German theologian and dissident anti-Nazi
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Political theology is finally having its moment — every op-ed columnist reaching for Christian nationalism, every neoreactionary tech founder invoking the katechon, every mainline pastor watching JD Vance lecture the Pope about just war doctrine, every abolitionist community organizer working the intersection between the sacred and the political. And yet almost no one seems to know what political theology actually is. Luke Bretherton and Vincent Lloyd — two of the three co-authors of a genuinely important new Columbia University Press book, What Is Political Theology? — sat down with me to explain what they had done. The book itself models the thing it argues for: three scholars from three disciplines refusing to synthesize their differences and instead sitting inside the productive tension. In one hour we cover why the standard Carl Schmitt genealogy needs to be de-centered, what from above and from below are actually good for, why secularism is not a neutral space but an ideology, what Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures accidentally reveal, why Richard Dawkins now identifies as a cultural Christian, and what the difference between apophatic and cataphatic is currently doing to Luke's and Vincent's friendship. Live disagreement, on tape. The nice version. You can watch the video on YouTube Dr. Luke Bretherton is Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, one of the most senior chairs in British theology, appointed by the Crown. Previously, he was Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology at Duke Divinity School. An ordained Church of England priest. Dr. Vincent W. Lloyd is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Political Theology at Villanova University, and an editor of the journal Political Theology. The book at the center of this conversation is What Is Political Theology?, co-authored with Dr. Valentina Napolitano, Professor of Anthropology and Connaught Scholar at the University of Toronto, whose chapter offers an anthropological political theology out of her research on global Catholicism, migration, and the U.S./Canada borderlands. Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, #1 New York Times bestselling author Eric Metaxas—author of Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and Amazing Grace—joins us to discuss his new book, Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World. Together, we revisit the famous—and often forgotten—heroes of the American Revolution and explore why Metaxas believes the indispensable role of Judeo-Christian ideas in America's founding has too often been overlooked. REVOLUTION: THE BIRTH OF THE GREATEST NATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Birth-Greatest-Nation-History/dp/1631440888/ JOIN PREMIUM Listen ad-free for only $5/month at www.bit.ly/TAPpremium BUY US A COFFEE buymeacoffee.com/thisamericanpresident FOLLOW US:www.thisamericanpresident.com/ CREDITSHost: Richard LimProducer: Michael NealCover Art: Nip Rogers, www.NipRogers.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sarah Steffen macht sich anlässlich des Gedenktages des Widerstandes Gedanken über das Böse und den christlichen Umgang damit.
Jennifer Garcia Bashaw is back, and her timing is, as always, impeccable. We recorded this conversation about her new book on biblical interpretation right after Al Mohler announced that women cannot, in fact, teach the Bible on podcasts. So we did the only honest thing. We talked about scripture for an hour. Serving Up Scripture is the book Jennifer co-wrote with Aaron Higashi, and it uses a cooking metaphor that does what good metaphors do — gives you somewhere to stand while you realize the kitchen has been on fire the whole time. We walked through the four questions every passage requires (historical, literary, ideological, theological), put the woman saved from stoning on stage one more time, read Cato's instructions to Roman husbands whose wives commit adultery (a useful reminder that the Pastorals were the moderate position in their cultural context), and ended up where we always do — at the very different things you find in Paul depending on which Paul you are reading. Plus the news Al Mohler should have led the broadcast with: the Bible Divas podcast just launched, and all four are coming to Theology Beer Camp in October. Here's the Bible Divas on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube. Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This was a live one, recorded on the eve of the 250th at Wake Forest Divinity School with the Double Deans in the room. Corey Walker's Theology Summit lecture — which spent six hours at the top of Substack the week we recorded — uses two moments in American history to name where we are: James Duane's October 1775 letter hoping this winter would bring revolution, and Gil Scott-Heron's 1973 album Winter in America, a lament for the arrested development of democracy after Nixon. Corey's argument is that 2026 is another winter. Bill Leonard, the founding dean who trained a generation to think about dissent, added the second layer: a perfect imperfect storm in which Christian nationalism has fused with authoritarian government and the church is the least helpful it has been in his lifetime. Three questions run through the conversation — Is God dead? (Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass in 1850), Is America possible? (Vincent Harding), and What does our religion say to those with their backs against the wall? (Howard Thurman) — and none of them get answered. What they get instead is Corey's proposal that the 250th is calling us to a counter memory — not the memory of those who prevailed, but of Miss Audrey, Mister Pugh, and Mister Linwood, the neighbors whose first names were their titles. Plus the Snake Handler Fund is officially open. Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. Dr. Corey D. B. Walker is Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and inaugural Director of the Program in African American Studies. A native of Norfolk, Virginia and an ordained American Baptist clergyperson, he previously served as Vice President and Dean at Virginia Union University's Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, founding dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, Business and Education at Winston-Salem State University, and chair of Africana Studies at Brown University. He is a former student of Cornel West at Harvard, and sits on the board of Lincoln University (the country's first HBCU). Books: A Noble Fight: African American Freemasonry and the Struggle for Democracy in America (University of Illinois Press); Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy (co-edited with Melody Barnes and Thad Williamson, Edward Elgar, 2020); and Beyond a Politics of Nostalgia: Religious Freedom and the Ends of Democracy (co-edited with Sabrina E. Dent). Forthcoming: Disciple of Nonviolence: Wyatt Tee Walker and the Struggle for the Soul of Democracy(University of Virginia Press). His Theology Summit lecture — Winter in America — is at theologysummit.com. Dr. Bill J. Leonard is the founding Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity and Professor of Divinity Emeritus. He writes a regular column for Baptist News Global. His most recent book is Appalachian Mountain Christianity: The Spirituality of Otherness (University of Georgia Press, 2024). Earlier books include A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States (Abingdon), Baptist Ways: A History (Judson), and The Challenge of Being Baptist (Baylor). He is, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the only person in Wake Forest history to have brought a serpent-handling preacher to campus with actual serpents (Reverend Carl Porter, 1997, five snakes minimum). The Snake Handler Fund at Wake Div is now, officially, open. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
La vérité a-t-elle toujours une place dans notre monde? La vérité a encore une place dans notre monde, mais elle est fragilisée par la polarisation, les fake news et la confusion entre opinions et faits. Pour qu'elle demeure importante dans les milieux d'Églises, nous devons questionner nos certitudes, distinguer faits et opinions, et privilégier une recherche sincère fondée sur l'humilité et l'échange. Dans cet épisode, Joan et Stéphane reçoivent Yana-Malena Charras-Sancho. Ensemble, il et elles montrent que chacun tend à construire sa propre « vérité », influencée par ses croyances et son environnement et soulignent qu'elle demeure essentielle pour dialoguer et se comprendre. [Stéphane] Bonjour, bienvenue à Question de croire, un podcast qui s'intéresse à la foi et la spiritualité, une question à la foi. Cette semaine, la vérité a-t-elle toujours une place dans notre monde? [Joan] Bonjour Stéphane. [Stéphane] Bonjour Joan. Bonjour à toutes les personnes à l'écoute. [Joan] Aujourd'hui, nous avons une « special guest, » une invitée spéciale que je recommande à tout le monde parce qu'elle est hyper sympa, hyper intelligente. Elle vient d'une famille très, très cool. Il s'agit de Yana-Malena Charras-Sancho, notre deuxième fille. [Yana-Malena] Bonjour à tous. Je suis la fille de Joan qui fait ce podcast. [Stéphane] Bonjour et bienvenue. Quand la vérité dérange [Joan] J'ai remarqué que la vérité n'a pas tellement une place dans notre monde. Ça m'est arrivé, il n'y a pas longtemps, le 8 mars. C'est un peu triste, ce dont je vais parler. Et en même temps, j'ai l'impression qu'il faut en parler. Donc, on avait un culte là où on habite. J'ai fait bien attention, comme c'est un dimanche, à saluer toutes les femmes, même celles qui ne me connaissent pas, celles qui ne savent pas que je suis pasteure et que je suis la femme du nouveau pasteur. J'ai vraiment pris attention : « Bonjour, belle journée à vous! C'est notre journée. C'est la journée du 8 mars. » J'ai essayé de donner plusieurs versions de cette petite interpellation au sororal. Une dame que j'aime beaucoup, une dame avec une très belle vie de foi, un cœur grand comme ça m'a dit : « Bof! À quoi ça peut bien servir? Enfin, je ne sais pas moi. 8 mars, ouaf! » Puis je lui ai dit : « Mais si, ça sert! Ça sert parce qu'il y a tant et tant de femmes qui sont battues, parce qu'une femme sur cinq ceci, parce qu'un enfant sur quatre cela… » J'ai commencé à dérouler des chiffres. Autour d'elle, il y avait d'autres femmes et les visages sont devenus longs. J'ai vu qu'en fait, la vérité, ça ne plaît pas beaucoup. Et bon, je n'étais pas contente. Je dois dire qu'à la fin de mon exposé, je n'étais plus si en paix, alors qu'au début, j'étais assez joyeuse de souhaiter ce 8 mars. Quelques jours après, on s'est retrouvées et puis c'est vrai qu'on s'est un peu pris les mains. On s'est un peu présenté des excuses mutuellement. On s'est un peu dit que cette situation était gênante pour les deux. Voilà, on a retrouvé un chemin de sororité. Mais je me dis, la vérité de l'oppression, la vérité de la souffrance, la vérité des combats à mener, ça n'a pas toujours sa place. Une société fragmentée où la vérité ne rassemble plus [Stéphane] Nous vivons dans un monde très polarisé où chacun vit dans sa propre vérité. On se construit des discours, on se construit des argumentations, on se construit des façons de penser basées sur des chiffres plus ou moins vérifiés ou des statistiques qui font nos affaires et on oublie facilement les autres statistiques. On arrive dans une société où on ne parle plus de la même chose. On ne s'entend plus. On n'est plus capable de se parler. Et il y a un problème de ce côté-là, parce que sans vouloir que tous et toutes soient unis, au moins, si on peut utiliser les mêmes chiffres, les mêmes données, des arguments similaires, on peut se rejoindre. Entre opinion et savoir : peut-on encore parler d'une seule vérité ? [Yana-Malena] C'est vrai qu'il faut aussi remettre au cœur du débat ce qu'est la vérité en elle-même, parce que quand on dit qu'on vit un peu chacun dans notre vérité, ça nous fait nous demander si on a plusieurs vérités. Est-ce qu'on peut encore parler de vérité? En philosophie, Platon, il distingue la doxa, qui est l'opinion de l'épistémè, qui est le savoir vrai, et selon Platon, l'épistémè c'était quelque chose qu'on cultive et qui relève d'une étude et qui ensuite doit être transmis, au-delà de la doxa qui est l'opinion même. Donc là, on se demande si chacun vit dans sa vérité et si ce n'est pas ça qui polarise le monde finalement. Il s'agit de voir comment est-ce qu'on peut, dans notre monde d'aujourd'hui, remettre la vérité au cœur du débat et donc d'essayer de trouver un terrain d'entente. Moi, c'est ça qui m'émeut dans la vérité aujourd'hui. Est-ce qu'elle est encore possible quand on affirme tous qu'on a une vérité, alors qu'elle est forcément fausse par définition, puisqu'on sait qu'on a tous une vérité, il n'y en a pas? Entre convictions personnelles et vérités universelles [Joan] Moi, je me demande souvent comment distinguer la vérité de ma croyance. Parce que ma croyance, elle me nourrit, elle me porte. Et puis, ce sont des éléments véritables de la vie quotidienne, finalement. Moi, par exemple, ma vérité, c'est que j'ai besoin