edited over centuries. Variations and errors have been introduced due to the human factor. Cultural biases and perspectives influenced the text. For this to be true, one would have to assert that not only was the original author’s work inspired by God, but God would have also shielded all of the editors and translators from making a single error. Asserting that the Bible is inerrant is a “sweeping statement”, tough to conceive of as being accurate.
Univocality
The Bible encompasses a diverse range of literary genres, cultural contexts, and perspectives, rendering its message complex rather than having a single, definitive interpretation. Since the data points to separate books, written by roughly 40 authors over 1,500 years, from different continents, in languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, along with the thousands of discrepancies contained within the texts, the case for univocality is a significant stretch—hard no on this one.
Ever-changing Biblical Law
At a high level, we began with biblical laws from the Old Testament. The rules of Moses were set in stone until they weren’t. In Acts 15, the Jerusalem council, after they determined that gentile converts to following Jesus didn’t have to obey the law of Moses, they changed it to: 1) Abstaining from sexual immorality, 2) Abstaining from eating things sacrificed to idols, 3) Abstain from the meat of strangled animals, and 4) Abstain from blood. They eliminated the entire law of Moses, except for four things, and three of them were dietary restrictions. Christians today have overwhelmingly rejected any kind of dietary restrictions because it doesn’t matter what the Bible says. It only matters what we say. We negotiated with the texts to get out of that one.
Every single existing law was abolished with the New Covenant, which completely replaced the Mosaic law and focused on loving God and Neighbor, Embracing grace and living righteous lives with humility, compassion, and forgiveness. If this were the endpoint, it would have been nice just to start here and not have to pay attention to all the other confusing laws. I’ve always wondered why the Ten Commandments are posted in the classroom. They no longer apply. If we must have some religious moral guidance, why wouldn’t Christians want to insist on the laws from the New Covenant instead?
Conclusion
Regardless of your beliefs on these questions, a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted regarding how people have interpreted biblical texts to suit their own goals. Those who assert that “God’s word never changes” fail to acknowledge that the Bible has changed over the past 2,000 years. Books were added, removed, rewritten, and mistranslated. If the Bible never changed, then which version are we talking about? The Bible also contains a variety of contradictory laws and laws that were later superseded or altered. Trying to make sense out of which commandments are relevant today, we have no choice but to rely on whatever religious hierarchical system we belong to to make a final interpretation, and then impose that interpretation on biblical texts. This is to help us identify which commandments we will prioritize, which we will reinterpret, and which we will declare no longer relevant.
The big question is, are these books holy and divinely inspired, containing a mandate of obedience, or not? Or are they man-made books, a simple accumulation of fragments and myths? If they are divine, how are we to escape their injunctions, such as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” What are we to do? God is saying Kill all witches.
We collectively overrule the Bible’s approval of slavery. There’s not a single syllable of the Bible that identifies the practice of buying, selling, and owning other human beings as a sin, but we identify slavery as wrong today. Why? Because we decided to overrule the Bible on that. The Bible was the authority on slavery until we decided that what we learned from Greek philosophy, the renaissance, the reformation, and the enlightenment were important lessons.
Similar shifts have taken place to different degrees over the centuries related to things like polygamy and celibacy. The Bible only has authority to the degree we grant it authority by way of consensus.
When we engage with biblical texts (which have no inherent meaning), we negotiate with them, and that determines what meaning they ultimately have for us. Whether we realize it or not, our opinions heavily influence the outcome. The unfortunate part of this is that some appeal to the Bible to baptize their opinion to endow it with God’s authority.
I am more comfortable being in alignment with those who seek to understand the Bible as its authors, editors, and earliest audiences understood it. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to be intellectually honest and acknowledge that the Bible condones and even endorses actions and behaviors that are widely agreed today to be harmful, hateful, or otherwise just wrong? Doing so doesn’t undermine or otherwise disparage or take away from the profoundness of the Sermon on the Mount, or Matthew 7:12, or 1 Peter 4:8, or Ephesians 4:32 which address love, compassion, and doing unto others.
Not if the Bible is viewed for what it truly is — a collection of texts written by over 40 authors with different agendas for different target audiences.
As a general rule, once we separate from the notion of a divinely inspired, inerrant book that speaks with univocality, we can realize that the Bible doesn’t tell us what to do; we tell the Bible what to do. We grant it authority based on our social and historical circumstances, as well as our identity politics, needs, and goals.
Tuesday was a great day for Democrats, but let’s not overplay our hand. It’s true the margins were better than expected, but keep in mind, Republicans stepped in dog shit every day for 9 months and kicked 20 own goals and still came within 10 points in some races. That’s not saying much.
I take some consolation in the fact that they are slow learners. They seem to be intent on driving that ’66 Thunderbird right off the cliff with a lunatic at the wheel, even though the consequences clearly hurt red states more than blue states. Go figure. I’m an advocate for bringing on the pain. Let the ACA premiums double. Let the SNAP benefits expire. Let the airports shut down. Republicans will take the blame for it, and they know it.
All of this was because one man was mad that Obama had an accomplishment to his name and was determined to do everything in his power to end it.
You know it’s nice to see democrats get to the polls in increasing numbers, independents siding with more progressive politics, and even some republicans leaving the party behind, but just making the switch doesn’t quite do it for me. I want to see some contrition. Serious crimes against humanity have been committed. A lot of damage has been done to many people, and it requires more than just doing the bare minimum. I’ll wait.
Even after Republicans seriously underperformed last night in an off-year election, they are trying to spin it as “It’s not a big deal, the blue states would have won anyway.” The strategy appears to be full steam ahead, in denial of a problem with voters. Suit yourself.
