The Bog Witch

Show open and docket

Ben opens from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper, noting it has been a minute and that Mike is absent. He sets the docket: Boova's Ask the Pastor question from 1 Kings 22 about Micaiah, Boova's Mississippi travel story, and Ben's own question about the cultural behaviors of Christianity that have nothing to do with following Jesus.

Ask the Pastor setup: can a prophet of the Lord lie?

• Can a prophet of the Lord lie, and how should Micaiah's false word in 1 Kings 22 be understood?

Boova poses the Ask the Pastor question from 1 Kings 22: Micaiah first tells Ahab what he wants to hear, then tells the truth, and Ahab dies anyway. He asks how that works and whether a prophet of the Lord can lie, and teases his Mississippi story about a man and a swamp hag.

Ramadan and the cultural behaviors of Christianity

• What are the cultural behaviors of Christianity that can be kept without actually having a relationship with Jesus?

Ben asks what the cultural behaviors of Christianity are that can be kept without actually having a relationship with Jesus, prompted by a Ramadan display at a halal grocery after a daddy-daughter date. The hosts work through examples: midnight Mass, forty-day fasts, Lent, the serenity prayer in recovery meetings, and funerals — including a funeral where the family asked that God not be mentioned, Dan's story of a wedding with no mention of God, and using the rich man and Lazarus at funerals.

Advent, Easter, and the house-church holiday question

The cultural-behaviors discussion continues into the church calendar: Advent candles, forgetting Lent every year, and what Easter looks like for a house church. The hosts weigh a sunrise service — Ben wanted one but hardly anyone would come at 6AM — alongside a story about a sunrise service in Atlantic, Iowa, and Ben's grandfather's sunrise services in Sioux City.

Prayer before meals and Bible reading without shame

The hosts discuss praying before meals — prompted by A. W. Tozer reading — and the difference between ritual as show and ritual as sincerity: once it stops being a show, you get to do it again. Boova describes Bible reading as air in his lungs rather than a shame biscuit, contrasting years of shame-spirals with grace for mismanaged days, and the hosts reflect on David as a man after God's own heart despite his failures.

Forming children's faith habits without choking them

The hosts discuss cultivating faith habits in kids without provoking resentment — the broccoli metaphor: do not choke them with it or they will hate it forever. Ben gives the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line.

Ask the Pastor: Micaiah's sarcasm and the lying spirit

Ben takes up Boova's 1 Kings 22 question: Micaiah's first answer was sarcasm — Ahab hears what he wants and misses it. The hosts read the throne-room scene (1 Kings 22:19-23), where Yahweh commissions a lying spirit for the mouths of Ahab's prophets, and discuss Naboth's vineyard and Jehoshaphat's entanglement as the backdrop of Ahab's judgment.

The lying spirit as judgment, and why the story is there

• Why does the Micaiah episode exist in the narrative if it changes nothing?

The hosts press further: the lying spirit is Yahweh's judgment on a king who only wants compliant prophets, ending in Ahab's death at Ramoth-gilead. Boova asks why the Micaiah episode exists narratively at all — it changes nothing — and the room lands on formation: the story exposes leaders who surround themselves with yes-men, contrasting David, who received Nathan's rebuke and wrote Psalm 51.

Saul's tormenting spirit and the David/Saul narrative order

From the lying spirit the hosts turn to the tormenting spirit sent to Saul and the narrative ordering of David's arrival — the harpist soothing Saul before the Goliath story, where Saul acts as if he has never seen him. They discuss what the ordering establishes: David is never against Saul, refuses to lift his hand against Yahweh's anointed, and trusts Yahweh to remove Saul in his own time.

Boova's Mississippi story: the witch and the swamp witch

Boova tells the Mississippi story: a trip through New Albany with his wife, a hamburger joint, and a man he calls Milton (name changed) — armed, blunt, and prejudiced — who asks which of them makes a living. Milton says his mother was a witch and his grandmother was a swamp witch, and recounts an alleged childhood captivity and attempted sacrifice. The hosts name the bigotry plainly while marveling at the encounter.

Missionaries, Global Outreach, and Hamburger America

The story's aftermath: Boova's wife was a missionary in Madagascar, a Global Outreach misunderstanding gets untangled, and the hamburger thread resolves with George Motz's book Hamburger America and Latham's Hamburger Inn. Boova reflects on his own prejudice during his brief time in Mississippi.

Dear LFTP: the elderly armed man with a tremor

• Should we socialize with an elderly armed man who has a tremor?

Boova reads the first Dear LFTP letter: a woman's girlfriend's husband is elderly, keeps a gun on his hip, and has a tremor — should they socialize with him? The hosts' answer is no: do not go to that house; keep him at arm's length. Dan adds that he would not go regardless, and Secular's answer agrees with the hosts.

Dear LFTP: the son who blames his mother for COVID

• What should a mother do when her adult son cuts her off after she accidentally gave him COVID?

Boova reads the second letter: a mother caught COVID in Hawaii, her 39-year-old son blames her for giving it to him, and now he will not speak to her. The hosts advise giving it time and not chasing — the grudge is about control, and he will come back when he is ready. Secular's answer again lands near the hosts'.

Dear LFTP: the thirty-year love triangle

• What should a woman do after decades in a love triangle where neither man offers faithful commitment?

Boova reads the third letter: a 58-year-old woman has spent decades between two men, neither offering faithful commitment. The hosts' advice: stop auditioning for a commitment neither will make; get therapy; get into church community; only marriage counts as commitment. Dan sings 'torn between two lovers,' and Secular advises finding a willing and available man — prompting the 'it is for pretty people, Ben' riff and the bogwitchtinder joke.

Outro: the complaint line and the sign-off

Ben closes the show with a final plug for the Bob Eisenlauer complaint line and the sign-off: 'be faithful in the means; God will handle the ends.'