Shame Is Not Sanctification. Self-Contempt Is Not Humility

Any theology that needs human worthlessness in order to make divine grace “great” has already misunderstood both humanity and divinity.

No good and loving father says to his children—or allows them to believe about themselves—“Without me, you’re nothing but trash.”

In any civil and humane society, we would call that abuse. It is demeaning. It is degrading. It is spiritually and psychologically destructive. We would not call such a father “holy”—we would call Child Protective Services.

Let's be honest and recognize this language as blasphemous when we attribute it to God. And yet, many Christians have been brainwashed to see themselves, and others, this way—and then told that self-contempt is “holiness” and humiliation is “humility.”

They are taught to despise their own humanity and call it surrender.

They are taught to confuse shame with repentance.

The Father of Jesus Christ does not diminish dignity in order to create dependence.

Our Father does not heal a person by convincing them they are worthless without him. He reveals the value innate to their nature they have yet to see.

Because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loved us before we were created, we were lavished with the gifts of existence and worth.

Quite frankly, convincing someone they’re worthless is evil.

But “God is not the author of evil,” and many of us still have much unlearning to do.

Indeed, God is not glorified by your self-hatred.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

• a bridge between the ancient Church Fathers and Mothers and wounded modern people

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

When you refuse to forgive someone and bar even the door to reconciliation, you become a warden — and they, your prisoner.

But look more closely at the cell you've built. Jesus is already inside it. He submits himself to your unforgiveness. He will not abandon the one you have locked away, so he stays in the dark alongside them. This is what he does. He enters every prison — even the ones we construct ourselves, brick by brick, out of our own wounds.

And he does not abandon you either, the one holding the keys.

This is the uncomfortable truth about unforgiveness: it is not, finally, a statement about the person who wronged you. It is a statement about who you believe Jesus to be. Does he transform? Does he redeem? Can he be trusted with the one who hurt you, and with your own hurt?

To release someone into his hands requires believing those hands are capable. To keep them locked away suggests, quietly, that you are not sure they are.

Unforgiveness, in the end, is a theology — and every theology is a portrait of its god and the god who holds others prisoners to its own justice.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

• a bridge between the ancient Church Fathers and Mothers and wounded modern people

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

The ancient Japanese art of kintsugi — mending broken pottery with veins of gold so that the fractures become the most luminous part of the vessel — offers a striking icon of the Christian understanding of human dignity. Every person who walks through the doors of an organization such as the Pregnancy Resource Clinic (PRC) in State College, PA carries fractures: fear, shame, grief, or desperation. Yet the pro-life conviction is not simply that human life is biologically precious; it is that every human being, however wounded, bears the imago Dei — the image and likeness of God stamped into the very substance of their being from the moment of conception. To be made in the image of God is to be, in the language of the Eastern Christian tradition, a living icon — an irreplaceable, unrepeatable manifestation of the divine glory in creaturely form. No brokenness, no crisis, no unplanned circumstance can shatter that icon beyond the reach of grace. Neither is the image lost—merely obscured to oneself and others for a season.

In April 2026 Icons reGospeled had the honor of underwriting a table at the PRC annual fundraising banquet where nearly 900 individuals gathered for a delicious meal in the Bryce Jordan Center on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University. The meal and the fellowship were delightful, but the occasion was focused on updates and testimonies on the progress the PRC as a benefit to the community had made over the previous year—and decades before. The keynote speaker complimented the PRC on its high level of professional organization and effectiveness in the local area, serving those who find themselves at a crisis point in their life—many times young college-aged students who may soon choose to call themselves parents.

The ministry of the PRC is a deeply kintsugi work: it does not pretend the cracks are not there, but it presses gold into them — the gold of practical support, of sacrificial love, of the quiet insistence that mother, child, and father remain infinitely worthy of care. Where the culture sees a problem to be solved, the pro-life vision sees an icon to be honored and nurtured, and a fracture waiting to become radiant beauty.

Having attended this banquet for several years now, I continue to come away deeply impressed with the genuinely welcoming nature of the program, the opportunity to catch up and engage with friends in my faith community, and hear inspirational messages of true life transformations. This year’s keynote speaker particularly encouraged young men to take a stand for their family, to aim toward making decisions in life which will build a family in wholeness, and even more so, represented the great need that soon-to-be fathers have. He expressed how he admired the strength of the various programs the PRC offers, including emphasizing and supporting the need to educate young fathers-to-be.

Watch the video recording of the 2026 evening, previous years, and additional content here: Pregnancy Resource Clinic Vimeo Page

The young men at our table were greatly inspired and impacted. I am more than proud that Icons reGospeled attended this function and brought others on board by underwriting a table for 10 guests.

If you could support the Pregnancy Resource Clinic in State College, it would be a very worthwhile and responsible recipient of your generosity. The PRC is a charitable organization and your donations are tax deductible. Just click the image below:

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory 8: Petey

Even the scruffiest of creatures can mediate God’s grace. Petey, the pit bull of Our Gang (later, The Little Rascals), might seen an unlikely theological figure. He is scruffy, energetic, and often comedic. Yet his role in the narratives is profoundly redemptive. Petey provides comfort and protection to traumatized children during the harsh Depression Era. He remains loyal through abandonment and suffering, orphanages and foster homes. He heals through simple presence for the children who need him.

Logoi

Maximus the Confessor teaches that every created thing possesses its own logos—a divine reason or word embedded within it by the eternal Logos, the second person of the Trinity. The logoi of creatures are not merely their biological natures but their participation in the divine life itself. Creation is not a backdrop to salvation; it is the theater of theosis, the stage upon which God's self-communication occurs in infinite particular ways. Each creature, from the cedar of Lebanon to the sparrow, from the whale to the pit bull, carries within itself a fragment of the divine utterance that called it into being.

What Maximus calls theoria physike—natural contemplation, the capacity to perceive the divine logoi shining through creaturely surfaces—is precisely what the children of The Little Rascals practice without knowing it. They look at Petey and see trustworthiness when they have been taught by human experience that the world is not trustworthy and unyielding to imaginative youth. God chooses the tropos of vulnerability, poverty, and marginalization precisely to reveal the logos of divine love most completely.

Petey’s role in the live of the children demonstrates that redemption works through the humble and overlooked just as powerfully as through the noble and celebrated. The pit bull—often maligned and feared in life—becomes in these narratives a vehicle of love and healing., teaching us that prejudice against creatures (like prejudice against persons) blinds us to the grace present in those we dismiss.

Petey is a playful pup remembered as the dog with the ring around his eye. He is also a parable of creaturely joy. Maximus envisions all creation as engaged in a cosmic liturgy, a movement of love toward God that encompasses every creature’s proper activity. The human person is meant to be the mediator of this liturgy—the one who consciously gathers the praise of creation and offers it to the Creator. But in a fallen world, this mediation is disordered. Humanity often fails to see the liturgy happening around it, or actively suppresses creaturely joy in the name of productivity, utility, or fear.

Petey—bounding, tumbling, circling the children with tail in furious motion—is engaged in the cosmic liturgy without philosophical effort. His play is not wasted time. In Maximian terms, play is the creature’s tropos of participation in divine joy,

When Petey makes a child laugh—tumbling across the screen in some irrepressible slapstick—something important happens psychologically. Roberto Assagioli's student Piero Ferrucci wrote that joy is not an emotion alongside others; it is the natural condition of the Self when the ego releases its grip. Laughter, genuine laughter at a dog's antics, is a form of ego-dissolution that is utterly safe, utterly unthreatening.

Animals can correct our manners not only by their strength and loyalty, but by their unselfconscious presence.

