Mehna Mehna

Show open, docket, and guest introduction

• Have you ever felt spiritually meh, what does it feel like, and how do you get out of it?
• Are the ten common justifications for not being a Christian valid?

After the produced intro voiceover, a host opens the live show from the Pathway Studios in Johnston and lays out the docket: a returning guest introduced on-air as "complaint line McCormick" (Cody) is in the studio; Cody has a complaint-line question about why Easter does not follow the same calendar as Passover; the hosts will discuss what it means to feel "spiritually meh"; and they will work through a CoffeeHouseTheology.com article listing ten justifications people give for not being a Christian, a few minutes each. Comedy bits include Mike wanting to get home to sleep in his own bed while the other host is stuck on a couch because his bedroom ceiling collapsed — Ben is ribbed for selling it as an intentional renovation. A host also admits he Googles local complaint-line numbers to decide whether to answer them.

Ten reasons not to be a Christian, part 1: miracles and the Jesus myth

The hosts take up the first two justifications from the article. On "no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles": a host cites a thick book of investigated miracles (recalled as by R.T. France, with an ~800-page and a ~350-page version) whose author talked to doctors and non-believers who had no other explanation, and the hosts add their own one-step-removed miracle stories — one host recounts a doctor saying there was no medical explanation for what happened to him — plus the millions of changed lives after encounters with Jesus, including The Chosen's portrayal of Mary Magdalene ("I was one way, and now I'm completely different"). They argue good science revises itself while arrogance claims to have everything settled. On "the Jesus story is an accumulation of myths": the hosts say that misreads the Gospels — Jesus insults people, calls them a brood of vipers, and overturns temple tables — and that denying the historical Jesus is bad history; his existence and crucifixion are firmly established.

Ten reasons, part 2: science vs faith, canon, and Constantine

Justifications three through five. On "science and faith are incompatible": a host argues Scripture is misread when forced to be a newspaper or a science textbook, illustrating with David's poetic claims in 2 Samuel 22 (God thundering from the sky) — true about God without requiring a physical event — and the hosts say science is the attempt to figure out how God did something, noting archaeology keeps deepening the Bible's accuracy. On "the history of science is religious superstition eradicated by reason": the guest, a former non-believer, says skeptics looking for reasons will find them, and a host urges interrogating the resurrection — "God's story can handle your interrogation" — since following Jesus costs enough that it had better be true. On "the Bible is a translation of a translation cobbled together by Constantine": the hosts compare it to reading Aristotle in translation, cite the Masoretic text against the Dead Sea Scrolls (Isaiah "dead on" across ~1,200 years), praise scholar transparency about hard words like hapax legomena, and correct the Nicaea story — Constantine did not pick the books; the council affirmed writings already trusted for centuries, drawing a boundary like a teacher's list of solid versus untrustworthy Revelation websites.

Ten reasons, part 3: Paul inventing Christianity and evolution

Justifications six and seven. On "Saint Paul invented Christianity": a host notes the awkwardness for the Christians who introduced Paul to Jesus, and another argues the claim is baseless — the Gospels already present Jesus as who he says he is, and skeptics only know Paul and Jesus from the biblical texts they are trying to dismantle; he pivots to people who keep "all we need is Jesus" while tossing the rest of Scripture, effectively creating their own canon. On "evolution disproves God": the hosts say macro-evolution neither proves nor disproves God, affirming micro-evolution/adaptation, then press the missing drive — a fish has no capacity to plan legs for its tenth-generation descendants, and giraffes supposedly adapting longer necks would require a sustained multi-millennial inertia no giraffe possesses — while noting the earth keeps getting older to make random-chance math plausible.

Ten reasons, part 4: hell, contradictions, and religious wars

Justifications eight through ten, then the complaint-line plug. On Christians' "arrogant superiority" about hell: a host says most Christians he knows feel deep sadness, not judgment, and another offers the railroad-track analogy — warning Dan (named on-air) about an oncoming train is not arrogance but rescue; rendering a desperate rescue as superiority is a personal problem. On "the Bible is riddled with contradictions": a host says most alleged contradictions ask more of the Bible than it claims — it is not a newspaper or a crime report; some are two writers' perspectives (one guy behind a tree), and the rest are poetic or prophetic rather than literal. On "more people killed in the name of religion than any other cause": the hosts answer "sir, you spelled communism wrong" — communist authoritarian regimes killed far more — while conceding religious wars caused real death and wrongdoing; they argue the misuse of an idea does not falsify it (not liking Chairman Mao does not mean he never existed) and that disagreeing with God's moral character is not evidence he is unreal. The segment ends with the Bob Eisenlauer complaint-line number, (515) 517-0085.