de faire du Pilates régulièrement, puis ça me fait du bien. Et puis, je n'arrête pas de dire à tout le monde, c'est super le Pilates, faites du Pilates. Ça, c'est ma croyance qui est devenue pour moi une vérité universelle. En même temps, il me semble quand même qu'en dehors de ma croyance, il y a des vérités qui sont un peu universelles. J'en prends une, elle est énorme, elle est massive : le dérèglement climatique. Et je me dis, comment ça se fait qu'on n'arrive pas à passer de la croyance à la vérité, de poser un peu nos convictions, de dire, OK, c'est vrai que mes convictions, peut-être, je crois au concept de la Terre nouvelle et des cieux nouveaux, mais ça ne m'empêche pas de réaliser que le dérèglement climatique cause du tort à des milliards d'humains. Donc voilà, c'est un peu cette différence-là qui, des fois, me questionne. Les faits existent, mais leur interprétation façonne la « vérité » [Stéphane] Ça me fait penser, quand je faisais mes études en théologie, il y a de ça quelques décennies, on avait eu une discussion justement sur qu'est-ce que LA vérité, avec un V majuscule, si je peux dire. J'arrivais d'une formation d'historien des années 1990 avec les théories de déconstruction narrative, l'absence de neutralité des sources, l'illusion de l'objectivité, etc. J'étais un peu cynique par rapport à cette conversation. Oui, il y a des données. Oui, il y a des faits. Mais c'est toujours organisé selon notre point de vue. L'exemple que je donne souvent, c'est que nous sommes ensemble. Nous voyons un accident de voiture. Comment chacun va raconter cet accident de voiture risque d'être d'une manière très différente pour des raisons culturelles, des raisons d'âge, des raisons de plein d'autres choses. Mais l'accident a eu lieu. C'est le même accident. Oui, il y a des faits. Oui, il y a des données. Mais comment ces faits, comment ces données sont organisées, c'est là qu'il faut faire attention avant de proclamer que c'est la vérité. Une vérité qui éclaire, sans dominer [Joan] C'est la raison pourquoi moi, le verset : « Je suis le chemin, la vérité et la vie » me parle à titre personnel. Vraiment, ça me nourrit. Mais ça me rend dingue lorsqu'il est utilisé pour avoir de l'emprise ou du pouvoir sur les autres. Pour moi c'est un peu comme si on avait une lampe torche hyper puissante et qu'on la braquait sur le visage des autres au lieu de s'en servir pour éclairer les lieux les plus sombres et éviter par exemple des drames : tomber ou être agressé quoi. En fait c'est un peu ça le « distinguo » que je ferais. Oui ce verset est beau. Il est porteur, mais selon comment je l'utilise, en fait il peut faire du mal. Entre autorité et dévoilement : les usages ambivalents de la vérité [Yana-Malena] C'est vrai que la vérité, elle peut être utilisée de plusieurs manières. Et puis, la vérité, à la base, quand on dit qu'on détient une vérité, c'est quelque part pour marquer son autorité et sa légitimité. Par exemple, quand on regarde les institutions aujourd'hui, on constate que ces institutions, elles se basent à l'origine sur le fait qu'elles détiennent une vérité que les autres n'ont pas et qu'elles permettent de garantir cette vérité. Par exemple, quand on parle de la justice, la justice estime qu'elle peut trancher dans des situations, lequel des deux points de vue est le véritable, lequel correspond aux véritables règles de la société, et en fonction des lois c'est elle qui la détient et qui a l'expertise de ces lois. Pareil pour la science, la science estime qu'elle détient la vérité parce qu'elle a les outils, elle a les moyens, elle a les experts. Et donc c'est vrai que dans ce verset : « Je suis le chemin et la vérité, » pourquoi est-ce qu'on utiliserait la vérité pour exercer du pouvoir sur les autres? Pourquoi est-ce qu'on s'en servirait pour marquer une autorité? Alors que dans son origine grecque, la vérité c'est aletheia, donc dévoilement. Donc, quelque part, c'est plutôt une expérience qui ouvre les yeux, « le mythe de la caverne » de Platon, plutôt qu'une vérité qui assujettit. Je suis d'accord qu'aujourd'hui, quand on regarde l'état actuel du monde, la vérité est utilisée pour exercer une force sur les autres. C'est comme Trump, quand il déploie des fake news, qu'il invente des guerres entre des pays, ou bien qu'il dit encore que le Tylenol, ça crée de l'autisme. Quelque part, il essaie d'imposer son pouvoir. Il dit : « Je suis la vérité! C'est moi qui sais! Je suis le président des États-Unis! Je suis Jésus ». Je veux dire, là, on a une déclaration qui est vraiment fausse, elle est ouvertement fausse, et pourtant, elle est affirmée comme telle. Donc c'est vrai qu'aujourd'hui, l'utilisation de la vérité, elle est vraiment, vraiment complexe. Quand l'autorité s'approprie la vérité et en détourne le sens [Stéphane] C'est un très bon lien entre autorité et vérité. Je crois qu'on n'en parle pas assez, ou qu'on ne le souligne pas assez. Mon pasteur le dit, donc c'est vrai… ou tel leader politique… ou tel influenceur sur les médias sociaux… peu importe. Lorsque les paroles de figures d'autorité sont utilisées pour dominer les autres, là c'est vrai qu'il y a un problème. Jésus dit : « Je suis la vérité » et il y a des chrétiens qui utilisent ça pour dire que nous avons la vraie religion. Notre Église, c'est la vraie Église. Jésus n'a pas dit : « Mes disciples sont la vérité. Je suis la vérité. » Déjà en partant, il y a un écart que les gens s'approprient. Je me souviens que j'ai eu une discussion avec quelqu'un. J'avais fait une vidéo sur TikTok. La personne n'était pas d'accord. Moi je lui ai dit : « Écoute, moi je viens de l'Église Unie du Canada. Notre théologie est comme ça, blablabla… » Et lui, il me dit : « Moi je vais à tel endroit, puis on y enseigne la vérité, la vraie façon de lire la Bible. » Selon qui? Selon ton pasteur? Selon tes préférences personnelles? Il faut faire attention. Je peux vivre avec Jésus est la vérité, mais juste Jésus à la limite, pas moi qui essaie d'être son disciple et qui essaie de suivre son chemin. Je ne suis pas la vérité. Entre fake news et courage prophétique : dire une vérité qui dérange [Joan] Avant, tu as parlé des fake news, Yana-Malena, et c'est vrai qu'on nous demande parfois que faire avec les fake news quand on est pasteur. « J'ai lu ça, j'ai vu ça, qu'est-ce que vous en pensez? » Comme si on avait un petit surplus de lucidité, ou bien comme si on avait un regard, je ne sais pas, chrétien, ministériel sur le monde. Moi, en fait, je n'ai pas l'impression que la Bible m'aide spécialement à distinguer les fake news des vraies news. J'ai surtout l'impression que c'est le fait de soutenir des médias indépendants, des écoles de journalisme, de soutenir les journalistes d'Église autour de nous. Déjà, si on commençait par là, ce serait pas mal. Par exemple, j'ai une très bonne amie qui a quitté le milieu du journalisme pour retourner au pastorat. J'aime beaucoup discuter avec elle parce qu'avec son regard de journaliste, elle a plein d'autres portes d'entrée que moi. Donc c'est à ça que je pense quand je dis soutenir, rester en lien, avoir des contacts journalistiques. Et c'est vrai qu'on peut aussi se demander est-ce qu'en période de crise, (et est-ce qu'on est en période de crise?), est-ce que notre prédication est là pour établir une vérité factuelle? Est-ce que c'est quelque chose qui est attendu par nos communautés, par nos directions d'Église? Je pense tout de suite, et vous aussi j'imagine, à l'Église confessante de Bonhoeffer, le fait que Bonnefer avait vraiment soutenu tout ce mouvement-là, de dire il faut dire la vérité, il faut appeler le nazisme, le nazisme, il faut dire quand l'évangile est dévoyé. Est-ce que c'est à nous de le faire là maintenant? J'ai été très surprise hier. Il y avait les journées mondiales de jeunesse à Payerne, dans La Broye vaudoise en Suisse, et l'un des évêques suisses est venu, un francophone, et il a prêché contre la guerre. Tiens, tu aurais été content Stéphane! Il a vraiment suivi la ligne du pape Léon sur la démilitarisation, sur cesser cette espèce de bras de fer mondial, sur le fait que les populations s'ouvrent, sur le fait qu'en fait notre seul défenseur c'est le Christ et que quand on adopte ce défenseur on n'a pas besoin de la force physique, qu'on a la paix en nous qui nous vient du Christ. J'ai trouvé ça très courageux parce qu'il y avait quand même 200 jeunes, pas mal de responsables de la jeunesse, et puis c'était retransmis en direct sur Radio Maria. Donc j'ai trouvé que là, il y avait quelque chose de l'ordre du courage de dire une vérité, une vérité qui peut déranger. Ça rejoint en plus notre épisode sur le nationalisme chrétien, puisqu'il a osé dire dans sa prédication : « Être chrétien, ce n'est pas défendre le nationalisme chrétien. » C'est épatant! En plus, on avait les gardes suisses, on avait quand même des symboles d'autorité qui étaient là, qui représentaient les anciens mercenaires suisses qui sont la garde vaticane. Mais il a dit tout ça très tranquillement, très paisiblement, très ancré en lui-même. Alors voilà, est-ce qu'il a fait œuvre de vérité? Est-ce qu'il a répondu à cet appel de Dietrich Bonhoeffer et d'autres? À mon sens, oui, un peu. On dirait qu'en plus, il est soutenu par sa hiérarchie pour ça. Ça me laisse un peu rêveuse. * Photo de Allen Cai, unsplash.com. Utilisée avec permission. Fake news, foi et vérité : l'exigence d'une honnêteté intellectuelle [Yana-Malena] C'est vrai que moi, quand tu parlais des fake news et du rapport à la Bible, je me suis demandé si, quelque part, la Bible en elle-même, prise par ses lecteurs, ce ne serait pas en fait un ensemble de fake news. Je m'explique. On a beaucoup de lecteurs de la Bible et on a beaucoup de témoignages dans la Bible. Et la Bible, elle s'appelle la Bible et non pas aletheia ou la vérité. Donc la Bible, elle se veut elle-même réflexion. Elle se veut changeante et peut-être même qu'elle se veut quelque part fake news, dans le sens où elle va provoquer des réflexions chez les gens et quelque part, ça pourrait mener à des affirmations, et donc un ensemble de fake news. Par exemple, Stéphane, toi tu disais que sur Internet, des fois, tu avais des débats avec des gens. Ça m'arrive aussi sur Instagram où j'ai malheureusement un feed qui est beaucoup axé sur le rapport entre féminisme et religion, et notamment religion chrétienne. Il y avait cette jeune femme qui disait : « En fait, être féministe et chrétienne, c'est comme être un poulet qui soutient KFC. » Du coup, moi, j'ai lu ça. Je me suis énervée au plus profond de moi-même. Je pense que quelque part, j'ai failli taper un truc. Après, j'en ai parlé à ma psy et j'ai décidé de prendre parti. J'ai écrit un très, très long commentaire en disant, en fait, tu ne peux pas être féministe et dire aux chrétiens et chrétiennes qu'ils ont tort de croire en leur religion. Tu ne peux pas prôner la liberté de la femme et la liberté de l'oppression en étant toi-même une oppression. Après, j'ai eu aussi des féministes bizarres, des chrétiennes qui utilisaient la Bible comme quoi, tu n'es pas censée avoir un avis de toute manière et tout. Moi, j'ai halluciné. J'ai découvert qu'en fait, il y avait des chrétiennes qui créaient des fake news à partir de la Bible, comme quoi je n'avais pas le droit de donner mon avis ou des trucs comme ça, ou même des femmes qui disaient à la fin de la vidéo qu'elles n'avaient elles-mêmes pas le droit de donner leur avis. Et là, j'étais scotchée. Je me suis dit, c'est dangereux. Les gens qui prennent la Bible au pied de la lettre et les gens qui ne la prennent pas du tout. J'ai trouvé que les deux extrêmes étaient d'une violence folle. C'est pour ça que là, le lien entre fake news et Bible, je me suis dit, les gens, en fait, ils se créent une fausse vérité outrageante et après, ils sont incapables de la questionner. C'est pour ça que moi, le rapport à la vérité aujourd'hui, j'avais envie de le remettre sur le critère de la compétence, sur le critère de l'honnêteté intellectuelle, en fait. Aujourd'hui, j'ai l'impression que ce qui va au-dessus de la vérité en elle-même, c'est le pouvoir et la fierté. Parce qu'aujourd'hui, on est dans un monde où, en fait, on n'a plus de fierté, on n'a plus confiance en nous parce qu'on est dans un monde qui nous aliène, en fait. On est dans un monde où on est complètement asservi aux réseaux sociaux, à Internet, aux gens, aux relations, aux critères sociaux, au patriarcat, parlons-en. Et en fait, on se repose sur ce qu'on peut. Je pense que la foi, il faut qu'elle revienne au cœur du débat. Comme Jésus l'avançait : « Je suis la vérité », c'est-à-dire, regarde ma vie et réfléchis. Jésus ne dit pas d'aller imposer des choses aux gens. Il dit en fait regarder ma vie et réfléchissez. C'est là que toute la Bible, toute la foi et toute la vérité prennent leur ampleur, c'est un dévoilement. Tu te mets de côté, tu mets ta fierté de côté et tu regardes en fait, c'est quoi ma compétence? Qu'est-ce que je sais? Qu'est-ce que les autres gens ont à apprendre? C'est juste être honnête, en fait. Je ne sais pas de quoi je parle. Je n'ai pas vécu dans une Église. Je n'ai pas vécu de violences patriarcales, je ne sais pas. Tu es juste honnête avec toi-même. Et moi, c'est vraiment ça pour moi, c'est l'honnêteté intellectuelle. L'humilité face aux