Why this APP & why now?
We started Our Bible App as an alternative to devotional and Bible apps made by large, conservative, and destructive “Christian” media organizations. Our Bible App was started to be a place where every person would feel welcome to explore the Christian Bible and tradition.
Other Bible apps are often affiliated with churches and organizations that do not affirm the sacred dignity and worth of ALL people. These churches and organizations don’t support LGBTQ+ folks. They do not support women or gender non-conforming folks in leadership, and they are often actively or passively racist.
These other apps are often owned by large Christian publishing organizations, with hundreds of writers and partnerships to supply their financial support and devotional content.
But their content is implicitly anti-LGBTQ+ while exclusively featuring heterosexual, cisgender, and usually white representations of Christian faith and relationships.
These popular Bible apps celebrate and propagate purity culture, weaponizing Christianity to reinforce the “values” of strictly straight, cisgender marriage and dating.
Additionally, these apps don’t talk about Christianity’s long entanglement with racism, colonialism, and white supremacy. They might offer a set of devotionals for Black History month, but they don’t address how the Christian community MUST become actively anti-racist.
Absence of affirmation is the signal we know all too well. It’s coded language that tells us these spiritual spaces aren’t safe.
It might not be explicitly hateful, but the flood of visuals and devotionals that feature only heterosexual, cisgender, and white representations of Christian faith do REAL and lasting damage!
These apps seem harmless to use, especially if we just ignore the homophobic, racist, sexist stuff… but when we use these types of digital spiritual resources we are giving our tacit approval to their toxic theologies.
LifeWay, National Religious Broadcasters, Hillsong, YouVersion, and Life.Church... These are the folks out there generating and distributing the majority of our digital, print, and audio faith resources.
And yet, these organizations refuse to acknowledge the inherent dignity, equality, and perfection of ALL people.
This is why we created Our Bible App.
We’re a small, but growing team. Everyday we’re working to make the experience you have on the app a little better.
Loads of talented and inspiring writers have provided their time, energy, and labor by crafting the devotionals we offer.
We’re working to multiply the faith perspectives represented on the app, and we’re always striving to create a space where all people feel affirmed, supported, and represented—regardless of their age, sexuality, ability, gender, or race.
Every day, we work to show you that Our Bible is a place for #believersofallstripes.