(Re)Thinking Everything - Excerpt

Here's the closing section of the introduction of my book, (Re)Thinking Everything.  It releases on Amazon on January 25, 2022 - my 40th Birthday ... you'll either love it or hate it, there will be no in between.  HA!

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And so this book is my attempt to share with you some of my journey and a little bit about how my faith and thoughts about God and Christianity have evolved and shifted over the years.  My hope is that as I share these things with you that perhaps you’ll feel more at peace with your own faith evolution and more comfortable diving in to do some open heart surgery of your own.  

OR.

Maybe it’ll help you better understand the person in your life who is in the process of their own surgery, but doesn’t yet have the words to help you understand what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.

Lastly, this is NOT a book of answers …

I’m not here to tell you what the right thing to believe about hell or the Bible is.  

I’m not here to build arguments.

I’m not here to provide theological backing for every idea I share.

I’m not here to debate.

I’m not here to build a systematic theology.  

I’m not here to provide answers for all of the critiques of my thinking.

I’m certainly not here to tell you what you want to hear.

And so know that I’m not a theologian or a scholar, nor will I try to be in this book.  Someone asked me a while back what this book will be like and I said, “well.  It’s far from a theological work and more like a journal entry mixed with a blog post that reads like a Rob Bell book married to an episode of The Office.  It’s a personal book.  A rambling book.  It’ll likely disappoint 99% of my seminary professors, raise the eyebrows of actual theologians, elicit the eyerolls of my fellow seminary students, raise the heart rate of most Evangelicals, and make English majors cringe.”

Yes.

Much like the “What If Project” podcast, I’m here to disrupt.  As the saying goes, it’s my hope that the words in the following pages will comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  If you’re set in your ways and think that you have your hands firmly wrapped around absolute truth, I hope the next 150 pages or so offend the ever living daylights out of you.  I’m unapologetically about to storm into your comfort zone and stir up a holy storm.

On the flip side, though, if you have found yourself shamed and ridiculed and outcast for asking too many questions about God and faith and all the things, I hope the following pages are balm for your tired soul.

Much like we say about the “What If Project”, may this book be a lifeboat that picks you up in the sea of your questions and doubts and gives you a place to dry off, gather your thoughts, and know that you’re not alone.  

Wherever you find yourself today, though – welcome, and much love to you on your journey.  

Sincerely, 

  • The Butt-Hurt Snowflake

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Glenn Siepert