Coming Soon: Episode One - The Ranch
Pristine and picture-perfect from the outside, the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch hides a dark underbelly of deceit, corruption and murder. Just like the American Church.
Nestled in a picturesque valley at the foot of the Bitterroot Mountains, the fictional Yellowstone Dutton Ranch presents an image of calm tranquility. A heaven on earth if you will. But behind its pristine, picture-perfect exterior lies a dark world of lies, deceit, corruption, betrayal and even murder. While all of this drama and intrigue makes for great television, the problem is that the fictional world of the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch mirrors far too closely the real world of the modern American megachurch and even the larger world of mainline denominations.
In this series, I will explore the main characters of the series Yellowstone, and even The Ranch itself to reveal just exactly how life on the fictional Yellowstone Ranch presents a disturbing picture of the same dynamics of power and corruption in the American church.
In the first episode, I will talk about the Ranch itself and how it reflects the building or the physical property that we have now come to call a church in America. In truth, The Church is supposed to be a group of people, a body of believers that are held together by Christ alone; yet we have divided ourselves into a myriad of factions that all claim different names. Baptist, Mormon, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, 7th Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witnesses - and the list goes on and on. Most even claim (or believe) that they are the one, true, right and correct religion, while all the others are false, even though almost all of them claim to be “Christian”.
These denominations or factions and all of the infighting they represent, are indicative of The Ranch itself, which makes every day seem like a fight for survival. But what if it was never meant to be this way? What if the idea of “ownership” or “property” is actually just creating a problem that doesn’t need to exist? And what if that concept of ownership or property is actually contrary to the entire message of the gospel? What if we make life so much harder than it actually needs to be by our constant fight to “protect what’s ours”? What if it was never meant to be ours but God’s?
Just a reminder, this series will be available to my Substack subscribers and Patreon supporters only, so you can subscribe here to my Substack or click here to support me on Patreon for as little as $5 a month.