limites de notre compréhension de la vérité [Stéphane] J'ajouterais peut-être un peu d'humilité. Parfois, on affirme : « Jésus a dit ceci, Jésus a dit cela. » Je n'étais pas là. Je n'étais pas là il y a 2000 ans. Donc cette certitude se base sur quoi? Se base sur des faits rapportés? Ce sont les célèbres questions : comment Jésus a-t-il pu nourrir 5000 personnes avec cinq pains et deux poissons? Ma réponse, souvent, est : je ne le sais pas. Le récit que nous avons nous dit que… Moi je crois que… mais je ne peux pas vous l'affirmer hors de tout doute. Si on pousse la réflexion, est-ce que Jésus a vraiment existé? Selon les normes et les témoignages de l'époque, on croit que oui. Mais là, il y a toujours quelqu'un qui dit : « Ah! Tels historiens, ils exagèrent et embellissent la vérité. » Ça, c'est mon côté de formation d'historien qui va parler. Mais la notion de vérité, il y a 2000 ans, n'était pas la même que celle d'aujourd'hui. Et fort probablement, 2000 ans dans le futur, ils risquent de nous regarder aujourd'hui, ils risquent de ricaner un peu. « Ah! ces gens du début des années 2000, ils étaient naïfs. Ils croyaient n'importe quoi. » Je pense qu'il y a aussi cette notion-là de dire que je ne sais pas tout. Nous ne pouvons pas tout savoir. Voici ce que nous comprenons. Voici les outils que nous utilisons. Essayons quand même de demeurer humbles, parce que lorsqu'on essaie de s'affirmer trop fort, lorsqu'on essaie de bomber le torse, lorsqu'on essaie d'établir une domination, comme vous l'avez dit, ça conduit toujours à de mauvaises places. Entre déni et inertie : quand la vérité cède au confort et aux habitudes [Joan] Je suis contente qu'on parle de cette notion d'honnêteté intellectuelle et puis toi, Stéphane, que tu parles de nous conduire à des mauvaises places lorsqu'on prend une certaine posture, parce qu'on découvre que « Les protocoles des sages de Sion » continuent à circuler. Ça, c'est quand même complètement délirant. Alors là, on va se dire que c'est vraiment immense, comme fake news, et ça dure depuis près d'un siècle. Mais quand on voit que la carte Mercator continue à être utilisée avec son Afrique minuscule, et qu'on nous l'a enseignée à l'école et que l'on continue à l'enseigner à nos enfants, on se dit, mais alors là, c'est un choix. Là, on est déjà dans des choix idéologiques, des choix politiques, des choix de politique internationale. Maintenant, on va arriver vers nos boutiques à nous, comme ça tout le monde en prend pour son grade, j'ai découvert dans un article que la dernière révision de la traduction œcuménique de la Bible, à 50 ans, Pardon? Ça veut dire que la même TOB avec laquelle mon mari et moi on a fait les études, c'est la même que celle avec laquelle notre fille aînée Marysol fait ses études? Non, mais on ne devrait même plus la vendre à ce stade. Il faut arrêter. 50 ans sans être révisé? Avec tout ce qui s'est passé en 50 ans en termes de réflexion sur le genre, les oppressions, le postcolonialisme, mais ce n'est pas possible. Maintenant on arrive vraiment à mon point touchy, le truc qui peut m'énerver matin, midi et soir sans problème, même quand je suis en train de faire un jacuzzi, c'est le fait qu'on ait un livret de cantique qui a déjà 20 ans. L'autre fois, je l'ai dit à quelqu'un qui me dit : « Oui, mais on ne connaît pas encore tous les cantiques du livret. » Je lui dis : « Bon, en même temps, il a 20 ans. » Il me dit : « Non! » Je lui dis « Mais si! c'est marqué dedans. » « Tu vois, pour moi, je n'aurais jamais cru. Oh! mais c'est fou. » « Ben ouais, c'est fou. » Ça fait 20 ans qu'on se farcit, justement, un livret de cantiques dont on chante peut-être 10% quand tout va bien. C'est incroyable! Pour moi, c'est tellement d'exemples de déni, de choix qui ne se justifient pas par la raison ou par une quelconque notion de vérité, de ce qui est bon, mais par le confort, une forme d'inaction. Ils disent : « Et puis on a pris l'habitude maintenant et de la TOB et du livret de cantiques et puis il faudrait s'organiser, trouver des gens pour le faire… » Mais bien sûr, mais il faut le faire en fait. Il y a des questions de justice sociale derrière. La quête de vérité à l'ère de la post-vérité et du doute [Yana-Malena] Aujourd'hui, la vérité, c'est quelque chose qui est en danger. La post-vérité, c'est tout un concept qui nous fait questionner la possibilité d'une vérité même à l'ère de l'IA, des réseaux sociaux, de la pluralité des points de vue. En fait, il faut aller au-delà de la paresse. Et il faut faire l'effort, comme on dit, humilité, honnêteté intellectuelle. En fait, il faut sortir du confort et faire l'effort de remettre en question ce qu'on sait et être dans une quête honnête de la vérité. C'est ça, je crois, un des enjeux en fait. Faire confiance à l'esprit critique pour dépasser la polarisation [Stéphane] Je crois qu'il faut faire confiance aux personnes. Souvent j'entends : « Ah! Les jeunes, ils se font prendre dans n'importe quelle théorie du complot. » Des théories du complot, il y en a toujours eu. Même, on le voit dans les évangiles, ils disent : « Ils vont voler le corps de Jésus et ils vont faire croire aux gens qu'il est ressuscité. » Déjà là, on est presque dans Dan Brown avec Da Vinci Code. Je regarde mon adolescent, par exemple. Il n'est pas plus idiot que nous. Il connaît les codes. Ce n'est pas parce qu'il n'utilise pas les mêmes outils de vérification que moi, que j'utilise depuis 50 ans, qu'il est plus naïf ou qu'il est plus stupide. Je pense qu'il y a une majorité de gens qui sont prêts à se poser des questions, qui sont prêts à fouiller, qui sont prêts à écouter. Il y aura toujours les gens qui ne veulent rien savoir, qui vont tomber dans les théories du complot. Je pense qu'il faut accorder de l'importance aux personnes qui sont censées et se sortir d'une espèce de logique de polarisation. Qu'est-ce qui va attirer les clics? Qu'est-ce qui va attirer les followers sur les médias sociaux? Qu'est-ce qui va créer le plus grand spectacle à la télévision? Il faut avoir foi en l'humanité, je crois. Conclusion [Joan] J'aime beaucoup cette notion de foi en l'humanité. On a eu un dialogue un peu intergénérationnel aujourd'hui avec Yana-Malena et c'était un plaisir. Alors si vous aussi vous avez des exemples de vérité qui vous touchent, de post-vérité, de fake news, et si vous voulez nous demander notre avis sur un certain nombre de choses comme le livret de cantiques, nous sommes à votre disposition sur notre adresse gmail que va donner dans un instant Stéphane. [Stéphane] Et oui, nous avons une adresse courriel, question de croire, pas de point, pas de tiret, questiondecroire@gmail.com. Nous avons aussi un groupe WhatsApp où on essaie de continuer les conversations de nos épisodes ou d'avoir d'autres conversations sur les questions que les gens ont aujourd'hui. Tous les liens sont dans la description de l'épisode. Je veux prendre quelques secondes pour remercier l'Église unie du Canada, notre commanditaire, ainsi que Réforme qui relaie notre podcast. Soyez des évangélistes pour nous partager, parler de notre projet et on se reparle très bientôt. Merci à vous deux. [Joan] Merci à toi Stéphane. [Yana-Malena] Merci. Liens Site Internet: https://questiondecroire.podbean.com/ ApplePodcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/question-de-croire/id1646685250 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Xurt2du9A576owf0mIFSj Réforme: https://www.reforme.net/podcast/ Contactez-nous: questiondecroire@gmail.com Notre commanditaire: L'Église Unie du Canada Moncredo.org * Musique de Lesfm, pixabay.com. Utilisée avec permission. * Photo de Jarl Schmidt, unsplash.com. Utilisée avec permission. * Communauté WhatsApp: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Iu1ggsLoCdyLid7SrJrCoF Mots clés : vérité, fake news, honnêteté intellectuelle, foi, société, pouvoir, Bible, déconstruction, post-vérité, Église Unie du Canada, croire, TOB, Platon, croyance, autorité. Sujets clés : La place de la vérité dans la société actuelle L'usage de la vérité pour exercer le pouvoir La distinction entre croyance personnelle et vérité universelle Les enjeux de l'honnêteté intellectuelle L'impact des fake news et de la post-vérité La vérité dans la Bible et la foi chrétienne Les défis de la déconstruction narrative et de l'objectivité L'influence des figures d'autorité sur la perception de la vérité Citations : "La vérité est souvent utilisée pour exercer une force" "L'honnêteté intellectuelle est essentielle pour la vérité"
Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric and Chris Himes talk about the World Cup, America's Christian culture, why visitors from around the world are seeing the real America, George W. Bush, PragerU, the Museum of the Bible, the July 4th events in Washington, D.C., Eric's Revolution book tour, bookstore issues, the Bonhoeffer film relaunch, upcoming events, and why America's story still matters.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World
Last Q&A of The Future of Religion. And on the way out, Ilia did the thing the class had been quietly building toward — she said out loud that Teilhard never called Christ the savior, that we are not saved by one particular person but by making an option for the whole, and that the actual move the future of religion asks of us is to take Paul more literally than the Catholic Church does. You are the Christ. You are baptized into the Christ. You share the mind of Christ. You are nourished at the table of the Christ. You are called to be the Christ. The students fed us our best questions of the series — love as anti-entropic cosmological force (not metaphor), how to have a personal relationship with a presence that is not a being out there, what Teilhard would have made of the darkness of the noosphere, and whether God depends on us as much as we depend on God. We end where we began. Thank you to everyone who took the class. Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and American theologian specializing in science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology. Previous Episodes with Ilia Delio There Was a Time When God Was Gods Religion Has a Physiology: Ilia & Tripp on Why Rituals Come Before Beliefs The Machine Is a God Image Thinking Theologically about AI with Teilhard de Chardin the Future of Religion The Not Yet God Bonaventure & the Cosmos in Process Catching a Cosmic Faith the Entangled God of my Heart Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Against persistent fear of death, mortality avoidance, and the vices that emerge from terror management, this episode offers a personal testimony of a Christian experience of dying. With scientific precision, disarming honesty, and immense gratitude for life, biologist Jeff Schloss offers an intimate, firsthand account of his recent diagnosis of an extremely rare terminal neurological disease: multiple system atrophy (MSA). His doctors put the prognosis plainly: "It is terminal, it is incurable, and it's rapidly progressive." A longtime and beloved Westmont College biology professor and senior scholar at BioLogos, Schloss offers speaks directly to the experience of dying—as he encounters each new week of this rapidly progressive disease. He reconsiders the meaning of a "good death": increased gratitude and awareness of gift, the reality of pain, the loss of surfing and guitar-playing, the sacredness of family, and the surprising nearness of Christ as everything else falls away. A profound witness to Christian attitudes about life and death, Schloss seeks not a hero's death, but a daily, humble life-giving commerce with Christ. Schloss revisits a life that began in a nonreligious Jewish refugee family and pivoted through a dramatic conversion as a college-dropout surf bum in Hawaii. He traces what has changed, and what hasn't, now that death is no longer an abstraction but a daily fact in his body. With pastoral care and hope, Mark Labberton explores with Schloss what it means to experience dying rather than simply anticipate it, the grief of losing fifty years of surfing and guitar-playing to pain and paralysis, the gift of Simone Weil's writing on suffering, the Heidelberg Catechism's opening words on "our only comfort in life and in death," and the difference between the thrill of surfing and the sacredness of family and commerce with Christ. Episode Highlights I knew from the second grade that I wanted to be a scientist. I was out collecting butterflies and dragonflies and looking through microscopes at all sorts of things that I couldn't believe were there. As we were talking, it just occurred to me ... he either had what I wanted, or he was clinically crazy. It is terminal, it is incurable, and it's rapidly progressive ... the process of dying I find it fascinating ... It's not fun, but it is fascinating. She wasn't sad just for herself, I'm gonna lose you. And she wasn't sad empathetically just for me, so sorry for you. It was a joint sadness that the life we had hoped to share together, we are not gonna have. The things that are most life giving are out of reach ... I've come to see it's actually not true. The things that have been delightful are out of reach ... the thing that is most life giving, and that is commerce with Christ. I think it was the single most thrilling day of