Now living in Italy, with my wife, Rosanne. Father of four children. Born in Seattle. Lived and worked in Chicago, New Jersey, Los Angeles, England, Switzerland, Grand Cayman, the Tonga Islands, Taipei, Hong Kong, and the Dominican Republic.

My studies with Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri after college graduation changed the direction of my life. I have pursued an understanding of God’s truth for many years, often through crisis and personal challenges. My goal is to make the depths of God’s words come alive for anyone who searches.

Experience

Taught college level undergraduate and graduate courses in religion, ethics, philosophy, and human sciences. Developed several courses that explored the relationships between religion and the sciences, including foundations of social and behavioral sciences and philosophical inquiries in physics. Taught business ethics in an MBA curriculum. Taught graduate courses in Greek philosophy and philosophy of science. Established a successful independent consulting firm that provided human resources consulting for employee compensation and sales channel development to Fortune 500 companies. Contributed to development of national surveys on employee motivation and productivity with the American Productivity and Quality Center. Taught professional seminars on motivation and compensation design. Consulted with start-up companies and small businesses on marketing and sales strategies. Provided consulting expertise to third world development programs. Developed and managed a corporate sponsored fund raising program for charities that produced several million in revenue in 2 years.

Employed in executive management positions in both the commercial and non-profit worlds. Previously Dean at Master’s International Divinity School and a speaker at various business and religious functions. I devote much of my time to writing and teaching. Lecture worldwide on biblical topics.

Educational Background:

• D. Phil. Oxford University, Oxford, England
• M.A. University of Washington, Seattle, WA
• M.A. (cum laude) Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL.
• B.A. University of Washington, Seattle, WA..
• B.A. (magna cum laude) Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, WA.

Business/Academic Background:

• 3/05 – 1/17 Dean, Master’s International Divinity School
• 3/06 – 10/07 Executive Director, BlueSky Ministries
• 7/00 – 3/01 President, Wherever.net USA Inc.
• 6/84 – 1/96 President, TELEOS Incorporated. Management consulting firm.
• 9/93 – 5/96 Adjunct Professor, Drew University, Graduate School.
• 1/95 – 7/95 Adjunct Professor, Kean University. Philosophy and Religion.
• 8/84 – 3/85 President, Worldcom, Inc. Technical search firm.
• 4/81 – 6/84 District Manager, AT&T.
• 12/80 – 3/81 Instructor, University of Puget Sound.

A Brief Personal Statement about Biblical Investigation:

Every once in awhile, I get an email that questions my commitment to the Messiah, usually in the form of “if he believes such and such, then he must not believe that Jesus is God” or something like that. The last one was an accusation that I have adopted rabbinic Judaism and therefore, no longer believe that Yeshua is the Messiah.

Please remember that when I quote someone who expresses views contrary to accepted Christian beliefs or when I reference someone who has been determined by the course of history to be a heretic in some form or another, I am NOT endorsing everything the person says. I very often quote Heschel, whom I consider to be a genius when interpreting the text. But Heschel never accepted “Jesus” as the Messiah. So what? His insights into the Hebrew text are startling, amazing and extremely helpful. I have quoted Luzzatto, not because I think his final claims are correct but because his insights into the demand to love your neighbor are penetrating. Flusser never accepted Jesus, but his book The Sage of Galilee is very important.

On the other side of the coin, I reject a great deal of Luther’s work, especially his polemic against the Jews and his manifesto for their extinction. Are we to accept all Luther says because he was right about Romans (if he was right)? Same for Calvin, Augustine and Constantine. Claiming to be Christian doesn’t make them infallible. It doesn’t make the Pope infallible either.

My approach to all of these is “take what is good, leave the rest.” I hope you take that approach with my work. I am often wrong, not intentionally, of course, but because I didn’t see something clearly enough. Your job is to set me straight.

But I must say that I find it amusing when someone takes one sentence from the thousands of pages I have written and determines that I don’t believe Yeshua is divine or that I think all Christians are Torah-resistant fools or that every Christian doctrine is an attempt to deliberately manipulate us. Here’s my suggestion: Read a few hundred pages before you get flustered because you think your most precious doctrines are under attack. I am sure we could have a profitable dialogue about omniscience, forgiveness, atonement, inerrancy and a dozen other theological issues. But the key for me is dialogue, not doctrine. I do not find myself shackled to ossified propositions from past philosophical dilemmas. I do hope to someday understand what God told His people.

I have only one purpose – to find out what the text says, that is, what it meant to the audience that heard it first, what it meant in that culture’s paradigm. So I search anywhere and everywhere that the text takes me. That’s all. That’s enough. I barely have time for even this.

I am trying to find out how to live as a Gentile follower of Yeshua who serves YHVH. Along the way, I am finding that a lot of the forms of Christian theology don’t fit the Scriptures I read, and that means I have to rethink things. But please don’t call me a heretic unless I actually become one. 🙂

Thanks. Now, why not read along with all of us for a year or two?

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