James Gómez

July 3, 2025

God Doesn't Need Toxic Churches and Neither Do We

Last week, the Bodies Behind the Bus Podcast (BBTB) launched a series titled "Stories from the Austin Stone." If you aren't familiar with BBTB, they highlight the stories of religious abuse survivors. They've covered stories from within various networks and denominations, including the Acts 29 Network, the Southern Baptist Convention (...

June 28, 2025

Impermanence: Life is Like Holding Water in Our Hands

My kids take forever in the shower. Despite a very clearly communicated 10-minute shower limit, my wife and I often bang on the door around the 20-minute mark and yell, “TIME’S UP, TURN OFF THE WATER!” I don’t know if it's genetic or if it's a behavior common to all older kids. But I can’t be too upset because when I was their age, I u...

June 28, 2025

The Agony of Images - The Power of Mindfulness in Healing Past Trauma

““The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner” The gist of William Faulkner’s quote is that events that happened in the past continue to influence our present. Faulkner isn’t alone; other well-known sayings about our past impacting our present are: • “You can’t escape your past.” • “The ghosts of your past will alwa...

June 28, 2025

Palm Sunday Wasn’t a Celebration, it was an Act of Civil Disobedience

As wealth continued to become concentrated in the hands of the few, the more the masses became exploited for their labor, and were pushed to the margins of society. While the personal estates of the wealthy grew, the ordinary person fell into greater debt. Families that once owned their land lost it to foreclosure. Former home and busi...

June 28, 2025

It's Not that God Won't Stop Evil, It's that God Can't

Marcus Borg, Karen Armstrong, Jonathan Foster, and Thomas Jay Oord have helped me reconstruct my faith the most over the last few years. Foster and Oord were incredibly influential in introducing me to Open and Relational Theology (ORT). For those new to ORT, this is how I understand the view Dr. Oord advocates for. Open and relational...

June 28, 2025

Son of Southtown: My Thoughts on A Memoir of a Childhood Hero

Growing up in the early 90s, I witnessed music that forever changed the world. I'm old enough to remember when Nirvana hit the scene and forever changed rock and roll through their dark and gritty Grunge. I also remember when Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg made Hip-Hop mainstream with their first albums. I came of age when Rock and hip-hop bec...

June 28, 2025

I Need to Get Off the Religious Merry-go-round

Christmas Eve 2024 was the last time I'd stepped foot in a church. After a year of going back and forth, oscillating between Christianity and Islam, I was convinced the grass was greener in Islam. For anyone who knows me, you know I don't do anything halfway. If I say, "I'm in," then I'm in running 100mph. When I was a younger man, I w...

June 28, 2025

Holy Shit! I Actually Wrote a Book

It was the middle of 2022 when a friend casually said, "with all the crazy shit your family has experienced within the church you should write a book." I acknowledged the statement with a chuckle. It turns out my friend gets the last laugh because my book An Exile's Guide to Christianity was published on March 1st, 2025! As blown away ...

June 27, 2025

Facing Our Own Mortality: A Super Power of Religion

The other day, I was sitting with my youngest son when he asked me how old I'll be in 50 years. I told him, "I'll be 90." We sat silently for a moment, and when I looked over at his 8-year-old face, I could see him turning red. Within a few more seconds, tears were streaming down his little face. Putting my arm around his shoulders, I ...

February 2, 2025

3 Fallacies Non-Muslims Believe About the Quran

Photo by Indra Projects on Unsplash. Like many Americans, my assumptions and understanding of Islam were largely shaped by a Post-911 America. There were two truths that I didn't understand about the Post-911 American perspective of Islam until I was much older. 1. What I believed was an 'objective' truth about Islam from an American p...

February 2, 2025

God Doesn’t Have A Chosen People

Image Generated by Canva Dream Lab “"Remember, when you get into heaven, it'll be by blood, but it'll be the blood of your Jewish ancestors, not a failed crucified savior."” That was one of the last things my Jewish grandmother told me before wanting nothing to do with me because I became a Christian. I've had mixed emotions for years ...

February 2, 2025

Walking Out of Church on Christmas Eve

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio Like so many Christmas Eve nights before it, our house smelled like Fraser Fir and cookies baking in the oven. The TV was on a heavy rotation of The Grinch, Elf, and A Christmas Story, and my kids swung like a pendulum between checking on cookies, counting presents, and watching a movie. The Christ...

February 2, 2025

What’s Anchored Me Isn’t Following a Niche Version of Christianity

Image by Keegan Houser on Unsplash For the majority of my adult life, I ideologically lived within the Christian fundamentalist and evangelical sect of Christianity. This was my religious and ideological home; I was a pastor for 15 years in these spaces. I became a pastor because I’ve always been interested in religion, and I am natura...

February 1, 2025

Stop Treating Jesus’s Birth Narratives as History

Image Generated by Canva Magic Media My kids love the cartoon Teen Titans Go, most notably my 8-year-old son. In one episode, the main characters participate in a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure that leads them to sing the catchy phrase, “You wanna ride a dragon.” They do this throughout the episode while embarking on an adventure f...

February 1, 2025

Christmas Unwrapped: Jesus's Birth as Propaganda for Justice

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio “"To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord." (Luke 2:11, NRSV)” As far back as my 40-year-old mind can go, Luke 2:11 immediately comes to mind when I think about Christmas. It's synonymous with polar bears selling Coca-Cola, sitting on Santa's lap at the ...