my entire life ... I said, no, those weren't thrilling, those were sacred. I don't want to market this season. I'm not looking for a hero's death, or any kind of publicly attended death. I would have never guessed that in this home stretch, my son and wife could carry me up the slopes of Yosemite Valley. About Jeff Schloss Jeff Schloss has spent four decades at the intersection of evolutionary biology and Christian theology. Now retired as Distinguished Professor of Biology at Westmont College, he continues as senior scholar at BioLogos, working alongside Francis Collins for more than fifteen years. He co-edited "The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion" and "Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective," a Templeton Science-Religion Book of Distinction winner. He has lectured at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard. Helpful Links and Resources Jeff Schloss's page at BioLogos, where he serves as senior scholar: https://biologos.org/people/jeffrey-schloss Finding Faith: An Evolutionary Biologist Shares His Story, Schloss's own video testimony for BioLogos: https://biologos.org/resources/finding-faith-an-evolutionary-biologist-shares-his-story Tackling the Divide Between Science and Faith, Westmont Magazine's profile of Schloss's career: https://www.westmont.edu/magazine/spring-2025/tackling-divide-between-science-and-faith The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion, Schloss's co-edited volume: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-believing-primate-9780199597086 Evolution and Ethics: Human Morality in Biological and Religious Perspective, Schloss's Templeton Award-winning co-edited volume: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802826954/evolution-and-ethics/ Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, source of the Augustinian science concept Schloss references: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/where-the-conflict-really-lies-9780199812097 Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 1, the confession Labberton reads to close the episode: https://www.heidelberg-catechism.com/en/lords-days/1.html Multiple System Atrophy overview, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/multiple-system-atrophy Show Notes Childhood in a nonreligious German Jewish refugee family Grandfather taken by the Gestapo, relatives lost in the Holocaust Early love of butterflies, dragonflies, and microscopes A sixth-grade encounter with Confucius sparks a love of philosophy College philosophy major searching for purpose and for God Dropping out, becoming a surf bum in Hawaii A stranger's dinner invitation becomes a turning point A late-night prayer of surrender met by an unmistakable presence Grad school pairing biology, philosophy, and the study of altruism Alvin Plantinga's Augustinian science and reading creation with a map Decades as senior scholar at BioLogos alongside Francis Collins Why church and science drifted apart over vaccines and politics Science as a reliable path to facts, not truth itself A new diagnosis: rare, terminal, rapidly progressive neurological disease—multiple systems atrophy (MSA) Doctors estimate an average of three years, with wide variation The difference between studying death as a biologist versus the real-time experience of dying A spouse's grief for a shared future that will not happen Losing surfing and guitar-playing as an unplanned kind of fasting Pain described as systemic, exhausting, disorienting Cognitive decline and dark humor about it Distinguishing what is thrilling from what is truly sacred The ache of no longer being able to research and create A flicker of despair met by a choice not to despair Wanting a real death, not a hero's death A wish to thank former students and colleagues before the end Not wanting to become a burden to family Giving God all of one's heart, without earning salvation by it Bonhoeffer's costly grace versus cheap grace Gratitude over entitlement as the ground of faith Simone Weil on suffering as a place grace can work A closing blessing and the Heidelberg Catechism's opening words Carried up the slopes of Yosemite by a son and a wife #ConversingPodcast #MarkLabberton #JeffSchloss #FaithAndScience #BioLogos #MultipleSystemAtrophy #Mortality #ChristianFaith #Westmont #Gratitude Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.
Associate Pastor Ron King continues our series on Mark.What do you do when you realize your plans and God's plans aren't the same thing? Because that's exactly where Peter lands in Mark 8. He finally gets it right by calling Jesus the Messiah. And then Jesus tells him what that actually means: suffering, rejection, and death. Peter can't handle it, so he pulls Jesus aside and basically tells God he's wrong.Jesus doesn't let that slide. "Get behind me, Satan," he says. Because sometimes the biggest obstacle to following Jesus isn't unbelief — it's holding onto our own good plans a little too tight.Here's what it actually costs to follow Jesus, and why letting go of your version of the plan is the best trade you'll ever make.Thank you for listening to this message from Northwest Hills Community Church in Corvallis, Oregon, on July 5, 2026, at 10:30am. You can find us online at nwhills.com.Key Moments(00:00) Welcome(1:05) Message: What Do I Do When My Plans Aren't God's Plans?(2:53) America First, Jesus First, and Entering Mark 8(4:55) When Your Plans and God's Plans Aren't the Same(8:09) Reading Mark 8:27-38(11:04) Peter's Confession and Jesus' Sharp Rebuke(22:15) Denying Yourself: Discipleship Isn't About You(32:08) Bonhoeffer's Costly Grace(44:57) Journal Questions to Close
Cornel West is coming to Theology Beer Camp with his neighbor, Gary Dorrien, this October, and this hour is the on-ramp. It also happens to be a full one-hour preview of the America 250 conversation every clergy person I know is currently trying to write a sermon around. Brother West walked us through 1776 as an interruption of empire that was itself built on the preconditions of Indigenous genocide and Black enslavement (not the moral lapses around the edges of the founding — the actual foundation of it); through James Baldwin on how a country can be guilty of its own innocence; through the walking nihilism, the decline of courage, and the syncretism with economism that F. O. Matthiessen, Solzhenitsyn, Christopher Lasch, and Byung-Chul Han diagnosed long before the algorithm made it worse; and through why the Black Christian tradition rescued a love-centered gospel that Protestant faith-obsession had quietly abandoned. The whole thing wraps at Richard Rorty, Walter Rauschenbusch's grandson, at the end of his life confessing his utopia was a world in which love is the only law. Cornel: it sounds very Rauschenbuschian to me, Brother Rorty. If you want thein-person hang and conversation with Gary, register for Theology Beer Camp 2026 in Kansas City, October 8–10. Cornel and Gary have been trying to steal away for coffee for fifty years. Come watch them get to keep going. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Diana Butler Bass and I are back at the table, forty-eight hours out from the launch of the Theology Summit at America 250. She spent last week at Chautauqua watching the generational transfer happen in real time. I spent it half-yelling at Morning Joe. We came back together to answer two of the listener questions that have been landing in both of our inboxes since the last episode dropped — what fills the vacuum in American religion if both the mainline and the evangelical establishments are crumbling? and will there even be a mainline denomination at America's 300th birthday? — and the answers took the whole hour. Along the way: the two years Diana was the right age for anything, the real story of what fills the vacuum after the Protestant-Catholic-Jew consensus (spoiler — the vacuum is being actively filled right now, and it does not want you), why the mainline's most successful move in twenty-five years has been hiring ex-vangelical youth ministers, the neo-Christendom conference that meets annually in London and is planning a global Noah's Ark for the pre-selected, and why Diana's deepest hope for the Fourth of July is the second naivete — Paul Ricœur's language for a return to belief after disillusionment. The Theology Summit launches this week. Come argue with your friends about it. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Third Q&A of The Future of Religion. Ilia is back from Germany, the questions came in long and dense, and we ended up doing the thing the lecture had set up. We tracked how the natural-supernatural binary got constructed — Hume locks God out, German biblical critics build the distinction to argue about miracle stories, Huxley grabs the distinction and weaponizes it against the whole of nature. We asked what happens to faith when you realize Jesus would have been perplexed by supernaturalism as a concept. We asked what two million people in the streets of New York celebrating a Knicks playoff win has to do with religion. And we asked what worship would feel like if the people in the pews actually knew what the liturgy was doing. Spoiler — most of them think it is holding the building together until the sermon arrives. Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and American theologian specializing in science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology. Previous Episodes with Ilia Delio There Was a Time When God Was Gods Religion Has a Physiology: Ilia & Tripp on Why Rituals Come Before Beliefs The Machine Is a God Image Thinking Theologically about AI with Teilhard de Chardin the Future of Religion The Not Yet God Bonaventure & the Cosmos in Process Catching a Cosmic Faith the Entangled God of my Heart Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Scott Paeth wrote Christianity and Identity during Trump's first term, expecting that by the time the book hit shelves the urgency would have passed. Then November happened again. So volume one of his new three-volume series Faith and Public Reason lands as the book on this moment — the one I have been waiting for someone with Scott's training to write. We start with Y2K as the real end of history (and my confession that peak humanity was 1999 because that is when The Matrix came out), move through the irony Niebuhr would have recognized on sight, name the three threads of authoritarianism Trump has been weaving — theocratic nationalist, technocratic libertarian, conspiracist — and turn toward what Scott is actually constructing: a public theology grounded in the dialectic of universal dignity and particular bonds, rooted in Bonhoeffer's prison poem, pointed toward a New Jerusalem whose gates are never shut. The closing move maps directly onto the Statue of Liberty. Volume two is on economics. I am already in line. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube About our guest Dr. Scott Ronald Paeth is Professor of Religious Studies and Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, and pastor of Edgebrook Community Church (UCC) on the city's far northwest side. He has authored or edited nine books, including The Niebuhr Brothers for Armchair Theologians; Exodus Church and Civil Society: Public Theology in the Work of Jürgen Moltmann; Public Theology: Essays in Honor of Max Stackhouse; and Philosophy: A Short, Visual Introduction. The book at the center of this conversation is Christianity and Identity: Public Theology, Authoritarianism, and Democracy — Volume 1 of his new three-volume series Faith and Public Reason, out now from Cascade Books. Volume 2 will be on economics and public theology; Volume 3 on religion and society more broadly. He writes at scottpaeth.substack.com. Previous Podcast Visits from Dr. Paeth Include Close Encounters of the Theological Kind The Affinities Between Marxism and Christianity Are We in the Midst of a Cold Civil War? Why Go Niebuhr? On Reinhold & Richard Niebuhr Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Diana and I sat down to launch our summer online Summit — Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 — a video time capsule of scholars and friends answering a single question: what is the one thing you want people to know about America at 250? We compared the bicentennial summer of 1976 (gas crisis, Watergate, the end of the Vietnam War, mortgage rates at 18% — but neighbors still made colonial costumes) to the bicentennial Trump tried to throw last night but canceled. We argued about whether the Democratic Party is currently sitting in 1850 or 1976. We disagreed about the Eucharist on Zoom. And then, because Diana is Diana, she ended with a poem by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer that I think is the spine of this whole moment: "I want to hear America listening." Strap in, and we will be back next week! You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Join our Online Summit - Unsettled Ground: Faith & the American Story at 250 This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — an online summit featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at www.TheologySummit.com to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pam King is back, and this conversation moved at the pace