In the end, if we are insightful, we learn the true identity of Petey.

Their particular scruffiness, their Depression-era poverty, their orphan-hood, their very ordinariness, did not disqualify them from the grace that moves through all created things toward its Source. Petey, the unlikely theologian in a painted ring, taught them this not through doctrine but through presence.

Petey's marking—that famous painted circle—is, in the economy of narrative, a mark of recognition, not rejection. He is distinguished from other dogs not by superiority but by particularity. He is this dog, this one, known and loved for his specific, unrepeatable being.

And so are you.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous post: Old Yeller

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Religion has taught us to despise fault and imperfection. And when we see imperfection in others and even ourselves—although we very often overlook imperfection in ourselves—we have learned to hate it, condemn it, and reject it along with the person.

But our story isn’t really about imperfection. It’s about being a creature that grows and changes—one that matures.

God uses what is in a state of growth to reveal his love. God chooses the tropos (the way, the mode of being) of vulnerability, poverty, and marginalization precisely to reveal the logos of divine love most completely.

The narrowing of your perception prevents encounter with the wideness of reality as it is. Or as Papa from The Shack would say, “When all you focus on is your pain, you lose sight of me.”

You were marked for recognition, not rejection.

You are a work in progress, and so is everyone else. Therefore, be human and kind.

In fact,

Humankind—

Be both.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

It is a voice we already know.

Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741) has often been called the most famous and influential sermon ever preached in America. In it, Edwards draws a sharp divide between God and humanity, making statements such as

you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.1

That line, like many others in the sermon, reveals its controlling theme.

Edwards’ language hints at a theology not held by the earliest Christians, but rather which came much, much later.:

Echoing St. Anselm of Canterbury’s (1033 - 1109) satisfaction theory of the atonement, Edwards writes:

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince

and recalling St. Thomas Aquinas’ (1225 - 1274) response to question 94 in his Summa Theologiae,2 Edwards further insists:

The sight of the hell-torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. The sight of the wonderful power, the great and dreadful majesty, and awful justice and holiness of God, manifest in the eternal punishment of ungodly men, will make them prize his favor and love vastly the more, and they will be so much more the happy in the enjoyment of it.

It seems that Aquinas’ general interest was to protect the purity of a state of blessedness for those saints and angels in heaven, because anything that could bring delight must there, including the thought that they escaped and were the “fortunate ones.” But the primary reason Aquinas gave is that Divine Justice had been fulfilled:

…the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed.3

Honestly—it is quite disturbing where the logic lands. But in an effort to give Edwards a benefit of the doubt, he does hint at God’s mercy, although mercy is simply seen as the Divine Judge staying his hand of destruction, delaying Justice—a view consistent with Edwards’ Calvinist heritage and a sure-fire (pun intended) way of eliciting responses for numbers and sheep added to the flock and brought into the church building’s walls:

And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up.

After all, how else was the established religion of Europe to plant its roots in the nascent United States of America? This was, for them, how Christianity would move from the Old Country into the new.

Right?

So Why is this Harsh Image so Popular and Lasting?

Why has a sermon like this been considered the most popular—and perhaps one of the most influential—sermons in American history? I would like to suggest two possible answers:

First, it seems entirely natural to us. Dr. C. Baxter Kruger, a living scholar on the Torrance brothers writes:

We are caught in a hermeneutical nightmare and don’t even know it. And the nightmare is so ‘natural’ to us, we could never entertain even a doubt about its vision of god. Any other vision of god is inconceivable. For the one unquestionable absolute in the universe of our minds is that our notion of god could not possibly be wrong.4

Second, my own thought:

We all hear these accusations in our mind:

“I am not good enough.”

“I am not accepted.”

“I am not lovable.”

“I am unworthy.”

“I do not belong.”

When a sermon gives sacred language to accusing thoughts, it can feel powerful precisely because it feels natural. It is a voice we already know—and for that reason, it becomes all the more difficult to recognize how distorted it may be. The voices do not create the thought of condemnation so much as baptize the one we already hear and feel. It echoes the inner whisper of accusation we have all known. Moreover, it is so natural for us that we gladly echo along with those who shout “Amen!” to such theologies from the pupit. A belief strongly held as “Truth” is difficult to relinquish. Once that voice has been preached as truth, it becomes painfully difficult to imagine God otherwise.

What is the Solution?

IT IS TIME to stop agreeing with the voice of the accuser and begin listening instead to the Father revealed by Jesus—the Father he knows, sees, and hears, and the Father he has made known.

The time and life you’ve spent listening to these voices of accusation and condemnation, however, are not wasted. In the Japanese art of Kintsugi,5 broken pottery is mended together again with gold and lacquer. The pottery’s history and usage are thus preserved and its story made known for all to see, enriching the object and the value seen in it by others. Ernest Hemingway wrote,

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.6

What is the proper response to these voices? It is growth. Hemingway reminds us that the answer is to transform accustion, condemnation, and even trauma into a foundation for personal growth.

I pray that you will find freedom from this tormenting habit and the courage to step out into something the masses around you may vehemently reject, as all the while you discover increasingly deeper ways Christ is planted within you—and you in him—and his knowledge of the Father, enabling a life lived honoring him, yourself, and others with Christlike love: self-giving, other-centered, co-suffering, radically forgiving, and overwhelmingly generous.

It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. ... [W]hat then was God, being Good, to do? Was he to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? - St. Athanasius (298 - 373), On the Incarnation7

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

(Footnotes below)

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

The idea that God is angry at humanity and must vent his wrath upon Jesus instead to be able to forgive is perhaps the most destructive idea Christian history has adopted and perpetuated. For good reason, and as a great tragedy, countless millions have turned away from this idea and Christianity.

Some have even said that one cannot be a Christian unless one believes this theology. And yet even today, there are those who attempt to soften it by choosing the idea of annihilation: the belief that God will allow those who persist in rejecting him to lapse into non-existence.

What the Father Was Doing on the Cross

Several years ago I encountered something that permanently reordered my understanding of the Father, his relationship to the Son, and what was actually happening at Calvary. It did not feel like a minor theological adjustment. It felt like a window being thrown open in a room I had lived in for years without realizing how little light was getting in.

The discovery began with a single verse and a textual difference that most English readers never encounter.

Isaiah 53:10 and the Two Traditions

Isaiah 53 is one of the most theologically weighted passages in all of Scripture. It describes the suffering servant — that figure of enigmatic sorrow whose identity the New Testament identifies unmistakably with Jesus of Nazareth. In the English Standard Version, following the Hebrew Masoretic text, verse 10 reads:

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief….”

This rendering has shaped centuries of Christian imagination about what the cross means. It places at the center of atonement theology a God who wills the violent crushing of his own Son.

But this is not how the Septuagint — the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures — renders the passage. To be clear the Septuagint predates the compiled Masoretic text…by hundreds of years.

This matters enormously, and for reasons that go beyond text-critical preference. When the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament, they do so predominantly from the Septuagint. Paul’s letters, the epistle to the Hebrews, the Gospel of John — all of them breathe Septuagintal air. The Greek translation was not a secondary source for the apostles; it was their Bible, their formative imaginative world, the lexicon through which they understood Israel’s story and Christ’s fulfillment of it. When Paul speaks of Christ as our hilasterion, when the author of Hebrews interprets the Levitical sacrifice, when John calls Jesus the Lamb of God — all of this is rooted in the Septuagint’s translation decisions and conceptual vocabulary.

So what does the Septuagint say at Isaiah 53:10?

