Author’s Note to Friends, Family and Evangelical Readers,

If you are reading this as someone who has known me in church life, shared pews and potlucks with me, or walked with me through earlier seasons of faith, I want to say something directly to you. And also to Evangelical readers in general.

This book was born during a rough stretch in my own journey, when a lot of what I had inherited theologically was coming undone and my inner world felt very raw. It was a time of deconstruction, but also a time of deep longing to stay connected to Jesus, to Scripture, and to God in a more honest way than I knew how to before.

Because of that, parts of what I write here carry the texture of that pain. I speak pretty bluntly about things like inerrancy, evangelical subculture, and ways the Bible can be used to shame or control rather than to heal and set free. Those critiques are real for me; they come from lived experience, not from a desire to score points or attack people.

Still, I know that some of you who read this may feel like I am talking about you personally— about your faith, your church, or your beloved teachers. If any sentence here lands as a caricature of your heart for God, or makes you feel dismissed or belittled, I am sorry for that impact. That is not what I want for us. My intention is to question and sometimes reject systems, doctrines, and habits of reading that harmed me and many others, not to declare that everyone inside those systems is bad or insincere. I believe most of us, including you, have been doing the best we could with what we were given.

I also need to be honest: I do stand by the core movement of this book. I meant what I wrote about midrash, about nonduality as a way of seeing, about Christ’s presence beyond the boundaries of “traditional Christianity,” and about the Sermon on the Mount as an invitation into a different kind of life. My views have continued to evolve, but I do not see this work as a mistake or a phase. It is one way I have tried to be faithful to the light I have.

So this note is not an apology for asking hard questions or for arriving at different conclusions. It is a way of showing that my questions were sharpened by trauma, and sometimes that sharpness may cut closer to home than I intended. If you feel wounded by something here, I hope we can talk about it. I am willing to hear how this lands for you, just as I ask you to hear where it came from in me.

However you receive this book—whether you agree, disagree, are intrigued, or unsettled—I am grateful you are reading it. I love you, and I honor the part of you that is also reaching for God, even if our paths now look very different.

With big, big love,

Toto