it wanted to. She runs the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the framework she has built there is the most useful integration of psychological science and Christian theology I have come across — six facets that spell THRIVE, with a telos she calls the reciprocating self. We started with Stanford and seminary and ended with how the church is asking nine-year-olds to defend their interpretation of Torah when what they actually need is a fifth adult who knows their name. In between: the difference between flourishing and thriving, the Altadena fires Pam watched from her office window, how Winnicott's good enough mother maps onto how children come to relate to God, what Mark Labberton's seminary depression taught him about liturgy, why I rebuilt our confirmation class around questions instead of doctrines, and the prayer I have been praying with my daughter Khora since she was an infant. You can check out her previous visit on the podcast here. Books we touched on: The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological Perspective, with Jack O. Balswick and Kevin S. Reimer. Her foundational telos book. Thriving with Stone Age Minds: Evolutionary Psychology, Christian Faith, and the Quest for Human Flourishing, with Justin L. Barrett. The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. Join our online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bob Wright is back, and The God Test is the AI book I had been waiting for someone to write — the only one I have read that takes the spiritual stakes of the technology with the seriousness Teilhard would have. It opens with the interview Bob conducted with a young Geoffrey Hinton in 1983 — now anointed by The New York Times as the godfather of AI, now also one of its loudest doomers — and pivots into what Bob did not understand in that hotel room forty years ago: that we would build something as powerful as the human brain without ever first having to understand the brain. The bottom-up approach won. We are now inside the consequences. We spent the hour on Teilhard's noosphere acquiring silicon neurons, on why Bob argues accelerationism is lethal, on the difference between cognitive sovereignty and cognitive empathy and why both are now in jeopardy, on whether the algorithm has already occupied the very inner room from which sovereignty would be exercised, and on the closing line of the book — which I will not spoil here, except to say it is the kind of line you stop reading after. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Robert Wright is the New York Times bestselling author of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, The Evolution of God (Pulitzer Prize finalist), and Why Buddhism Is True. His newest book, The God Test, is out from Simon & Schuster in June 2026. He is Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York and president of the Nonzero Foundation. His Nonzero Newsletter and Nonzero Podcast (currently in rotation with Paul Bloom) live at nonzero.substack.com — and yes, I am a paid member. Books surfaced in this conversation: The God Test (the book at hand), The Evolution of God (the silicon-god closing line of The God Test picks up the long arc of Evolution directly), Why Buddhism Is True (the contemplative-traditions stretch of the conversation), and Nonzero (the non-zero-sum framing that runs under everything Bob does). Previous Episodes with Robert Wright Evolution, Empathy, & the Future of Humanity From Mindful Resistance to the New Agnosticism The Evolution of God Join our online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Like Father, Like Son Pastor Mark Havel Matthew 10:24-39“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” My oldest son, Jackson, who is 22, spent a rainy morning with me on vacation in South Haven, Michigan, this past week, milling around a couple of antique stores there. (“Antique malls,” actually, is what the call them.) It has to be raining and/or vacation for me to do much resembling “antiquing,” but I was there for the nostalgia of seeing old toys from my childhood and whatever vinyl records I might find. Jack was there for the sports memorabilia and baseball cards. He scored a few of the latter and I found myself a pretty clean copy of Bruce Springsteen's “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”While we were looking through a treasure trove of old Sports Illustrated magazines – mostly from the 1970's and 80's – a stranger walked by, looked at Jack, then looked at me, then probably back at Jack, and declared, “Well that apple didn't fall far from the tree, did it?” We both laughed and I told him we'd heard that before. To which he said, with awe, “It's remarkable.” I don't always think we look THAT MUCH alike, though many of you have said so, over the years. But when a stranger notices and feels compelled to call it out in public, I guess there's no denying it.And it's always been a compliment to me – even if I can't always see it – that I share a resemblance with either of my boys. But anyone who's ever been 12 or 13 or 16 or 17 knows the LAST thing you'd count as a compliment is for someone to think you look like one of your parents.You know, those times in childhood and adolescence when you can't stand being seen with, let alone be seen as looking like, your mom or your dad. You know, those moments when kids stop holding mom's hands at the store; when they cringe anytime dad makes conversation with their friends; or when they rush from the car in the school drop-off line as if the vehicle was on fire.And all of this had me thinking about some of what I hear Jesus saying in this morning's Gospel. Specifically, it made me think of what it means when Jesus talks about acknowledging or denying God, the Father, in our daily lives.See, Jesus uses all sorts of images, illustrations and hyperbole today – and it's okay … important … faithful … and a relief, actually, to recognize some of this as exaggeration and hyperbole. All of this talk about peace and swords, setting family members against one another, about not being worthy of Jesus, is nothing more and nothing less than naming the seriousness of our call to be disciples and followers of Christ in the world. So I don't we need to take Jesus LITERALLY at every turn, this morning, as long as we take him SERIOUSLY. Because discipleship is a serious thing. It was in the days of the Jesus and it is meant to be, still. It calls for bold confession, faithful practice, and courageous action, more often than we're always inclined.And, remember, Jesus is talking to his first disciples today, knowing all sorts of persecutions and temptations are in store for them because of what he's asking. When he talks about coming “not for peace, but with a sword,” he's not doing away with his title as the Prince of Peace or with his command to love one another – AND our enemies. Jesus is saying that, too often, the kind of amazing, radical, counter-cultural, life-changing grace, mercy, and peace God offers is more than some people can handle. And that in order to really get it and to truly proclaim it and to faithfully share it means to surprise and to separate and to send people reeling from time to time.(If you need proof of the kind of threat that sort of grace is to some people, you should see some of the hateful, frightening comments I hid from my Facebook feed after posting just a clip from my last sermon. Among other things, you should know, I'm an evil, demonic, blaspheming, false prophet who's going straight to Hell – I deserve it – and I'm bringing all of you with me.)All of this is to say, Jesus wants his people – his people – to be realistic about, and ready for, the consequences of what real, faithful, kingdom-living may lead to in our lives and in this world.Because doing that well – living faithfully, I mean – is hard work. When you stand up for justice for the “least of these,” that often means challenging the systems that protect the powerful. When you speak truth to power, power doesn't always like what you have to say. When you speak the truth, even in love, the response is often denial and fear and hatred of that very truth and of those who proclaim it.And that kind of faithful living gets people like Martin Luther excommunicated. It gets people like Nelson Mandela thrown into jail, people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Renee Good, and Alex Pretti, killed. It gets women in some denominations thrown out of the pulpit. And, of course, all of it got Jesus, himself, crucified, too.And those are some tough shoes to fill. I wonder how many of us have had the opportunity or would have the courage and the faith to live out our faith like some of these giants. So we do our denying on a smaller scale, don't we? When we drive by the hungry person on the street corner… When we let the racist comment slide… When we laugh with the bullies or at the queer kids and the sexist jokes on the White House lawn... When we add our two cents to the gossip mill... When we vote with our self-interests, first.So what are we to do with Jesus' promise – or threat – when he says, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. And everyone who denies me before others, I will also deny before my father in heaven”?What I hear him saying isn't so much that those who deny Christ or fail at this call to faithful discipleship are doomed or damned for all eternity. It's not that if we don't live up to the high bar of King or Mandela or Bonhoeffer, we're out of luck. Remember, he also promises that we hold more value than many sparrows, who, even though they fall, are never beyond the reach of God's care.What I hear Jesus acknowledging is that God – the Father of all creation – knows, like so many good parents know, what it feels like to have his children deny or be embarrassed by their likeness to their Creator: to drop his hand at the grocery store, you might say; or rush by with friends to avoid any awkward conversations; or to shrink down in the seat and hurry from the car hoping no one notices who's in the driver's seat.What I hear Jesus saying to his disciples and to each of us, is that it's time to grow up. He's inviting us to embrace the claim of God, the Father, on our lives and to start living in the joy, responsibility, and challenge of that holy calling.Just like it's hard to pinpoint exactly when children begin distancing themselves from their annoying, embarrassing parents, it's difficult to pinpoint a precise moment when they begin to turn around and to start re-building those more mature bridges of relationship, connection, respect, and admiration, too.But, believe it or not, kids, it happens! There comes a time when the comparisons and resemblances to our parents seem pretty small in the grand scheme of things – and even beautiful and holy and remarkable, the more mature we get, if we're lucky. I got a glimpse of it with Jackson last week in that antique store. And I hope my mom and dad have noticed it over the years, too.And I hear Jesus calling our attention to that same reality when it comes to our relationship with God. He's inviting us to embrace our call to discipleship, to look and act more and more like our maker – all the things an immature faith might fear and resist – because following Jesus puts everything into a different perspective.It's an invitation and a holy challenge, because Jesus knows that when we do it – when we let the call to discipleship change the way we live, what once seemed like work (stuff like generosity, gratitude and grace) will become a way of life. What once seemed beyond us (stuff like sacrifice, selflessness, and suffering, even) actually bears fruit for us and for others. What once seemed unbelievable (stuff like healing, wholeness, and real joy) will become Truth, with a capital T, for our lives. And what once seemed impossible (forgiveness, freedom and eternal life) will belong to us all.Amen
ScriptureSo own up to your sins to one another and pray for one another. In the end, you may be healed. Your prayers are powerful when they are rooted in a righteous life. James 5:16 (VOICE)The GistWe don't talk much about confession in the protestant church. James isn't saying we should confess every fault/sin to every person, but instead to certain situations:Where reconciliation is neededwhere your heart/conscience is burdenedwhere a trusted friend can listen and help us receive grace and gain power over shame/guilt. We avoid confessing for several reasons: exposure/shame, loss of control, lack of safe listeners, and theological confusion, but there is a lot of good that comes out of confession. It heals the body and soul, sin loses its power, authentic relationships happen, prayers become specific, and we experience the Gospel physically through being fully known and not rejected from the listener. Digging DeeperIs there something you would confess to God privately but can't imagine saying out loud to another person - what does that gap tell you?Bonhoeffer said, "If the demon that is named is the demon that loses its power." What in your life needs to be named?Who are you performing wholeness for, and what would it cost you to stop?These questions are meant to clear the ground and create the conditions for confession, not demand it.