A recent comment by Johnson tipped me off to the real strategy, though. When Johnson quipped that the government might stay shut down until the first of the year, it occurred to me that he knows something about Trump’s health that we don’t. There are several posters on social media, some doctors who specialize in stroke patients and cardiology, who are speculating about Trump’s failing health. Between the jaw drooping on one side, the pee bottle in the leg, and the cognitive decline, something is clearly wrong. Some give him 4-6 months, or less. This is why I read past all of the posters who get their undies in a bunch over him running for a third term. Ain’t gonna happen.
I think Johnson is privy to this and is holding out for Trump’s failing health to force the issue on the 25th Amendment, at which point, Trump’s name in the Epstein files won’t matter as much because he’s not President anymore. It’s a brilliant strategy if it works, but risky. He’ll be taking the heat every day he doesn’t reopen the government. Democrats are wise to let healthcare premiums skyrocket and SNAP benefits disappear in the meantime, because until red state voters feel the pain in a very personal way, they are likely to continue to support Trump.
In my upcoming book “It’s Complicated, Isn’t It?”, there’s a chapter on Religion and Politics where I delve into the absurd positions that “Christian Right” Republicans hold on immigrants, trickle-down economics, the social safety net, and guns. With the news of Catholic Cardinals casting their ballots for Cardinal Robert Provost to be the next Pope, the same group of Republicans are losing their minds. Oh great, now we have a “woke” Pope.
Republicans have been faced with the challenge of twisting the messages from the New Testament to fit their caste system for decades now, and the election of Pope Leo XIV is going to make it considerably harder.
Contrast these two points of view.
You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.
— JD Vance (A Catholic) on Fox News
Republicans using gymnastics to twist the message of Love Thy Neighbor is nothing new. We’ve been witnessing Olympic Champion levels of deceit in the halls of Congress for decades, but this is potentially a powder keg of anti-Trump messaging waiting to happen. And I am here for it.
On Thursday, I attended Dan McClellan’s book signing event at the Duniway Hotel in Portland. If you are unfamiliar with McClellan, he is a biblical scholar with a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter in Theology and Religion and a robust social media following (Twitter, Instagram, et al.). He also co-hosts a podcast called “Data over Dogma” with Dan Beecher.
McClellan is a somewhat controversial figure in religious circles because he frequently and unapologetically discredits religious myths and dogma posited by the far right. He does this very unemotionally and intelligently, presenting irrefutable facts and scholarly research to the conversation. Watching him in action has been both educational and entertaining.
Dan’s new book is titled “The Bible Says So — What We Get Right (and Wrong) about The Bible’s Most Controversial Issues,” The book delves into provocative subjects such as whether or not the Bible is the inspired word of God, its inerrancy, Creation, Slavery, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and whether or not the Bible says women need to cover up. True biblical scholars like McClellan add historical, cultural, literary, linguistic, and theological context to the conversation. In doing so, he tries to understand Biblical Texts as their authors, editors, and earliest audiences understood them. From McClellan’s introduction:
Many people approach the Bible as authoritative, maintaining boundaries regarding what it is and isn’t allowed to say. Allowing the Bible to transgress those boundaries can raise doubts regarding deeply held beliefs people don’t want to see subjected to scrutiny. They are not beliefs that people adopt because they’ve been convinced by data or evidence. They’re beliefs that people choose to accept because doing so is required or incentivized within the social identities that are important to them. Sometimes these beliefs are supported by data and sometimes they are not, but what is true of all of them is that they’re not negotiable. I call this type of belief dogma.
McClellan’s presence on social media frequently intersects with people who assert dogmas such as biblical texts as divinely inspired, inerrancy, and univocality. You’d have to read the book to get all the details, but in a nutshell, McClellan rejects these assertions. He asserts that these beliefs arose over time as people contemplated the implications of different approaches to the Bible and constructed perspectives that made the scripture most useful to their structuring of power, values, and boundaries.
Perhaps the most eye-opening takeaway from McClellan’s message is from a linguistics perspective — that the Bible is a collection of texts without inherent meaning. Meaning comes into play when we attempt to interpret the text, so at the end of the day, it’s whatever you make of it based on your own experiences. We are never just extracting pure and unadulterated meaning. We’re continually constructing it ourselves. We end up guessing the original authors’ needs, circumstances, values, and goals. Why? Because the needs, circumstances, values, and goals of authors and editors two thousand years ago are wildly different than those of today.
My interest in these topics stems from the fact that I am writing a book myself, “It’s Complicated, Isn’t It?” For most of my adult life, I’ve been interested in engaging in discussions with others (if it can be done intelligently and unemotionally). It’s a frustrating endeavor because, in the age of social media, you’re more likely to run into people so steeped in misinformation that they instantly refute your point with lies and propaganda. There’s no moment to pause and stop to actually think things over. They just immediately pull out some parrotted talking points as a rebuttal (usually half way through your sentence). I’ve taken on Republicans in debate forums where Biblical quotes are weaponized in many different ways. In the twenty first century social media landscape, I appreciate guys like McClellan who are out there pushing back on misinformation in an educated way.
I briefly met Dr. McClellan at the book signing and later followed up with a question about the origins of ethics and morals. I was delighted to have him confirm one of the basic hypotheses of my book—believing that ethics and morals originated from the Bible is a fallacy. Ancient philosophers contributed more to framing ethics and morals than the Bible. Most early Christian ethics writing was based on Greek philosophy anyway when the Bible was translated from Aramaic to Greek in 200 – 250 BCE.
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