“And the Lord willed to cleanse (καθαρίσαι) him of the beating. If you should offer for a sin offering the thing for your life, he shall see a long-lived seed.”

The verb is not “to crush” but “to cleanse,” related to our English word catharsis. Not חָפֵץ מַכְאֹב — delight in anguish — but the will to purify, to heal, to move through suffering toward something whole on the other side.

The suffering is real — the Septuagint does not eliminate it — but the divine orientation toward that suffering is not punitive satisfaction. It is healing.

The Theological Stakes

The difference between these two readings is not small. It reaches all the way down into the character of God.

The Masoretic rendering, read through the lens of Anselm’s eleventh-century satisfaction theory and its later development in Reformation-era theory of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, produces a specific image: a Father whose honor has been infinitely offended by human sin, who requires a punishment proportionate to the offense, and who turns his wrath upon the Son as a legally valid substitute in order to satisfy the debt. In this framework, the cross is the site of a transaction within the Godhead — a transfer of punishment from the guilty to the innocent, wrath absorbed so that mercy may flow. Even more damaging though, is this theory of penal substitution solidifies forgiveness as a transaction — a making one right through legal action, not relationship.

Whatever one thinks of this theory’s internal logic, two things ought to be said plainly: it was not the universal teaching of the ancient Church, and it was never the framework of Eastern Christianity, which preserved far more of the original patristic imagination. Ask an Eastern Orthodox Christian what they think of the West’s atonement of penal substitution and the reply would most certainly be one of shock and horror.

The earliest Christian writers — Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor — understood the cross within a very different grammar. For Irenaeus, the key concept was recapitulation (ἀνακεφαλαίωσις): Christ as the new Adam, retracing and reversing the whole course of fallen human existence, consecrating every stage of human life through his own passage through it. The cross was not the payment of a legal debt but the climactic descent into the darkest reaches of our ruin — death itself — so that death might be met, defeated, and transfigured from within.

For Athanasius, the Incarnation was itself the saving act: “He became what we are, so that we might become what he is.” Salvation was not a transaction but a transformation — the immortal life of God penetrating mortal human nature and raising it toward participation in the divine.

For Maximus the Confessor, the cross was the supreme moment of the Logos’s cosmic work: the gathering up of all divisions — between Creator and creation, between heaven and earth, between life and death — into the union accomplished in Christ’s own person.

In none of these frameworks is the Father imagined as turning against the Son. In none of these frameworks is the Father imagined as allowing creation to slip into destruction. In none of them is the cross a rupture within the inner life of God. The Trinity acts with one will, one love, one promise, one intention — even in and through the abyss of Good Friday.

What the Septuagint Opens

The Septuagint’s καθαρίσαι — to cleanse — restores this ancient coherence. It invites us to read the passion not as the Father venting wrath upon Jesus instead of upon us, but as the triune God, in perfect unity of will and love, choosing to enter the worst of what it means to be human in order to heal it from the inside out.

This is not a sentimental evasion of the cross’s severity. The servant’s suffering in Isaiah 53 is shattering — he is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” disfigured, despised, led like a lamb to slaughter. The Septuagint does not soften any of this. But it locates the divine will differently within it. The Father does not will the violence as an expression of his justice against the Son. He wills the traversal of that violence — the going-through-it — as the means by which the servant is cleansed and a long-lived seed is born on the other side.

This also illuminates more fully what is meant when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” Not reconciling himself to the world by receiving satisfaction. Not persuading his own justice to relent. But actively present in Christ, working reconciliation, reaching into the world’s alienation and drawing it home. The cross is not where the Father’s love for us overcomes his wrath toward us; it is where the Father’s love for us is most fully revealed precisely through what the Son endures. As John writes: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” — the Father is the subject of that giving, not its reluctant object.

A Different Vision of Atonement

None of this requires dismissing the genuine reality of sin, judgment, or the costliness of forgiveness. The Eastern tradition never denied that sin separates, that death is a consequence, that something real had to be overcome. But it located the problem differently. The fundamental disorder is not a legal debt requiring payment — it is a corruption of human trusting in the Father, a captivity to death and the devil, a disease running through the whole of human existence. And the remedy is accordingly different: not a transaction, but an ontological healing; not satisfaction rendered, but life restored.

This is why the resurrection is not, in the ancient framework, merely a postscript to the cross — a divine confirmation that the sacrifice was accepted. It is the whole point. Death is not where the story ends but where it breaks open. The cross is the descent into the uttermost depths of human darkness; the resurrection is the eruption of divine life through the bottom of that darkness. As Gregory of Nyssa put it in Oratio 1 in Christi resurrectionem: "The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended. A new birth has taken place, a new life has come, a new order of existence has appeared, our very nature has been transformed... This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead."

What Changed for Me

When this came into focus, something shifted in how I understood prayer, worship, and my own relationship with the Father.

For years I had carried, largely beneath the surface of conscious thought, a subtle image of the Father as the stern one — the one who required the cross before he could be gracious, the one whose love was mediated through the transaction of Calvary. Jesus was approachable; the Father was the one whose wrath had to be propitiated before love could flow. This is not a caricature — it is the implied image in much of popular Western Christianity, and it has done real pastoral damage to countless people whose picture of God has been formed by it.

The cross is not where the Father became willing to save us. It is where the depth of his saving will was made most visible. Moreover, the blood flowing from the cross, seen in this light, is consistent with the cultural Jewish understanding not of violent sacrifice, but rather the free giving of self and life seen in the flow of blood. See Eitan Bar’s recent work for more on that here.

This is the triune God: not a courtroom with a transaction at its center and forgiveness on the line, but a family of self-giving love descending into the ruin of its prodigal creation — willing to go all the way down, all the way to the grave, so that nothing in human experience remains outside the reach of divine redemption, for God’s presence extends even beyond human experience and existence.

Conclusion

“And the Lord willed to cleanse (καθαρίσαι) him of the beating. If you should offer for a sin offering the thing for your life, he shall see a long-lived seed.”

On display — love for God and the love of God. Neither so an angry God that torments or annihilates.

Not the wrath of God poured out upon Jesus; not the threat of annihilation, but the love of God poured out through Jesus — suffering our condition, entering our death, and carrying our humanity through the grave tomb, through the womb, and into the inexhaustible life of God—where we actually were all along.

See the following link for the Greek version of Isaiah 53:10 here.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory 7: Old Yeller

The 1957 film, based on Fred Gipson’s novel, tells the story of Travis Coates, a teenage boy in frontier Texas whose father is away on a cattle drive. Into that fragile household wanders a stray dog who first appears as a nuisance, then becomes protector, companion, and finally the occasion of one of the most wrenching acts in American family cinema. The film was released by Disney in 1957 and was recently selected for the National Film Registry in 2019.

As with the character in our previous discussion, Beethoven, Old Yeller is also at first an unwelcome visitor. Old Yeller does not enter the family as a polished gift. He comes as interruption, appetite, noise, theft, and inconvenience. He barks too much, steals too much, occupies too much space. And still, through that unruly presence, love begins its work.

The tragic beauty of Old Yeller is its unflinching portrayal of the creature as capable of genuine self-giving. What makes the film theologically rich is that it refuses fantasy. Old Yeller charges into battle to defend his family from rapid wolves, knowingly putting himself in mortal danger. It is the culmination of his logos, an appointed nature as protector, the simple and fullest expression of what a loyal dog naturally does. He does not rationalize or calculate the odds; he simply acts.

The AFI describes Old Yeller as the story of the bond between dog and boy on the American frontier. The film functions for its audiences as a training in lamentation. Innocence does not make one immune to tragedy, love can demand grief, and responsibility to the welfare of another can break your heart. Love that is not real does not hurt.