How Can Freedom, Faith, and the Fight Beyond A Holiday Shape Us? Host Curtis Chang talks with sociologist Dr. Angel Adams Parham about the history of Juneteenth, from the 1865 emancipation announcement in Galveston, Texas, to its meaning for American freedom, racial justice, and collective memory. Together, they explore the spiritual resilience of the Black church, its influence on Christian theology and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and why Juneteenth matters for all Americans. They also consider how Christians can celebrate Juneteenth with both joy and historical honesty. 02:05 - The Historical Story of Juneteenth 05:11 - What Were the Limitations of the Emancipation Proclamation? 09:28 - An American Pattern of Incomplete Freedom 13:34 - How Do We Preserve the Meaning of Juneteenth? 19:24 - The Pain of Historical Erasure & Cultural Setbacks 23:43 - Scripture as a Freedom Narrative Fostering Resilience 29:22 - The Universal Longing To Be Free 32:06 - The Black Church's Contribution to the Christian Story 35:54 - Embodied Practices for Juneteenth 39:09 - The Spiritual Promise of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" Register for our America 250 episode recording with Russell Moore and David French Sign up for the Anxiety Opportunity Course Use the code: Goodfaith Referenced in the Episode: Transcript of The Emancipation Proclamation Union General Gordon Granger's announcement: General Order No. 3 Claude Atcho's Reading Black Books Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (pdf) Transcription of an interview with ex-slave Felix Haywood Reggie L. Williams' Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus Phillis Wheatley's letter to Rev. Samson Occom James Weldon Johnson's poem Lift Every Voice and Sing Manhattan Harmony Four's recording Lift Every Voice And Sing The Fisk University Quartet's Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Scriptures Referenced: Exodus 12:31–15:21 (ESV) Isaiah 61 (ESV) Leviticus 25 (ESV) Luke 4:14–30 (ESV) More From Dr. Angel Adams Parham: Dr. Parham's bio: the University of Virginia Dr. Parham's Website Dr. Parham's book The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature Follow Us: Good Faith on Instagram Good Faith on X (formerly Twitter) Good Faith on Facebook The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.
Mid-twentieth century theologian and philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed that stupidity is more dangerous than evil. Can that claim be applied to MAGA?Dame Magazine: The Four Ideas That Explain America's Democratic CrisisBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.
Dr. Everett Worthington spent thirty years building the most rigorously tested forgiveness program in psychological science — and the day he turned in his first book on the subject was the day his mother was murdered in a home invasion. Three years later, his brother, who had discovered her body, took his own life, after Everett — a psychotherapist, a big brother — had failed to talk him into counseling. So this is not abstract research. The man giving us the REACH model, the distinction between decisional and emotional forgiveness, the six-step protocol for responsible self-forgiveness, and a vision of forgiveness scaling from heart to home to homeland is the man who has had to apply every move he teaches to the people he loved most. We spent the hour on the science, the tools, and at the end, on why the algorithmic version of America is currently training us to become exactly the kind of community in which forgiveness will not happen. Dr. Everett L. Worthington Jr. is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he taught for more than forty years before formally retiring in 2017 and remaining affiliated with the department. A licensed clinical psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, he has published more than thirty-eight books and four hundred scholarly articles across forgiveness, humility, positive psychology, and marriage and family. His REACH forgiveness program has been validated by more than thirty randomized control trials worldwide. Explore the Science of Forgiveness — Greater Good Science Center The GGSC forgiveness hub brings together research, practices, and essays for anyone thinking seriously about forgiveness — theologically, pastorally, or personally. Join our online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Text us your questions!We continue our conversation with pastor and author Matt Erickson of Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee. The job of many pastors feels like that of a CEO, with a focus on leadership strategy and the "three Bs": buildings, budgets, and butts in seats. This conversation offers a slower, deeper, and more hopeful way to think about church health, discipleship, and long-term spiritual formation.We dig into the sequoia metaphor: doing work you may never see mature, trusting God with fruit you can't control, and learning to “know the soil” of a local congregation. That leads into the daily practices that make this possible, from deep roots in a pastor's own life with God to the courage to let certain ministries die and become compost for what comes next. Then we take a hard turn into prayer, including Simone Weil's claim that “unmixed attention is prayer,” and why contemplative attention can be a distinctly Christian practice rather than mere mindfulness.From there, Matt helps us frame pastoral work inside Charles Taylor's “secular age,” where belief is an option and we all live under cross-pressure from competing ideas and value sets within a larger secular frame. We talk about the constant temptation to become a religious salesperson in a spiritual marketplace and why “bearing witness” could be a better model. We also wrestle with orthodoxy, the role of the creeds as family story, and the difference between right belief and lived faithfulness. Finally, we go straight at the question many pastors dread: how to pastor through Trumpism, political idolatry, and public Christian compromises, with the Black church and voices like Howard Thurman and Bonhoeffer shaping the horizon.Catch Part 1 of this conversation here.=====Want to support us?The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.Other important info:Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!
When does refusing to repeat a lie become complicity in it?The hardest question in documentary filmmaking is not how to find the truth. It is how to handle a lie. When a false story is already loose in the world, you have two choices that look almost identical on the page: refuse to repeat it, or amplify it by debunking it. The discipline of knowing which is which can decide whether your film tells the truth or makes the lie stronger.In this Deep Dive on Documentary First Episode 279 with Brian Pocrass, host Christian Taylor digs into the question Brian asked on tape about how much oxygen you give a lie. The conversation took thirty minutes to arrive there, but the question turns out to be the spine of every documentary that touches a contested story. This episode traces that question through C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life under the Nazi regime, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1974 essay Live Not By Lies, and a two thousand year old paradox in the book of Proverbs.The spine of the episode is Brian's question on tape: "The question is, how much oxygen do you give it?" That question runs straight into a paradox the rabbis of the Talmud spent centuries arguing over. Proverbs 26:4 says do not answer a fool according to his folly. Proverbs 26:5, the very next verse, says answer a fool according to his folly. The Talmudic resolution maps directly onto the filmmaker's dilemma: the stakes determine the answer. Christian closes the episode with her own test, drawn from her film The Girl Who Wore Freedom: the story of Michel de Vallavieille, the French farmer shot in the back by an American paratrooper on D-Day, and the famous Band of Brothers rumor she refused to put on screen.In this episode, Christian explores:Why every production company wanted Brian Pocrass to tell a different version of Heather O'Rourke's story than the one he ended up makingThe C.S. Lewis principle from The Screwtape Letters that the devil cares more about attention than beliefHow debunking a conspiracy theory can give the conspiracy a brand new piece of footage to point atDietrich Bonhoeffer's argument that silence in the face of evil is itself evilAlexander Solzhenitsyn's 1974 essay Live Not By Lies and the moral discipline of refusalThe two thousand year old paradox in Proverbs 26:4-5 and how the Talmudic rabbis resolved itWhy the Talmud's answer is sacred versus mundane stakes, and what that means for documentary filmmakersThe Michel de Vallavieille story from Christian's film The Girl Who Wore FreedomThe Band of Brothers rumor about Bill Guarnere that Christian refused to put on screenThe two questions every documentary filmmaker has to weigh before they amplify a storyChapters0:00 C.S. Lewis, the Devil, and Brian Pocrass's Question0:30 How Much Oxygen Do You Give a Lie?1:28 The Screwtape Letters and the Devil's Currency2:24 Bonhoeffer: Silence in the Face of Evil Is Evil Itself3:27 Solzhenitsyn's Live Not By Lies and Proverbs 264:59 The Girl Who Wore Freedom: Bill Guarnere and My Own Test6:14 The Question I Leave You WithFrequently Asked QuestionsWhen does debunking a lie make it stronger?Researchers at Data and Society documented this dynamic in a 2018 study called The Oxygen of Amplification. Repeating a false claim in order to refute it gives the claim attention, repeats the language, and trains the algorithm to surface it more. Britannica describes this dynamic as adding oxygen to the fire of misinformation. For documentary filmmakers, this means a debunking film about a conspiracy theory can leave viewers more familiar with the conspiracy than with the truth.What did Dietrich Bonhoeffer say about silence?Bonhoeffer's most famous line on the subject is silence in the face of evil is itself evil; not to speak is to speak; not to act is to act. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor in the 1930s who watched the German church surrender to the Nazi regime. He spent his adult life arguing against the silence of fellow pastors. The Nazis executed him in April 1945. His writings on costly discipleship remain among the most cited works of twentieth century theology.What is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Live Not By Lies about?Live Not By Lies is the essay Solzhenitsyn released on the day the KGB arrested and deported him in 1974. He argues that while a single person cannot stop a lie from being told, every person can refuse to repeat it. The refusal itself is the action. The essay is one of the foundational moral texts of the dissident movement against Soviet totalitarianism and remains widely cited in discussions of personal moral resistance.How do the rabbis of the Talmud resolve Proverbs 26:4 and 26:5?Proverbs 26:4 says do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Proverbs 26:5 says answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. The Talmudic resolution is that the two verses apply to different kinds of stakes. When the fool is talking about something sacred, you answer. When the fool is talking about something mundane, you do not. The wisdom is in knowing which kind of stakes you are facing.How do documentary filmmakers handle conspiracy theories about their subjects?There is no industry standard. Each filmmaker has to weigh the specific story. Some choose to confront the conspiracy directly and risk amplifying it. Others refuse to give the conspiracy screen time and risk being accused of avoidance. The discipline is to ask what the documentary makes more solid in the world and who the actual audience is: the people who already believe the lie, or the people who deserve the truth.About the Source EpisodeDocumentary First Episode 279 with Brian Pocrass aired on June 9, 2026. Brian is an attorney based in Los Angeles and the producer of She Was Here, the 2026 documentary about the life and death of Heather O'Rourke. The film features Heather's family debunking the Poltergeist curse rumor that has surrounded her death for almost forty years.Episode link: https://pod.fo/e/427c08About The Girl Who Wore FreedomThe Girl Who Wore Freedom is Christian Taylor's documentary about the children of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, France, and the American GIs who liberated their town on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The film centers on Danielle Patrix Van Den Heede, whose family hid GIs in the days after the invasion, and Michel de Vallavieille, the young farmer at Brecourt Manor who was shot in the back by an American paratrooper on D-Day and went on to build the Utah Beach Museum and become the mayor of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.Website: https://thegirlwhoworefreedom.comAbout Documentary First: The Deep DiveEach week, host Christian Taylor takes an insight from a recent Documentary First filmmaker interview and explores it through literature, philosophy, theology, current culture, and the universal human experience. It is a companion show to Documentary First, built for documentary filmmakers, lovers of story, and anyone who wants to think more deeply about what we are watching. Christian Taylor is a documentary filmmaker (The Girl Who Wore Freedom, Heroes of Carentan), actor, voice actor, and podcast host based in the United States.Resources MentionedDocumentary First Episode 279 with Brian Pocrass: https://pod.fo/e/427c08She Was Here, directed by Nick Bailey, produced by Brian Pocrass (2026)The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (1942)Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German pastor and theologianLive Not By Lies by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1974 essay)Proverbs 26:4-5Talmud, Shabbat 30bThe Girl Who Wore Freedom, directed and produced by Christian Taylor: https://thegirlwhoworefreedom.comBand of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose (1992 book and 2001 HBO miniseries)The Oxygen of Amplification, Whitney Phillips, Data and Society Research Institute (2018)Listen and FollowListen to this episode on your preferred podcast app: https://pod.fo/e/[DD 279 CODE — TO BE ADDED ONCE EPISODE IS LIVE]Documentary First on all podcast apps: https://podfollow.com/documentary-firstYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@documentaryfirstSupport the show on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/c/DocumentaryFirstConnectDocumentary First on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/doc1stConnect with Christian Taylor on...
