50 Big Ideas Every Christian Should Understand | 2-Minute Christianity

Bob Seidensticker
After graduating from MIT, he designed digital hardware. He has programmed in a dozen computer languages and in environments ranging from punch cards to Windows. Bob is a co-contributor to 14 software patents and has worked at technology companies from a 10-person startup to IBM and Microsoft. He has written two books about technology.

For more than a decade, Bob has explored his current passion, the debate between Christianity and atheism. Though an atheist, he seeks a civil conversation with Christians, and the goal of 2-Minute Christianity is to inform rather than insult.

He’s written more than a million words in 1500 articles at OnlySky (formerly the Cross Examined blog), and 2-Minute Christianity is his third book on the subject. For more on this and his other books analyzing Christianity, go to the Buy the Book tab.

He has asked us to read some of the articles included in the book. These are on his free site. We will discuss the articles at the meeting. The book does not have to be read in chapter order, since each chapter is a standalone topic, taking about 5 minutes to read.

What is this book about.

Think of the typical book that argues for Christianity. It’s often long and dry and not very approachable. 2-Minute Christianity is different in five important ways.
1. It’s short. Each of the 50 big ideas is self-contained and can be read in a few minutes. Consume them in any order you like.
2. The ideas are significant. They aren’t trivial Bible contradictions or copying errors. Each one is a fundamental puzzle that questions Christian claims.
3. The ideas are fresh. The average Christian will find in each chapter surprising information they never learned in church. Even serious students of Christianity will find provocative new ideas.
4. The ideas come from a skeptical perspective. They are frank, unconstrained questions that may challenge a complacent Christian worldview—and that’s a worldview that needs a little shaking up.
5. The content is free. The ideas will be released one per week, for 50 weeks, through the podcast, YouTube channel, and blog. Or, if you’d rather not wait, find them all in the book or ebook, which are available now.
2-Minute Christianity is aimed at open-minded Christians who think that if Christianity is true, it can stand a little critique. The tone is respectful, and the goal is to educate readers, not deconvert them.
Here are some of the big ideas explored in 2-Minute Christianity. (please note the following are not yet available on the free site.)

• God gave Moses two very different versions of the Ten Commandments (Big Idea #30).
• God defined the rules for indentured servitude and slavery for life, the same two forms of slavery found in the early United States (#14).
• The Bible documents its own transition from polytheism to monotheism (#35).
• The “virgin birth prophecy” referred to in Matthew was not about Jesus and wasn’t even about a virgin birth (#36).
• The God of the Bible was once defeated by another Canaanite god (#46).

You might not come across these ideas in church, but these and many more are being discussed by skeptics. It’s time you were let in on the conversation. You may find these ideas provocative or startling, but you won’t find them boring.
Don’t let someone else impose a worldview. Take off the training wheels and come on the 2-Minute Christianity journey. It’s free, and in a few minutes per week you’ll learn more about Christianity than you would have with a Bible study. If you’re a Christian, these are 50 big ideas you need to understand, even if you are not a christian, you need to think about these ideas.