For the Christian, this film is a reminder that religion is not denial, but where God takes grief into God’s own life. The Word became flesh, not abstraction. So when Old Yeller makes a dog central to the moral and spiritual formation of a boy, it is not being sentimental. It is acknowledging that creation is one of the ordinary theaters of grace.

This is where the film becomes more than a coming-of-age story. It becomes an account of initiation into the moral weight of being human. Travis does not become a man by ceasing to love. He becomes a man by loving enough to accept the wound of acting for the good of others at great cost to himself.

Love is worth the wound.

Not because the wound is good in itself. Not because loss is holy merely by being loss. Not because pain redeems automatically. But because a guarded life, though less painful, is also less human.

Even today, the film continues to move adults perhaps even more than children. Children experience it as the shocking discovery that beloved things can die. Adults experience it as recognition: yes, this is the world. This is what it means to love spouses, children, parents, friends, communities, even animals. We do not possess them. We receive them. And because we receive them, we also risk their loss.

A theological reading of Old Yeller therefore leads beyond the film itself. It asks what kind of God we imagine in a world like this. Not a God who keeps us from every heartbreak. Not a God who anesthetizes creaturely life into painless safety. But a God who creates a world where real love is possible, and who in Christ enters the full cost of that love under the reign of death.

In that light, Old Yeller is not merely a sad American classic. It is a meditation on creaturely glory, painful responsibility, and the strange dignity of love that survives its own breaking. It reminds us that grace may enter as interruption, that maturity is born through costly fidelity, and that hope after loss is not betrayal of the dead but faithfulness to the goodness that first made love possible.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous Post: Beethoven

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Did anyone else notice the irony?

Thousands gathered this weekend to protest the idea of a king — on the very same weekend Christians around the world celebrate Christ riding into Jerusalem to the roaring cheers of a crowd crying out for one.

Crowds are fickle.

And long ago, the same crowd that welcomed Jesus as a promised king into the city—ignoring the humility he openly displayed by coming not in power, but in direct confrontation to the established power of Rome—is the same crowd that rejected him only a few days later.

The crowd wanted a king, but not that kind of king. They wanted power without humility, victory without sacrifice, rule without a cross.

Jesus came in defiance of distorted kingship. Not with the coercive strength of Caesar, but with the self-giving love of God.

Shouts of adoration and praise quickly became “Crucify him!”

Declarations of “Salvation has come” became “Save yourself!”

Garments thrown at his feet became dice rolled for his own clothes.

One day we shout, “God you’re here!” and the next we raise our fist accusingly, “Where are you?”

In our ignorance. In our blindness. In our preconceptions and misconceptions, he remains present, compassionate, … faithful.

Crowds are fickle.

Only one is truly faithful.

And he entered into our darkness and has brought us out.

Crowds are fickle. But he is faithful.

May the crowds awaken to the real cries of injustice around them and refuse a system that treats suffering as selective, rallying for one cause today and another tomorrow, while ignoring the deeper sickness beneath them all.

May the delusion of “No Kings” become real compassion and real work toward freeing those who are truly unjustly treated by their oppressive government, such as the people of Iran, who are desperate and calling out for a “rescue operation.”

Hear their voices.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory, Part 6: Beethoven

The lovable, but massive and messy, Saint Bernard Beethoven enters the Newman family, transforming their life through chaos, attachment, and conflict.

Those in the world of business and economics talk about becoming an industry disruptor: a person, company, product, or technology that changes the way an industry normally works. Such a disruptor can change customer expectation and force older companies to adapt or lose market share. In short, doing something innovative or shaking things up, upending the usual way business is done.

The Newman family is “customer” with normal expectations. Mix in Beethoven, one massive “Holy Disruption,” and the fantasy of control is broken. In being forced to contend with the “force” that is Beethoven, each movie character must learn to negotiate patience, boundaries, and compassion. Most importantly, the dynamic action of this disruptor exposes what each person clings to.

“Saint” Bernard is a breed appropriate to the character and nature of Beethoven. This theologically ironic aspect shows that while he is physically powerful enough to destroy, Beethoven chooses gentleness. He is protective without being aggressive, and loyal even when mistreated. He loves without judgment and forgives even the foolishness of others. As with Lassie, he is able to perceive danger and distress. He uses his strength wisely: acting decisively when needed, but gentle in the ordinary moments of family life.

Beethoven, whose gentle strength is protection-through-presence, is a sermon against our idol of control, an apocalypse of fur, drool, noise, and need. He does not merely enter our home; he unsettles its liturgies. He disrupts routines, exposes anxieties, overturns assumptions, and reveals that what often called “order” was, in many ways, only a fragile arrangement of preferences protected by the illusion of control.

He is a destroyer of idols precisely because he is a bearer of love. This “saint” arrives not as a polished moral exemplar, but as a slobbering instrument of grace. And so, Beethoven stands as a shaggy sermon, a disruption not destructive to those he loves, but rather revelatory of who they truly are and can become.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous Post: Toto

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory, Part 5: Rin Tin Tin

The warrior crossover into the canine world: the real life Rin Tin Tin was discovered as a pup in the trenches of World War I by an American soldier, Lee Duncan. Duncan consequently trained Rin Tin Tin to work in silent film. The dog was an instant success, greatly increasing the popularity of German Shepherds for American families and the fame of Warner Bros.

Rin Tin Tin experienced the traumatizing effects of war but the training for film rehabilitated him through loving care. He became one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. His films portray him heroically protecting humans, outwitting criminals, and demonstrating courage and intelligence that seemed almost human.

He represents the redemption of a wounded creature. Having known only violence and suffering—literally born into it in ar—he became an instrument of protection and justice. His story is nothing less than a narrative of theosis, the transformation and sanctification of a creature through love and training, enabling his true logos to emerge. His own suffering paradoxically is the ground of his capacity to protect others. He is able to prevent suffering because he experienced it.

In a world where innocence goes often unprotected, Rin Tin Tin is a meditation on loyalty In the modern world we often relate to God through the lens of betrayal, trauma, and abandonment. The story of the “hero dog” functions like a gentler doorway back into trusting goodness.

In a Maximian sense, every creature possesses a logos in God—a divine meaning, purpose, and inner principle according to which it is created. No creature is arbitrary, for each comes from the Logos and finds its truth in relation to the Logos. Animals, therefore, are not mere props in the human story. They are bearers of meaning, patterns of glory, and living signs through which we glimpse order, purpose, and even grace shining through the midst of chaos.

Rin Tin Tin thus becomes much more than a war-traumatized pup and successful film star; he reveals a pattern in creation that is meaningful as he shows us ways of seeing order and purpose amid chaos.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous Post

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory, Part 4: Toto

Toto is not a warrior. He is not majestic. He is simply there.

He remains through tornado, dislocation, and the strange terror of entering a world where everything familiar has been transfigured into something dazzling with Technicolor, but also unstable and uncertain. He does not command the scene. He does not conquer enemies. He does not speak. And yet his presence is indispensable.

In The Wizard of Oz, Toto becomes a small parable of faithful presence. He is not the redeemer of Dorothy’s journey, but he is a creaturely witness within it. He neither masters the mystery nor controls the road, yet he reveals what others cannot—or will not—see. And in this way, he becomes an instrument of unveiling. He participates in the disclosure of truth. In a world governed by spectacle, illusion, and projected power, Toto quietly exposes what is false.