Ilia delivered the Axial Age lecture this past week from her temporary post in Germany, and the questions came in fast enough that we ended up touching the third rail of the whole class — the rise of monotheism. Yes, there was a time when God was not. Yes, there was a time when God was gods. Yes, Psalm 82 is in your Bible, and yes, Yahweh shows up at the divine council to judge the other deities. If that sounds sacrilegious, you might be exactly the right person to take this class. The Axial Age is when the I gets invented, the score gets written, the disengaged knowing that becomes science comes online, and 60,000 denominations begin arguing over whose copy of the score is correct. We are still inside its inertia. We are also — Ilia argues, and I think she is right — already past its hinge. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and American theologian specializing in science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology. Previous Episodes with Ilia Delio Religion Has a Physiology: Ilia & Tripp on Why Rituals Come Before Beliefs The Machine Is a God Image Thinking Theologically about AI with Teilhard de Chardin the Future of Religion The Not Yet God Bonaventure & the Cosmos in Process Catching a Cosmic Faith the Entangled God of my Heart Join our online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This episode wraps up the conversation between Tim, Joel, Judy, and Mulu. The Lintons describe the amazing Sundays their church family spends together, which run from the crack of dawn until the night. Their ministry is “organic,” focusing on making disciples of Jesus Christ who go beyond the superficial. The church in Yilan County, Taiwan is all about living life together, just like Bonhoeffer wrote about in Life Together. Along the way, they also talk about the ins and outs of worship music and the merciful discipline of children.The first part of this interview is here. Another interview with Joel and Judy can be heard here.***Desire to become a pastor? Check out New Geneva Academy. Listen to NGA's brand new podcast, "What I Wish They'd Told Me," here or watch video here.***Out of Our Minds Podcast: Pastors Who Say What They Think. For the love of Christ and His Church.Intro and outro music is Psalm of the King, Psalm 21 by My Soul Among Lions.Out of Our Minds audio, artwork, episode descriptions, and notes are property of Warhorn Media, published with permission by Transistor, Inc. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
This is the first Q&A of The Future of Religion, and the questions did exactly what good questions do — they pulled the lecture into places I had not planned to take it. Ilia opens by reframing my religion before belief lecture in her own cosmological key, and then we are off: three centimeters per second and the C-fibers, the knife edge at fifty bodies where the old bonding mechanisms fail and religion has to be invented, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, the Baptist accidentally serving Eucharist at an Episcopal cathedral, and the line that closed it — what if success as clergy is not rewriting the score, but learning to play the music that is already in the room? More than a thousand of you are in this class now. The questions are doing the work. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Join our online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is the first in a short series, which will be a theological autopsy of how one of Christianity's most respected communicators became MAGA's most dangerous court prophet — and what his collapse tells us about the spiritual crisis inside American evangelicalism. We'll examine Metaxas's two recent speeches at the Rededicate 250 event and Sean Feucht's Christian nationalist rally — what he said, why it matters, and why it qualifies as false prophecy. We trace his full arc: from the Access Hollywood tape to the January 6th insurrection to his claim that Trump's election was "an outrageous gift from God." We also expose the deepest irony: Metaxas literally wrote the definitive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the theologian who died resisting exactly the kind of regime Metaxas now enables. In October 2024, 86 of Bonhoeffer's own descendants signed a public statement condemning Metaxas by name for misrepresenting their ancestor to serve a far-right Christian nationalist agenda. This is what a false prophet looks like. This is what Christian nationalism does to a man's conscience. And this is why it matters for every believer trying to hold the line.
Ilia Delio and I sat down a week before The Future of Religion class opens, in front of 500 people who already knew what they were signing up for. The conversation ranged — from the brain mutation she underwent when thirteen years of neuroscience gave way to a monastery ("Thomas Merton was my concussion"), to the single verb she would change in Pope Leo XIV's brand-new AI encyclical (turn remain into become), to why she keeps insisting both the problem and the cure are religious. AI is not what is annihilating us. Our refusal to acknowledge the divine ground within us is what is annihilating us. The machine is just where we have been projecting the search. The class opens next week. This conversation is the on-ramp. You can WATCH this conversation on YouTube Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Some conversations want to be in a coffee shop, not a studio — and this is one of them. Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty and I share a particular endangered species of Baptist heritage, the small, ecumenical, justice-formed wing whose patron saints include her father, Glenn Hinson, the Baptist church historian who taught half my div-school professors how to take the contemplative tradition seriously. So before we got anywhere near the politics of freedom, the problem of wealth, or the murderus super chickens of late-stage neoliberalism, we sat in her father's legacy for a while. The conversation took a different shape because of it. What follows is a slow take — on the perversion of freedom in white Christian America, the way our politics has lost any room for loss or failure, and what theological education has to do now if it is going to do anything at all. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty is the J. Roy Davis Family Chair of Theology and History at Union Presbyterian Seminary's Charlotte campus, where she teaches theology and ethics. Ordained in the PC(USA), she previously taught for nearly two decades at Bellarmine University, and earned her PhD from what is now UPSem. The books that anchor this conversation: Authentic Christian Freedom: Deconstructing the American Gospel of Liberty (the newest, on freedom's misuse in white Christian America); The Problem of Wealth: A Christian Response to a Culture of Affluence (Orbis, 2017 — winner of the Catholic Press Association's first-place prize in Catholic Social Teaching); and Dutiful Love: Empowering Individuals and Families Affected by Serious Mental Illness. Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two men from Mississippi's Gulf Coast wonder if America is finally willing to grow up. Watch this conversation on YouTube As we approach America's 250th anniversary, Russell is joined by fellow southern Mississippi native and public intellectual Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. to talk about race, memory, patriotism, and the stories nations tell themselves in order to avoid repentance. Drawing from his new book America, USA: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, Glaude argues that the danger facing the country is not simply historical ignorance, but a “storybook” version of America that shields us from confronting what is broken underneath. While talking about Baldwin, Bellah, Bonhoeffer, Toni Morrison, and the civil rights movement, the two explore the tension between love of country and idolatry of nation, the persistence of racial inequality, and why prophetic truth-telling requires both courage and hope. Ultimately, Glaude's message asks more questions than it answers, but gently ushers us toward love, reconciliation, and redemption at a time when we really need it. Keep up with Russell: Subscribe to Russell on Substack Sign up for the weekly Moore to the Point newsletter Submit a question for the show at questions@russellmoore.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The volume of "I genuinely don't know what to preach anymore" emails landing from clergy has become its own data set. Pastors are not okay. So I did the only honest thing — I outsourced your questions to the one person whose books, research, and classroom hours have been training people for exactly this moment. Leah Schade is back on Homebrewed, and she has spent the better part of a decade surveying thousands of preachers about what it actually costs to stand up on Sunday and tell the truth. We talked about fear, the unity trap, the cut-flower problem in progressive preaching, the assessment tool that turns courage into context, and the very specific reasons your sermon last week left your stomach in knots. This is the conversation I would want sitting next to me on a Saturday night when the sermon will not come and the news will not stop. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade is Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary. Her newest book, Preaching and Social Issues: Tools and Tactics for Empowering Your Prophetic Voice, is the practical, aggressively pragmatic follow-up to her 2019 Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide. Previous Podcast Visits Include: Faith During an Ecological Collapse and Preaching in a time of Crisis from Corona to Climate Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Gary Dorrien joins me and Aaron to close out six weeks of Theology for Troublemakers with a session that covered more ground than any before it — Kelly Brown Douglas as the fourth womanist founder, the double negative she cut from Resurrection Hope that contains the argument she's still wrestling with, Raphael Warnock as the student James Cone staked his hopes for Black theology on, the last conversation Gary had with Cone before he died, and forty unsparing minutes on Niebuhr's Zionism that ended where Gary needed it to end: Palestinian children are every bit as precious as Israeli children and no less deserving of a decent future. If you want the lectures, the readings, the supplemental interviews, and the discussion guides, head to www.HomebrewedClasses.com. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron James Cone Was Right: Gary Dorrien & Charlene Sinclair on Black Theology, the Lynching Tree & the Cry We Keep Not Hearing Sacred Values and Street Power — The Theology of Organizing A Story of Being Saved by Love and Grace the Niebuhr You Thought You Knew What Would a New Abolition Be? Gary Dorrien on the Black Social Gospel, Ida B. Wells & Reverdy Ransom Social Ethics for This Moment What God Do They Worship In There? The Black Social Gospel and the Crisis of American Christianity Theological Ethics & Liberal Protestantism James Cone and the Emergence of Black Theology The Future of Faith & Justice Theology for Action The Sacred, The Political, and Why We're All Vulnerable Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Most weeks now I get an email from someone who's sure they've believed a lie their whole life — that the faith holding their family, their friendships, their sense of self together is collapsing, and they don't know who they are without it. I've been that person more than once. So in this essay I want to say the thing I wish someone had said to me: what's dying might not be your faith. It might just be your idea of what your faith was. Drawing on Whitehead's four stages of religion — ritual, emotion, belief, rationalization — I make the case that belief-centered Christianity is a late, late development, maybe 200 years old in its current intensity, not 2,000. For most of human history religion was bodies moving together, food shared, the dead remembered. The relationship was never in the certainty. It was always in the meal. If you're in the panic right now, this one's for you. Pull up a chair. If this conversation is interesting, then come join me and Ilia Delio for our upcoming class, The Future of Religion, where we will digging in to the evolution of religion, its current belief centered crisis, and the possibilities on the horizon. This audio essay is the kind of theology you will find at Process This — my Substack. You the join 75k+ subscribers and get them all delievered to your inbox or follow the podcast feed wherever you listen. Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Week five of Theology for Troublemakers, and we finally got to James Cone — which meant we got to Charlene Sinclair, and I want you to know that the moment Gary introduced her on this call was one of the more moving things we've done in this class. He described her as the student who told Cone she saw something in his early work that nobody else gets — the importance of Fanon to his concept of ontological Blackness — and the way he described the day she defended her dissertation, how he held his one point until the very end so he could announce that this dissertation had explained, like no book ever written, what Fanon actually meant to Cone's thought, tells you everything about who James Cone was as a teacher and who Charlene Sinclair is as a scholar. We started at the beginning: the three moments that produced Black Theology and Black Power — the NCBC manifesto, Detroit burning, and the assassination of King — and why Cone said bottled rage would have killed him if he hadn't written that book. Gary walked us through the satanic nature of whiteness as a theological claim versus a racial one, what ontological Blackness actually meant, and why Cone's sweeping indictment of the Negro church before 1968 was, as Gary put it, seriously flawed even as it produced a towering theology. We got into the womanist challenge — Delores Williams, Katie Cannon, Kelly Brown Douglas arguing there is nothing redeeming in the cross — and why Cone couldn't start writing The Cross and the Lynching Tree until Delores retired and Emily Towns went to Yale; he needed just enough personal distance to think it through. Then Charlene took us somewhere unexpected on Niebuhr: she asked, quietly, whether there wasn't a personal parallel between the Niebuhr brothers and the Cone brothers — Richard the better theologian, Reinhold the extravert who needed the crowd — and Gary spun it out for ten minutes in a way that you could tell he had been sitting with for years and had never said in public. We ended with Caleb's question about what it means for white Christians to actually hear the cry of Black blood, and Charlene answered it by describing her teenage grandson trembling in her arms, his whole body shaking, saying he didn't want to die. That's where the class ended. That's where James Cone's theology begins. If you haven't joined yet, come find us at www.HomebrewedClasses.com — donation-based, including zero. You get Gary's full lecture series, Aaron's supplemental interviews with scholars and organizers, curated readings, discussion guides, and the online community. Last session is next week — social ethics, full circle. And come to Theology Beer Camp, where Gary, Arron, and Cornel West will all be in the same room. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp ONLINE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
