Without Works

About Without Works

Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, bring you a show of news and culture debunking the errors of fundamentalism and showing the progressive nature of Christianity.

Publisher

Amity Armstrong and Lemuel Gonzalez

Category

news · religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

21 Apr 2019

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

83 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   They/Them

   Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: During a 2021 floor debate in the Texas legislature, state congressman and Presbyterian Seminarian James Talarico declared that God was non-binary. He cited scripture translations to show that God is described, biblically, using both male and female terms. Since becoming a Senate candidate he has walked back those comments.  Talarico now says that his comments were, ‘intentionally provocative,’ and he made them to show support for the LGTBQ community. He also claims that clips of his original speech have been edited to fit his political rival’s narrative. Lemuel: Is God is non-binary? As the definition of that term is a gender identity that does not identify as exclusively male or female, absolutely. God does not have a gender because God is above it. God does not reproduce, so God does not need reproductive organs. God is transcendent. God does not indulge in stupid mortal gender games. To support this point we present the following evidence. Amity: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and it shall he not make it good?” - Numbers 23:19 Lemuel: The Sadducees, an important sect in the Hebrew council of Jesus’ time, did not believe, among other things,  in a life after death. Some of their number tried to publicly embarrass Jesus with what amounts to a thought experiment. They present a situation where a man dies, leaving no issue. According to Moses law, in this situation the dead man’s brother  marries the widow as to father children that inherit dead their father’s goods and property. In this construct seven brothers all marry the widow woman in succession, leaving no issue. If there really was a life after death, who would be her true husband in the afterlife? Like all of the, ‘gotcha,’ moments directed at Jesus, this one failed. He replied: **Amity: ** “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures of the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” -Luke 22: 29-30 Lemuel: This story appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels. It suggests that after death we will become genderless ourselves, and operate on the level of purely spiritual beings. The most devastating blow to the notion of a gendered God comes from a conversation in the Gospel of John. Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, member of the Hebrew council, and secretly, a supporter of Jesus. This gospel describes a private conversation where Jesus shares with Nicodemus, where he makes the following declaration: **Amity: ** "God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth;" -John 4:24 Lemuel: Don’t be confused by the use of,  “him,” in that citation. That is the failure of the English language to capture the size, the breadth, the glory of what God is. Amity: There is a difference between sex and gender - I think it’s important to the discussion as well. Find us on Twitter: @WithoutWorksPod (http://twitter.com/withoutworkspod) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks (https://www.facebook.com/withoutworks) Email @ withoutworkspod@gmail.com (mailto:withoutworkspod@gmail.com) Our Internet home: www.withoutworkspodcast.com (http://www.withoutworkspodcast.com) YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsgLJk-HpEo) Baptist News (https://baptistnews.com/article/why-james-talarico-is-correct-when-he-says-god-is-nonbinary/) YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsgLJk-HpEo)

2. 

   22 Sept 2026

   "Christian" Nationalism

   Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. **Amity: ** The Gospel of John relates a story where Jesus is followed by a huge crowd who want to listen to his teaching. Some of them bring sick friends and relatives to be cured. Seeing the great size of the crowd, Jesus is inspired to care for them. He asks his disciple Philip a rhetorical question, “Where will we find enough food to buy for these people?” Philip replies that it would take much more money than they could raise. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, finds a boy in the crowd who is willing to share his lunch: five barley buns, and two small fish. The rest of the story is well known. What happened directly after Jesus fed the enormous crowd, with twelve baskets of loaves and fish left over, is just as important. “After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”  -John 6: 14-15 Lemuel: Christian Nationalism is an ideology that promotes Christian values, so called, in laws and into the government, to the derogation of other religions and ideas. This means that a particularly narrow, and more often outright false, interpretation of Jesus’ teaching is applied to lawmaking,  government institutions, and public life in a Procrustean way. Interpretation is the key: A small group of ignorant men, and do not be mistaken; they are men, acting in the interests of themselves and other men, have ignored the teachings and story of Jesus, in favor of a restrictive interpretation that acts in opposition to the Gospel’s moral demands on us. The story of the five thousand fed shows Jesus giving to everyone in the crowd. He does not withhold food to those who did not make a public oath of loyalty, he did not withhold a miraculous cure for ailing foreigners in the crowd. Whoever came to listen, young, old, man or woman, jew or gentile, everyone was fed. Every single person ate, with baskets gathered up after. No one was in want. Amity: The Gospel of John tells another story. In this Jesus, after his arrest,  is taken to Pontius Pilate by temple authorities to be executed. There is no charge they can make to the Roman Governor to interest him, as he has no particular investment in their laws. To push Pilate to act they tell him that Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews, an utter falsehood. Pilate asks Jesus about this, and they have this exchange: “Are you King of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus replied, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it that you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is from another place.” Lemuel: The meaning is clear. The Gospel message is not to be attached to any government. God’s house is much bigger, more inclusive, than anything founded on spurious constitutions that declare freedom and equality, while building on the ruined homes of Indigenous people, with slave labor. If Jesus wanted kingship, he would have taken it during his life on earth. He certainly doesn’t need it now. https://thehill.com/opinion/6075328-huffman-no-prophets-bestseller/ (https://thehill.com/opinion/6075328-huffman-no-prophets-bestseller/)

3. 

   3 Aug 2026

   No Girls Allowed

   Show Notes Lemuel: I am Lemuel Gonzalez, repentant sinner, and along with Amity Armstrong, your heavenly host, I invite you to find a place in the pew for today’s painless Sunday School lesson. Without Works. Amity: At the recent Southern Baptist Convention, a gathering of the United State’s largest Protestant denomination, (at present 46,402 affiliated churches) an amendment was presented. The, ‘Truth and Unity,’ Amendment to the Church constitution includes the following directions. Affiliated Churches under the Convention banner were obliged: “ … not to act to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, specifically preaching to the assembled congregation.” This is being promoted by Al Mohler, misogynist and President of Southern Baptist University, in Louisville Kentucky. He says: “There’s a great line that divides liberal and biblical evangelicalism, and you can see it on this very issue. The trajectory of liberal denominations is clear.” Lemuel: These amendments require a two thirds majority to be added to the Constitution. An earlier attempt to amend the constitution in 2024 failed. Two successive votes of the two thirds majority. The penalties for rejecting the decisions of the convention include being unfellowshipped; that is, being removed from the organization. In a recent interview on the subject, Albert Mohler clarified his position further. He said: “The Purpose of this amendment is, to make very clear, we do not want to go the way of liberal Protestantism or for that matter, even other denominations we think are wrongly ordered in having women as pastors of Churches.” Amity: Since approximately 2023, 206 churches have been disfellowed around these topics. In 2023 the Saddleback Church in California was, “disfellowshipped,” from the Southern Baptist Convention primarily for ordaining women. Local Church bodies were able to disfellowship the first Baptist Church of Decatur in 2009, The Druid Hills Baptist Church in 2010, and The Greater Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church of Lynchburg in 2015, for the same reason. Local Church organization led the charge in these cases. Now the SBC as a whole wants to amend their constitution to keep women from any position of authority.

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