This is no small theological image. For Dorothy’s experience in Oz is not merely whimsical fantasy; it is a symbolic world in which distorted fears, desires, and powers take visible form. Oz is a realm of exaggerated appearance, where the soul must learn again how to discern reality from illusion. In that sense, Toto functions almost as a grace of memory and perception. He is Dorothy’s living tether to what is real, good, and beloved. He is the humble bond between her enchanted exile and her true home.

That bond matters deeply, because Dorothy’s journey is not simply away from Kansas but through the inner confusions already latent within her life there. The anxieties of poverty, the fear of displacement, the pain of powerlessness, and the trembling uncertainty of maturing into responsibility all haunt the world of Oz. Fantasy here is not escape from reality, but the intensified manifestation of a reality already wounded. Dorothy does not merely need rescue from Oz; she needs healing in her vision. She must learn what is trustworthy, what is false, and where home truly is.

Toto serves this healing precisely through his littleness. He is not grand enough to be mistaken for a savior. He does not rival Dorothy’s agency, nor does he overshadow her pilgrimage. Instead, he accompanies. He remains. He witnesses as Dorothy continues along the Yellow Brick Road. In this sense, he bears a kind of theological innocence: not naïveté, but a creaturely transparency unburdened by the egoic need to dominate, impress, or perform. He sees because he does not need to appear powerful. He reveals because he is not seduced by illusion.

Even Miss Gulch, in Kansas, helps sharpen his symbolic meaning. She represents a harsh and controlling force that threatens joy, imagination, tenderness, and the fragile freedom by which a child first learns delight in the world. Yet Toto, though vulnerable to that threat, remains a sign of the goodness that has not been extinguished. He is a reminder that the soul’s attachment to the lovely, the familiar, and the beloved is not weakness. It is often the very means by which one resists unreality.

So where Lassie may image active fidelity and protective intervention, Toto images something quieter and in some ways more primordial: the faithful witness, the innocent unveiling, the creaturely companion through whom truth breaks in. He discloses that not all salvation arrives with grandeur. Sometimes the apocalypse of truth comes through the small, the familiar, and the easily overlooked behind the curtain.

Toto’s logos, then, is not heroic might but unveiled perception. He moves beneath the pretensions of false sovereignty, through the haze of illusion, and beyond the masks worn by frightened or power-hungry souls. In theological terms, he suggests that reality is often disclosed not to the grandiose, but to the pure in heart; not to those captivated by spectacle, but to those still capable of simple fidelity. In a world enthralled by appearance, Toto becomes an image of humble discernment—an unassuming creature through whom the truth, at last, is pulled out from behind the curtain.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous post: Lassie

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

My good friend and brother in Christ, Beau Hoffman, attorney par excellence, wrote a brief Facebook post regarding faith under the stress test of investigation:

Deconstruction, Faith and Truth

We all trust the scientific method, at least until it starts poking at our theology. In science, you don’t protect a theory by shielding it from questions. You do the opposite. You stress test it. You try to break it. You assume there might be holes and go looking for them with a flashlight and a crowbar. And if the theory survives, it’s stronger for it. If it doesn’t, you refine it. No one calls that “losing faith in science.” They call it….science.

Yet somewhere along the way, we decided faith should work differently. In many corners of western evangelicalism, questioning is treated like treason. Doubt is the enemy. Curiosity is a slippery slope. Using reason and logic earn you the label “backslider”. Apparently, the God who created the human mind would prefer we not use it too aggressively. It’s a strange setup. We trust engineers who test bridges to failure, but we’re told not to test the beliefs meant to carry the full weight of our lives. That’s not faith. That’s intellectual bubble wrap.

But what if deconstruction isn’t destruction at all? What if it’s simply the scientific method applied to belief? You examine what you’ve been handed. You ask hard questions. You pull at threads. And yes, sometimes things unravel. But sometimes what remains is stronger, cleaner, and actually true. If a belief about God collapses under honest scrutiny, maybe the problem wasn’t the questions. Maybe the problem was that the belief couldn’t bear the weight of truth. Maybe the belief didn’t live up to the magnitude of an infinite God. Maybe every belief is meant to fall short of that God.

Because truth does not fear investigation. If God is actually fully, perfectly, and relentlessly love, then that reality won’t shatter under pressure. It will shine. Deconstruction, then, isn’t walking away from faith. It’s refusing to settle for a fragile version of it. It’s choosing a faith that has been tested, refined, and found beautiful on the other side. And frankly, if your faith can’t survive honest questions, it’s not sacred—it’s just untested.

Beau Hoffman, Facebook post, March 18, 2026

If I may, I would gladly respond to counsel’s argument:

My colleague’s argument is really well done. Honestly, it reads like an attorney took one look at bad theology and said, “Your Honor, I would like permission to treat this witness as hostile.” And in a great many cases, I would smile, stroke my glorious beard, take a contemplative puff from my fantastic Boswell’s handmade tobacco pipe—and perhaps a sip of whiskey if the judge would permit—and say, “Proceed” (without implying I am the judge myself—I just enjoy good courtroom drama).

You are absolutely right, Beau: truth does not fear investigation. And you are equally right that many forms of religion have treated honest questions as betrayal, when in fact those questions were often acts of courage. Treating doubt like treason and curiosity like a felony is not a sign of strong faith. It is usually a sign that something fragile is being protected. False beliefs about God should be tested—and if necessary, broken. Good. Any image of God that survives only by forbidding questions is already unwell. Let what is false perish.

But theology is not merely argument. It is participation. It is not only the examination of ideas about God, but the transformation of the one who seeks God. So when testing a belief, it is worth also asking: what within me is doing the testing? Is it love of truth? Woundedness? Fear? Pride? Self-protection? Exhaustion? Hunger for God?

Because the problem is not only bad ideas. It is also the condition of the one doing the thinking. The intellect is not neutral. It can be darkened by fear, self-love, pride, passion, resentment, and distortion. Demolition is not the same thing as purification. Sometimes a person deconstructs because he loves truth. Sometimes because he has been lied to. Sometimes because he is deeply wounded. Sometimes because he is tired. And sometimes because he simply enjoys the thrill of intellectual arson.

So the question is not only, “Have you tested your beliefs?” It is also, “From what kind of heart are you testing them?” Inquiry matters. But purification matters too.

The goal is not simply better concepts. One addendum I would offer is that theology cannot be reduced to the scientific method applied to religious claims. The goal is communion with the Logos, who is Truth Himself. And in His light, what is unreal in us falls away, while what is true becomes more radiant. Every concept of God is, in some sense, too small, because God always exceeds the mind’s grasp. So when certain beliefs collapse under pressure, that is not necessarily the loss of God. It may just be the loss of an idol.

That is where I would gently extend what you have said so well: deconstruction is not just an intellectual exercise. It can also be an ascetical act. It is the stripping away of idols, distortions, and conceptual substitutes for God. But if it is to be truly fruitful, it must also include the stripping away of distortions in the self.

Or, in language fit for two friends, one who is an attorney; the other, a theologian:

Yes, cross-examine the doctrine.
Yes, impeach the bad witness.
Yes, submit the shaky theology into evidence and let the jury see the cracks.

But also remember: the prosecuting attorney (and defending, too)—not to mention the jury and even all others present—need metanoia as well.

In the “courtroom” of theology, what is at stake is not only the testing of propositions, but the healing of perception. If a belief about God collapses the moment someone asks a serious question, that belief was already on life support. If an inherited framework cannot bear the light, let it perish. Truth is not reached by critique alone. The mind must be healed as well as exercised. The heart must be purified as well as made bold.