Complaint-line question: why Easter and Passover use different calendars

• Why doesn't Easter follow the same calendar as Passover (lunar versus Gregorian)?
• What does the word "orthodox" mean?

The hosts read Cody's Dear LFTP-style complaint-line letter: why doesn't Easter follow the same calendar as Passover, lunar versus Gregorian? The answer: two different peoples with two different calendars — the Jews set the Passover calendar around their own seasons with no interest in Easter dating, and the early church tied Easter to the equinox — so "mommy and daddy got divorced, and they keep different calendars," which is why Easter can even land before Passover some years. Tangents include Easter Monday (a Catholic/Greek Orthodox thing, admittedly not fully understood), a word study on "orthodox" — from Greek orthos (straight, right) and doxa (opinion), "pretty much means I'm of the right opinion" — and the Thursday-versus-Friday crucifixion debate, where a host describes his nerd-style spreadsheet reconciling the three days via Jewish day reckoning (Friday at 3 p.m. counts as Friday, dawn Sunday the third day). Ben is addressed on-air during the exchange.

Feeling spiritually meh: causes, experiences, and ways through

• Have you ever felt spiritually meh, what does it feel like, and how do you get out of it?

The main discussion: what it means to feel "spiritually meh" — not rebelling against God, but not wanting to do the prayer, Bible reading, and other connecting practices you know are good. One host compares it to an exercise regimen you know works but stop wanting to do, and argues the consequence is higher than skipping leg day: you become less attuned to the Holy Spirit's work and stop noticing what God is doing. Another host describes his steady-with-a-slight-incline personality with occasional peaks and valleys, using the spouse analogy — you still love your wife during a busy season, you just drift and need to recalibrate. The guest Cody says intentionality is what brings him back, confessing he gets lost in Bible words and quits because he feels dumb, and that he has to get past needing to understand everything before moving on. Other threads: self-fulfilling separation when expected results don't appear; a host's worry that feeling meh drives people to embrace the wrong side of reformed theology — "maybe John Calvin was right, some of us are out, maybe I'm not in"; Nathaniel's answer that he gets out when someone gives him a kick in the behind; the "unroof the roof" story (Mark 2) about a host who showed up for people without realizing it was a roof-tearing moment; the reminder that feelings get a seat at the table but don't get to run the meeting; and a teaser for next week — David's confusing claims in 2 Samuel 22 plus musical guests Jeff Arendelle, Dirk Von Steen, and a Miss Triplet.

Dear LFTP: the boyfriend's uncomfortably hard bed and couch

• How do I tell my boyfriend his expensive bed and couch are too uncomfortable to sleep on?

A host hands the advice segment to Mike ("Alright. Mike, let's give some advice") and a host reads the Dear LFTP letter: a woman in a tumultuous-but-currently-good relationship cannot sleep on her boyfriend's expensive bed or couch and asks how to tell him to replace them. The hosts' counsel: she shouldn't be spending the night anyway ("sin is an uncomfortable cushion, my man"), and if she is talking this way about the couch the man is the real problem — when you are in love, a box of thumbtacks would do. Comedy follows about remarriage deal-breakers (mayonnaise, Tide detergent), picking couches by who uses them most, and whether it is "okay to Anne Frank that couch" — i.e., lie about it to be kind. The Secular answer advises telling him plainly the mattress hurts her back, inviting him to her place so he won't feel rejected — which the hosts mock as coddling ("patting him on the head saying, you a good boy").

Dear LFTP: the boss who assigns personal errands to his only employee

• How do I refuse my boss's personal errands without losing her job?

The second Dear LFTP letter: a single mom of two, the only other employee in a small office, says her boss increasingly assigns personal tasks unrelated to the business — the final straw was leaving a family gathering to pick up his pets and give him a 9:30 p.m. airport ride — and asks how to say no without losing her job. The hosts' counsel: during paid work hours just do it ("they pay by the hour... what does it matter to you what the forty hours is actually doing?"), but after-hours requests are not the job — either he pays for the extra hours or she has an honest conversation: "I'm a single mom... I just cannot give" the time away from her kids, and if he says his needs matter more than her kids, she knows it is not sustainable. They note salary size and personal-assistant norms change the calculus, and that firing her for refusing would be legally dicey but working there would get weird. The Secular answer — explore the job market, then talk to the boss with another offer lined up — is mocked as a fairy-tale ending nobody's life works like.

Outro and sign-off

A host thanks the guest ("mister McCormack") for joining, ribs Nathaniel for burning the midnight oil, plugs next week's in-studio music show, and a host signs off with the usual "be faithful in the means; God will handle the ends."