February 1, 2025

What If We’ve Got Jesus All Wrong? A Fresh Take on the ‘I AM’ Statements

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio I love Jesus. The institution called the Church has wounded, hurt, and deeply traumatized my family and me. But what has never waned is the fact that I love Jesus. I love Jesus’s teachings, the way he lived his life, the way he showed compassion, stood against the domination structures of his day i...

February 1, 2025

Preying on Faith: The Cultic Tactics of Religious Sexual Abuse

Image Generated by Canva Magic Media In the last few weeks, physical and sexual abuse against women and minors at the hands of religious leaders has been in the news. As horrific and tragic as any abuse is, it has become commonplace for these types of tragedies to come into the limelight. I remember when the movie Spotlight came out ab...

February 1, 2025

The Best Way to Change a Toxic Religious Institution is to Leave It

Image Generated by Imagen on Canva I recently wrote about how I decided to leave Christianity and embrace Islam. Hitting ‘send’ on my article and releasing it to the world came with quite a bit of anxiety. The root of my worries was around how hostile Christians would respond. Tragically, they did not disappoint. I had my fair share of...

February 1, 2025

A Journey of the Heart: From Christianity to Embracing Islam... For Real This Time

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio Life is a tapestry woven from experiences, traditions, beliefs, and moments that shape who we are. As I sit down to share my decision to leave Christianity and embrace Islam, I am filled with a mix of emotions — gratitude for my past, uncertainty about the future, and a profound sense of purpose in...

February 1, 2025

Beyond the Ballot: Faith and Democracy in the 2024 Election

Image Generated by Canva Imagen As the United States stands on the cusp of the 2024 Presidential election, the stakes have never been higher at home and on the global stage. If you haven’t voted, please, please, go vote. I candidly didn’t vote for Trump or Harris. My vote went to Jill Stein. For those I’ve shared my voting decision wit...

February 1, 2025

Evolution’s Subversion of the Concept of Creation’s Original Goodness

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio Those exposed to Christianity know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Many Christian communities embrace the story as a fundamental historical truth. The story of Adam and Eve goes like this: Adam and Eve, the first humans created by God, lived in the idyllic Garden of Eden, a paradis...

February 1, 2025

The Ten Commandments: Cultural Artifacts or Divine Decrees?

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio Christians and scholars often heralded the Ten Commandments as foundational to Western ethics, a moral compass influencing legal systems and societal norms. For a large segment of Christians, the Ten Commandments shape fundamental ethical principles, prohibiting actions such as murder, theft, and d...

February 1, 2025

Bipartisan Injustice: 4 Areas Neither Harris Nor Trump Stand for My Christian Values

Image Generated by Substack Image Generator I recently wrote an article about whether the American Church can survive another Trump presidency. In full transparency, I was expecting a lot more pushback and animosity from conservatives and conservative Christians. The reticent response from these groups gives me hope that America is see...

February 1, 2025

Can the American Church Survive Another Trump Presidency?

Generated by Canva Magic Studio I was recently sitting in an interfaith gathering when a woman openly shared how exasperated she was by the upcoming presidential election. It's hard to believe that in less than a month, America will be voting for its next commander-in-chief. What's harder to believe are our options in selecting said pr...

February 1, 2025

How God’s Love Changed the Way I View the Work of Prayer

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio From 2015-2022, I was always sick. For years, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, and I was convinced the new normal for my life was going to revolve around my constant stomach ailments. During this season, along with seeing doctors and nutritionists, a good number of people regular...

February 1, 2025

Religious Trauma: Shifting Spiritual Narratives to Heal Wounds

Image Generated by Canva Magic Studio Sitting in our weekly Bible study class, my wife and I are still very raw and guarded. It’s not that we have any issues with reading the Bible and discussing it publicly with other Christians. Our emotions tend to remain on high alert in these spaces because in Texas, even in progressive churches, ...

February 1, 2025

Conversion or Coercion? Exploring How Trauma is the Church's Greatest Conversion Tactic

I remember sitting in the basement of a church with a dozen other men and women around my age. It was a diverse group of singles, married and married with children. Even ethnically, it was a diverse room of white, Latino, and African Americans. We had poster-sized sticky notes on the walls spread throughout the room. On each note was o...

February 1, 2025

The Bible's Shift in Theology: Jesus' Sonship Across the New Testament

Photo Generated by Canva Magic Studio "You don't need a Ph.D to understand the Bible." I hear this often in conversations in person and online. The assertion is that one does not need a Ph.D to understand the Bible because its message is already accessible and transparent. In one sense, I agree. As an American, I am confident that any ...

February 1, 2025

The Uncontrolling Nature of Divine Love

Image Generated by Substack Image Generator I can't put my finger on why, but a more than noticeable number of Christians really don't like it when I emphasize God's love. Maybe it's because, as much as we don't want to admit it, some Christians view God's holiness and our misconception of justice as superseding God's love. Some Christ...

February 1, 2025

In the Beginning, the Bible Told A Story, Not A History Lesson

Image created by Substack Image Generator There's a saying that Christians in the American South often say, “"The Bible says it, so I believe it, and that settles it."” This line is used to avoid questions about a particular part of the Bible. Instead of having honest conversations or engaging with a person's question, it's meant to sh...