For the truth of God is not a fragile theory. It is the living Logos—Jesus Christ, the one Who exegetes the Father (John 1:18). And whatever in us is real will become stronger in His light, while whatever is unreal will pass away.

So when some belief collapses, do not too quickly say that faith has failed. It may simply mean that an idol has lost its defending attorney.

You use the metaphor of a stress test, and it is a strong one. The bridge must be stress tested. So must the wings of an aircraft. And yes, a belief as well. Pull at the threads. Bring the crowbar. Depose the bad arguments. Cross-examine the assumptions. Bill accordingly.

But also bring the flashlight.

Because the real test is not only whether the belief can survive scrutiny, but whether the one doing the scrutinizing is willing to stand in the same light—which, much more than most—I know you do.

With much love, buddy, ehm, I mean, Learned counsel,

The Defense rests its case, your Honor.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled supports the spiritual and emotional well-being of individuals and communities by providing faith-based programming, including table fellowship gatherings, dialogue groups rooted in Christian teachings, outreach initiatives, and awareness practices.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

Every Creature Has a Glory: Part 3, Lassie

We begin with the Archetype. Lassie, originating with Eric Knight’s short story Lassie Come Home in 1938, first appeared on screen in 1943 and later achieved television fame from 1954 to 1973.

This loving dog exemplifies canine loyalty and protective love. If Gandalf’s urgent appeal to Shadowfax in the film was, Run, Shadowfax. Show us the meaning of haste, then Lassie taught us the meaning of devotion—the kind of devotion and love that seems to transcend both canine instinct and human comprehension.

Lassie’s sensitive soul operates with extraordinary refinement and awareness. She perceives danger, reads human emotion, and acts with intelligent purpose. She remembers. She reasons. She even seems to answer the question: How can I help those I love?

She embodies the logos of fidelity. Again and again, she fulfills her appointed role as loyal companion, faithful guardian, and the one who sees what others miss. In this sense, her actions suggest that even the lives of animals may participate, in their own creaturely manner, in a redemptive pattern woven into creation.

Love, in the language of this canine, is intelligent even when it is nonverbal. Lassie “knows,” and she acts on what she knows. Perhaps this is why we can learn something of moral formation from what Chrysostom called the “irrational creatures”: their lives become mirrors in which we glimpse both our failures and our calling.

If it is true that many of us in the modern Western world first learned loyalty, sacrifice, grief, mercy, and friendship through animal stories, then Lassie stands as one of their highest exemplars. Other such stories belong to the same family, but Lassie remains one of its clearest and most enduring icons.

Grace = Peace,
Jeremy

Previous Post

Next Post

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

As the Roman Empire was declining Saint Patrick was kidnapped at the age of 16 from Roman Britain by Irish pirates and held in Ireland as a slave for six years. During that captivity his faith took deep root. In a dream he heard the words, “Your ship is ready” and then escaped to return home. Later, after a second vision in which he heard the “Voice of the Irish” call to him and say, “We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us,” Patrick returned to Ireland not for revenge, but to bring the love of Christ to the very people who had enslaved him. March 17 is the traditional date of St. Patrick’s death in AD461; the Western Roman Empire fell in 476.

For more information on St. Patrick and some great music in Celtic style:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlnEa82K_VxQ7dwo3uLs2UjB4_P1vSlb2&si=DYTQ00yJAOAfatpa

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Thank you for helping this work continue. Please share this post if you found it helpful!

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled lives at the intersection of ancient theology, modern psychology, and relational presence.

It is:

• a healing space for disillusioned believers

• a bridge between the Church Fathers and wounded modern people

• a community where attention itself becomes a form of ministry

• a space shaped by the full welcome and participation of every person present

Our gatherings are intentionally cultivated as places of genuine belonging—where honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect are not merely encouraged, but expected. Every person matters. Every voice matters. Every presence matters. Rooted in the hospitality of Christ and real care for one another, we commit ourselves not only to our own well-being, but also to the safety, dignity, and flourishing of everyone in the room. Together, we seek to make our time rich, real, and deeply rooted.

A dog presses into your knee. A cat sits quietly at a window. Animals seem to have the ability to dwell in a stillness we cannot manufacture.

The question is not, Do animals matter?

The question is, What kind of world is this, if creatures can draw out tenderness, courage, grief, loyalty, humor, and awe—sometimes better than sermons do?

If we’re honest, our modern lives are hungry for this reminder. Animals drag us back into remembrance: of presence, of vulnerability, of attention…and attention leads to love.

After creating, God said that creation was “good.” He didn’t say “useful” or “disposable.” Have you ever considered the fact that God delights in creatures that humans will never see, much less domesticate (Job 38-41)? He cares for them (Psalm 104). Wisdom literature assumes moral seriousness in how we treat animals (Proverbs 12:10). Creation itself longs for renewal (Romans 8:19-23).

Beauty and Wisdom

Animals are not “nothing.” St. Basil of Caesarea’s Hexaemeron treats the diversity of animals as part of the Creator’s wise ordering of the world. The creature is not merely a teaching tool pointing elsewhere; it is a genuine expression of God’s creative word. Basil reveals how creatures embody divine wisdom and a kind of supernatural design perfectly suited to its calling. Neither are humans their “owners.” We ourselves are a particular kind of creature with a particular kind of vocation. We need a reminder of our place as well. Even toward animals that are dangerous for us, they teach us fear or caution—virtures that humans need in abundance.

Basil also suggests that the animals closest to us on land—the dog, the horse, and cattle, for example—have been given their capacities to capture human affection across all cultures; it is their proximity to us in the hierarchy of created life that allows for deeper relational bonds of understanding and trust.

In the modern West, many people learned their first vocabulary for loyalty, sacrifice, grief, mercy, and friendship from animal stories. We should, therefore, treat animals whether they are in our home or on a screen as cultural parables—not equal to Scripture, but not nothing either.

St. Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Making of Man traces a graduated ascent through creation. This understanding presents God’s wise pedagogy in creation. For Gregory, all living things possess what he terms the “vegetative soul.” This begins with plant life, to be precise. Progressing higher, all animals possess an additional dimension: the “sensitive soul.” This involves perception, emotional response, and memory. It is a real capacity to relate to the world. The T.V. dog Lassie, for example, rescues a child trapped in a well because she has perceived danger, related emotionally to the child, and is intelligent enough to drive toward a goal. These are aspects appropriate to the dog’s nature.

T.V. animals such as Lassie and Mr. Ed seemingly possess remarkable intelligence and even human speech. In the T.V. fantasy world, these are not departures from nature but amplifications of capacities all terrestrial animals possess. Lassie navigates danger and communications warnings; Mr. Ed speaks wisdom and humor. These emerge from our sensing of a “greater vital force” with which God endowed them—and us.

Thus, the creature’s life becomes a mirror for our own. We would do well to take a long look, and we shall.

Humans are a progression further in Gregory’s gradual ascent. They are animals plus something else. Because of this something else, we add reason and the capacity for self-awareness and knowledge of God. Let us not, however, think of this progression as a ladder of worth, but instead as a spectrum of divine creation. We bring that something else to the fulfillment of harmony, perception, emotion, loyalty, etc., toward the good of others.

The Logoi of All Creation

For Maximus the Confessor, every creature possesses a logos—an eternal, God-given principle that defines its nature and telos (ultimate purpose). Animals are active principles working through creation. The logos of a creature is, quite simply, the will of God for that creature—God’s intention for what it should be and how it should live.

The logos of a dog such as Lassie is to be loyal, protective, and loving; the logos of the horse like Mr. Ed is to be noble, strong, and obedient. Maximus sees every creature included in God’s redemptive work. His vision of the cosmos is Christological: “always and in all things the Logos, who is very God, wills to effect the mystery of His own embodiment.” Therefore, the salvation of the universe is not merely a human affair; it is cosmic in scope. All creatures, insofar as they participate in the logoi, participate in the movement toward restoration and transfiguration.

They are, moreover, as rational creatures, governed by divine relationality. Each of their own aspects are not incidental features, but rather expressions of divine Wisdom working through creation. Humans, Maximus would intimate, have a unique responsibility to mediate between the created and uncreated, to help all creation return to God.

Humanity is destined to function as a kind of priestly class for all creation; mediating and returning it to the Father through Christ.

To do so, we must recognize the logoi in creatures and see their divine intention. When we care for animals, when we honor their nature, when we protect them from abuse, we participate in a cosmic priestly work.

This is not metaphorical. Maximus suggests that creation itself will be transfigured and restored. All creatures will participate in the resurrection and renewal of all.

The Creatures of Glory

I have selected several animals from Scripture, literature, and the T.V. and Film industry to discuss in these posts. They are:

1. Balaam’s Donkey: The Perceiver Who Sees

2. Jonah’s Fish: The Creature of Mercy

3. Moby Dick: The Sublime and Mysterious

4. Lassie: The Faithful Shepherd

5. Toto: The Innocent Witness

6. Rin Tin Tin: The Hero’s Courage

7. Beethoven: The Gentle Giant

8. Old Yeller: The Sacrifice

9. Petey: The Survivor and Healer

10. Mr. Ed: The Wise Counselor

In the coming days, I hope these posts will encourage you, remind you of your own uniqueness and purpose, and increase your awareness of relationship and purpose along with all of creaturely existence to reflect and reveal the Father’s goodness and the life of Christ in and as you.

Until then,

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Previous post: Introduction here.

Next post: Lassie.

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to teaching, fellowship, outreach, and spiritual care. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Thank you for helping this work continue.

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled is uniquely positioned at the intersection of: Ancient theology × modern psychology × relational presence

• A healing space for disillusioned believers

• A bridge between Church Fathers and wounded moderns

• A community where attention itself is ministry

• A space built upon the welcome full participation of all present

In the spirit of fellowship and freedom, we gather to nurture Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—fostering holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Those who grew up in certain Christian cultures will remember the strong emphasis on “accountability.” It was often well-intended, but it was frequently misguided in practice. In some Christian movements, this model of accountability supported a culture of “spiritual fathering” that, in many places, ignored healthy boundaries and caused real harm. Put bluntly, the relationship being encouraged often lacked genuine and mutual friendship and instead fostered hierarchy, dependency, and control.

Even though many Christian communities have moved away from older forms of explicit “accountability culture,” the instinct has often survived in a new form. It still appears in the familiar question: Who in your life can tell you “No”?

The concern behind the question is understandable. We do need people who are not flatterers, enablers, or spiritual “yes men.” We need truth-tellers. We need correction. We need relationships in which someone can challenge us when we are self-deceived, immature, reactive, or heading in the wrong direction.

But the question, as it is often framed, remains incomplete. In some cases, it can even become dangerous. The problem with the question “Who can tell tou No?” is that it can easily overstep very important boundaries.

That question matters more because correction without real relationship can easily become control. Rebuke without understanding can become intrusion. Authority without love can become manipulation. And what is called “accountability” can quietly become a system of surveillance, pressure, or spiritualized dominance.

The first question places weight on a person’s position in your life: Who has the standing to confront you?

The second places weight on a person’s relation to your life: Who has cared enough to know your fears, burdens, wounds, patterns, motives, limitations, and story—and remained present long enough to speak with humility and understanding?

These are not the same thing.

Not everyone who has access to your life has earned the right to speak deeply into it. Mere proximity, title, office, confidence, or spiritual language does not qualify a person to offer meaningful correction. Genuine correction should arise from genuine knowing. Otherwise, what is presented as “accountability” can become little more than pressure dressed up in Christian terms.

When someone attempts to guide you without first taking the time to understand you, their words may still contain truth, but they have not earned the weight of deep influence. The deeper the personal guidance, the deeper the knowing should be. The more serious the guidance, the more it should be grounded in humility, relational trust, and love.

This matters psychologically as well as spiritually. People do not grow well under patterns of correction that bypass understanding. They may become compliant, but not mature. They may become externally manageable, but internally fragmented.

Healthy correction does not erase a person’s agency. It protects it. It does not replace discernment with submission to another personality. It strengthens discernment within the safety of truthful relationship.

To be clear, this does not mean that only close friends may ever challenge us. It means that the authority of an inquiring challenge should be proportionate to the depth of the relationship. Someone may occasionally see something real from the outside. But only those who have patiently known us over time can speak with the kind of depth that does not merely confront behavior, but honors the person.

Christian truth is never meant to be separated from Christian charity. A person who refuses to truly know you over a meaningful length of time but still insists on directing you is not practicing pastoral care. They are exercising influence without intimacy.

And that is not accountability. That is control that malforms.

Christ does not confront us as strangers. He knows us, bears with us, tells the truth in love, and never severs correction from mercy. Any Christian practice of guidance that refuses this way of knowing and loving may speak in his name, but it does not reflect his heart.

If someone has not loved you enough to know you, they have not earned the trust and the right to speak into your life and help guide you as they journey with you.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to teaching, fellowship, outreach, and spiritual care. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Thank you for helping this work continue.

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled is uniquely positioned at the intersection of: Ancient theology × modern psychology × relational presence

• A healing space for disillusioned believers

• A bridge between Church Fathers and wounded moderns

• A community where attention itself is ministry

• A space built upon the welcome full participation of all present

In the spirit of fellowship and freedom, we gather to nurture Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—fostering holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

If you’re like me—on Facebook and other social media way too much—you’ve likely come across a recent trend using AI. The concept is one of “then vs. now,” in which AI images of celebrities are placed together. One image is their younger selves; the other as they are now (if living) or as an angel with wings. Here are a few examples (and thanks in advance for my brief walk down a Sci-fi memory lane):

Each of these actors and actresses (and there were many others I could choose from) has had a major impact not only me personally, but also our society and culture. I thought it an interesting and useful way to remember those who’ve passed and those who are still here, because I’m not unaware of how important each person was/is during the growing phases of my life thus far. But noticing this took an unexpected turn when I began to see image of famous animals from T.V. and the screen and began to think more deeply into how these animals also contributed to my formation and growth. The animals have shaped us as much as the actors and actresses themselves—maybe much more. Here are a few more examples:

The amount of content for this post is limited due to email size restrictions, so I’ll do a multi-part article on these animals and others.

Animals move us deeply, and maybe one reason why is that they remind us the world is not a machine or something to escape, but rather a gift. Animals bring us back to ourselves, to God, to others, to nature, to presence.

I look forward to journeying with you as we discuss what it is exactly we have to learn from these fellow creatures in and of Creation.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Next post here.

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

Genesis 18 shows a God already inclined toward mercy—and a humanity far more dignified than modern religion often admits.

“The Lord said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’ Then Abraham spoke up again: ‘Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes...’”
—Genesis 18:26–27

Three things worth noticing in this passage:

1. God chose to enter into dialogue with Abraham about the coming calamity of Sodom.
   That alone tells us something profound. God is not portrayed here as reluctant mercy being talked into compassion by a more tender human being. The conversation itself suggests that mercy was already in his heart. The very fact that God initiates this exchange reveals a God who humbles himself and, in that humility, raises human beings up. The Father of Jesus condescends in order to lift us beyond ourselves. In doing so, he reveals what he thinks of humanity: that we possess real dignity, real value, and a depth of nature we often do not yet know how to see.

2. Abraham does not speak of himself as depraved, worthless, or inherently vile.
   He calls himself dust and ashes. That is not the language of self-hatred. It is the language of creaturely dependence. Abraham recognizes his frailty before God, not his worthlessness. That is very different from the diminished view of humanity that many forms of modern institutional Christianity press onto people. Biblical humility is not theological self-erasure. It is not self-contempt, self-abuse, or the ritualized denial of one’s dignity. Biblical humility is the honest recognition that we are contingent creatures held in being by God.

3. Sodom is not the end of the story.
   If Genesis 18 reveals a God whose heart already leans toward mercy, Ezekiel 16 makes that mercy even harder to ignore. Speaking to Jerusalem, the Lord says:

“Nevertheless, I will restore their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters, the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and [ae]along with them your own fortunes, so that you will bear your disgrace and feel ashamed for all that you have done when you become a consolation to them. Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, [af]will return to their former state, and you with your daughters will also return to your former state." - Ezekiel 16:53-55

What Scripture says about Sodom should unsettle anyone whose faith has been built almost entirely on wrath, exclusion, and the finality of judgment. These texts raise uncomfortable questions about our concepts mercy, judgment, and the God many pulpits prefer not to proclaim. They also raise another question: Why has so much modern Christianity taught people to despise themselves in God’s name?

Abraham’s words and God’s posture toward him tell a very different story.

Abraham’s humility is not worthlessness, but creaturely dependence before a merciful God. Biblical humility is not self-contempt but truthful dependence before the God whose heart leans toward mercy.

Spend time reflecting on these three points, and they may begin to reshape your faith entirely—especially the way you see both God and yourself.

You are lovable, and you are loved. You can rest in the life and love of God within you.

You are dust and ashes, yes—but not garbage.

You are frail, but not worthless.

Dependent, but not despised.

And the God who spoke with Abraham is not eager to crush humanity, but has drawn it into mercy, dignity, and restoration in Christ.

Here are three simple reflective questions:

1. Do I approach God as if he is already merciful, or as if he must be persuaded to be good?

2. When I think of myself before God, do I practice humility—or self-contempt?

3. What might change in my faith if I truly believed that God’s heart is toward restoration, not rejection?

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to teaching, fellowship, outreach, and spiritual care. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Thank you for helping this work continue.

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled is uniquely positioned at the intersection of: Ancient theology × modern psychology × relational presence

• A healing space for disillusioned believers

• A bridge between Church Fathers and wounded moderns

• A community where attention itself is ministry

• A space built upon the welcome full participation of all present

In the spirit of fellowship and freedom, we gather to nurture Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—fostering holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

If only I had known when I was younger how impossibly rich the history of our Christian faith truly is.

There’s a particular kind of loss that comes from discovering—late in life—that an entire dimension of your inherited faith was missing. While our faith tradition in the West is still grand and has great value, we have been systematically robbed of much of the beauty which the Church at one time knew and celebrated.

For years, I didn’t understand what I was missing. And I suspect you might be in the same place. Continue reading on to see why a sense of loss turned into an unexpected sense of joy and wonder.

A Divided Church, Separated Visions

This Easter season—still a few weeks away—I want to point you toward a book that changed how I understand Christianity itself: Resurrecting Easter by John Dominic and Sarah Sexton Crossan.

The scholarship is extraordinary. The research is meticulous. But what makes this book remarkable is that it remains readable—accessible to anyone genuinely curious about their faith. And within its pages, you’ll encounter some of the most stunning Christian artwork ever created: depictions of our faith’s deepest truths that most of us have never seen and may never have the chance to witness in person.

But beyond the beautiful imagery lies something more significant. This book traces a critical divergence in Christian thought—one that happened remarkably early, within the first few centuries of the Church’s history.

The Eastern Church kept something the Western Church abandoned.

While Western Christianity in its evangelicalism gradually developed a vision of the afterlife marked by horror and punishment, the Eastern—the Orthodox—Church maintained the original Christian vision: a resurrection focused not on divine retribution, but on the triumph and restoration of Christ himself—and humanity with him. Eastern Christian art reflects this consistently. It sings of victory, not damnation.

What the Catacombs Tell Us

Dr. John Wesley Hanson’s own research into the art of the earliest Christians—found in the catacombs where the faith was literally underground—reveals something remarkable:

“The Catacombs give us the views of the unlearned, as Clement and Origen state the doctrine of scholars and teachers. Not a syllable is found hinting at the horrors of Augustinianism, but the inscription on every monument harmonizes with the Universalism of the early fathers.” (Hanson’s work is available here.)

Let that sink in for a moment.

Among the earliest Christians, there was unity. The ordinary believers and the great scholars—Clement, Origen—agreed on a fundamental point: the faith was victorious. It proclaimed triumph, not torment. Universalism, not damnation.

“Horrors of Augustinianism” is Hanson’s measured way of describing what came later in the Western Evangelical Christian tradition.

When I First Learned the Truth

Published in 2018, Resurrecting Easter was among the first books that made me truly understand this loss. It demonstrated to me—with graphic artistic evidence—the richness, stability, and legitimacy of the earliest Christian faith. A faith I sadly did not inherit from my own childhood.

And I suspect you didn’t either.

An Invitation

This Easter season, I’m inviting you to recover some of what was lost. Read Resurrecting Easter. Let the artwork speak to you. Sit with the scholarship. Allow your understanding of what Christianity actually is—what it was meant to be—to deepen.

You might discover, as I did, that the faith of the early Church is far more beautiful, far more victorious, and far more grounded in the resurrection itself than what we’ve inherited in the modern West. Any sadness I’ve mentioned in this brief article is vastly overwhelmed by the richness from discovering the faith of the earliest Christians, and this faith, as you will see in the abundance of photos in the book itself, has been faithfully preserved and transmitted by Eastern Christians beginning in the earliest centuries until even now.

The book awaits. Easter is approaching.

It’s time to see what we’ve been missing.

Have you experienced this same discovery? What aspects of early Christian faith have surprised or moved you most? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

By Jeremy D. Krider, ThD (cand.) - Kairos University

These reflections explore the meeting point of Scripture, Christian tradition, and the human person — where theology and lived experience come together. Jeremy also writes on attention and awareness as spiritual and psychological transformative pathways, drawing upon St. Maximus the Confessor (e.g. theosis) and Roberto Assagioli, founder of Psychosynthesis.

Everything here is offered freely. If this work deepens your faith or expands your thinking, your support will help sustain and grow it.

Strengthened by Grace is a ministry of Icons reGospeled, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to teaching, fellowship, outreach, and spiritual care. Donations are tax-deductible, and no goods or services are exchanged.

Thank you for helping this work continue.

To learn more or support Icons reGospeled, click our logo here:

Subscribe now

Share

We’d also love to hear your thoughts!

Leave a comment

Mission Statement

Icons reGospeled nurtures Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—supporting holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.

Icons reGospeled is uniquely positioned at the intersection of: Ancient theology × modern psychology × relational presence

• A healing space for disillusioned believers

• A bridge between Church Fathers and wounded moderns

• A community where attention itself is ministry

• A space built upon the welcome full participation of all present

In the spirit of fellowship and freedom, we gather to nurture Christ-centered growth through monthly table fellowship, faith-rooted dialogue, awareness practices, and outreach—fostering holistic formation, spiritual and mental well-being, identity in Christ, and authentic community.