Andy Root is back, and this time he's got a fertility god on the cover of his book — which, if you've been paying any attention to his work, is not actually a detour. Baal and the Gods of More is what happens when Andy takes the background hum of economic critique that's been running through all his previous books and turns it all the way up, then runs it through First and Second Kings, Hartmut Rosa's theory of dynamic stabilization, Robert Gordon's economic history of the American special century, and Luther's commentary on the Magnificat, and comes out the other side with something genuinely uncomfortable and genuinely useful. The argument in brief: the church's anxiety about decline is not primarily a spiritual problem or a missional problem. It is a fertility cult problem. We have, like the Israelites under the Omride dynasty, decided that Yahweh needs a little help from the gods of growth — and we've done it so thoroughly that we can barely tell the difference anymore between faithful ministry and escalatory capital accumulation. Andy doesn't spare himself, or Tripp, or the emerging church movement, or the academic publishing world, or anyone who has ever refreshed their social media numbers and felt something. The conversation got real fast and stayed there. And yes, there is a Counting Crows footnote. Also: Tripp and Andy are going back to Bonhoeffer's house in Berlin in summer 2027 — two different tracks, one for personal and vocational formation, one for the theology nerds who want to read Bonhoeffer intensely and argue about it in his actual house. Go to BonhoefferTrip.com to get on the list to get info and early access to tickets. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Andrew Root is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary. Previous podcast visits with Andy include: Two Books, One Night: Finding Beauty in What We Can't Control with Diana Butler Bass & Andy and Kara Root Incarnation as Resistance Life Together in Turmoil & Bonhoeffer's Experiment in Community Resonance in an Accelerated Age Secular Mysticism & Identity Politics the Church after Innovation Churches and the Crisis of Decline Acceleration, Resonance, & the Counting Crows Ministry in a Secular Age Christopraxis with Andy Root Faith Formation in a Secular Age the Promise of Despair Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How did we get here? From the Enlightenment to the rise of Postmodernism, the landscape of what we believe about God has shifted beneath our feet. In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer sits down with renowned theologian Dr. Roger E. Olson (Emeritus Professor at Baylor University) to map out the fascinating—and often turbulent—history of modern theology. They explore the tension between tradition and the "modern mind," discussing how giants like Schleiermacher, Barth, and Bonhoeffer navigated a world that was rapidly deconstructing old certainties. Whether you're a theology nerd or just trying to understand the intellectual roots of your own faith, this conversation provides a vital compass for the journey. In this episode, we discuss: The "Modern" Dilemma: What happens when theology tries to accommodate the demands of the Enlightenment? Reconstruction to Deconstruction: Understanding the shift from building grand systems of thought to the skepticism of the 21st century. The Giants of the Faith: Why figures like Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer still matter for your walk with Christ today. The Evangelical Response: How believers can engage with modern ideas without losing the core of the Gospel. Finding Your Place: How understanding the history of ideas helps you situate your own beliefs in a chaotic world. Join us for a deep dive into the ideas that shaped the modern church and discover how to think Christianly in an era of reconstruction and deconstruction. Get early access and a bonus with a Patreon membership. Subscribe to our YouTube channel To read James's article on this topic, check out his author page on Christianity.com.
A year ago I started binge-watching shows during workouts and didn't notice when it became a problem. Then a new season dropped, I finished it in 48 hours, and I sat in front of the screen feeling a specific blankness — that sensation of having consumed something and received nothing. This essay is about that feeling. Not screen time. Not the hours. The architecture beneath them, and what it is doing to our capacity for depth. This is the first in a short series of essays in conversation with the German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, whose book The Disappearance of Rituals I cannot stop thinking about. Han names what most of our cultural commentary cannot quite reach: the loss of the forms that once let experience accumulate into meaning. Over the next several essays I'll put his diagnosis to work on the actual texture of our lives — our screens, our feeds, our worship, our politics, our relationships. Here is the question this one leaves you with: what have we quietly trained ourselves out of? This audio essay is the kind of theology you will find at Process This — my Substack. You the join 75k+ subscribers and get them all delievered to your inbox or follow the podcast feed wherever you listen. Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rolf Jacobson is back — psalm scholar, dean at Luther Seminary, co-author of the Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the Old Testament, and one of my favorite people to argue theology with over a long dinner. His new book God Meets Us in Our Suffering is unlike anything else he's written, and unlike almost anything else I've read on the subject. It's the story of three close friends — Rolf, his brother Carl, and their friend Mike Pancoast — who all had cancer, went through it together, and wrote about it side by side by side. Rolf had bone cancer at fifteen, lost both legs, and has been in a wheelchair for forty-five years. Carl was diagnosed with leukemia in 2022, declared cancer free in 2024, then died months later when meningitis attacked his brain after the bone marrow transplant compromised his immune system. Mike had lymphoma. What the three of them discovered in writing the book — and what Rolf and I spent this conversation unpacking — is that they didn't know they were writing a book about the theology of the cross. They thought they were just telling their stories. They weren't. This is one of the most honest, funny, theologically rich conversations I've had on this podcast, and it's also one of the most personal. Rolf doesn't let suffering become an abstraction. It never was one for him. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Gary Dorrien came to organizing the hard way — canvassing for McGovern in Alma, Michigan in 1972, where people didn't just oppose the candidate, they despised him, and where two doorstep encounters came close enough to violence that he learned the hard way to pair up. He didn't come out of that thinking he'd found his calling. What he found instead was Michael Harrington at a Harvard Divinity School lecture two years later — corduroy jacket, blue work shirt, gently correcting his own introduction — and joined DSOC on the spot. This week's session gave us Gary's full origin story as an organizer: from the McGovern campaign to the Albany years where he co-founded a DSOC chapter, led Central American solidarity work through C-SPACE, and discovered firsthand the cultural chasm between two wings of the left that could barely stand to share a building. Then Aaron took over and introduced three extraordinary guests — Joe Strife,Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Carolyn Baker — who brought the history of the National Welfare Rights Organization, Beulah Sanders, and the General Baker Institute directly into the room, and turned the question of who should lead into a live theological reckoning. Carolyn did the interview sitting on her mother's childhood porch steps in Dallas, recording oral history from a woman who is still organizing through dementia, which tells you everything you need to know about where this tradition lives and who carries it. If you haven't joined yet, come find us at www.HomebrewedClasses.com — donation-based, including zero. You get Gary's full lecture series, Aaron's supplemental interviews with scholars and organizers, curated readings, discussion guides, and the online community. Next week: James Cone with Charlene Sinclair. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron the Niebuhr You Thought You Knew What Would a New Abolition Be? Gary Dorrien on the Black Social Gospel, Ida B. Wells & Reverdy Ransom Social Ethics for This Moment What God Do They Worship In There? The Black Social Gospel and the Crisis of American Christianity Theological Ethics & Liberal Protestantism James Cone and the Emergence of Black Theology The Future of Faith & Justice Theology for Action The Sacred, The Political, and Why We're All Vulnerable Come keep thinking with us — Theology Beer Camp 2026 This is exactly what we will be sitting with at Theology Beer Camp this October 8–10 in Kansas City. Our theme this year is the God-podcalypse. Cornell West is coming. So are a lot of your favorite theologians and podcasters and six hundred of your soon-to-be-favorite people. We are going to think together about what it means to be a people of faith in catastrophic times — without deodorizing the catastrophe, and without giving despair the last word. Don't wait. → TheologyBeer.Camp JOIN THE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Sidney Powell about fake news surrounding a rumored administration role, the fight for justice inside the DOJ, James Comey, the Southern Poverty Law Center, lawfare, election integrity, and why she believes America still must confront the corruption exposed after 2020. Eric also shares updates on his new book Revolution, his visit with Dennis Prager, the Bonhoeffer event in Washington, DC, and the ongoing fight to free slaves through Christian Solidarity International. Subscribe for clips from The Eric Metaxas Show to hear politics and culture from a Christian perspective.⭐ PRE-ORDER TODAY:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World
Miroslav Volf is back, and this time he brought his friend — poet and theologian Christian Wiman — and their book Glimmerings, collection of letters exchanged over years of friendship that moves from the problem of religious language to the hiddenness of God to what it means to trust without being able to specify what you're trusting toward. It's one of the more unusual and quietly devastating books I've read in a while, and the conversation was every bit as good. In it we discuss... The origin of their friendship and the letter exchange that became Glimmerings Why big words like faith, grace, and redemption slip free from meaning — and why that's a theological problem, not just a poetic one Attention, divine agency, and the debate between active receptivity and God's ontological priority Christian writing letters from a hospital room during an experimental bone marrow transplant — and what he felt, and didn't feel, about God's presence The hiddenness of God versus Christ hidden in the faces of non-Christian friends The cross, the resurrection, and why one is visceral and the other remains mostly imagination The risk of faith, William James's mountain climber, and why Wallace Stevens kept pointing toward a further leap The "masters of suspicion" and why intellectual culture rewards doubt more than hope The hard sayings of Jesus — the passages that act like shards of glass, and what it means to park them rather than tame them Where two or three are gathered — and whether that was always a warning about what happens at five hundred You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and founder of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Born in Croatia and shaped by the former Yugoslavia, his theology has always been grounded in lived encounter with violence, nationalism, and the misuse of religious language. Previous podcasts with Miroslav Faith in the Public Square in the Era of Trump. When Neighbors Turn on Neighbors Christian Wiman is a poet, essayist, and editor widely regarded as one of the most important American religious writers of his generation. He is the author of My Bright Abyss — a memoir of faith written in the shadow of a rare blood cancer diagnosis — and multiple acclaimed poetry collections. He edited Poetry magazine for a decade and now teaches at the Yale Institute for Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School. Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp ONLINE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
Gary Dorrien is spending six weeks teaching the history of Christian social ethics in America — and this week Aaron and I turned the lens on Gary himself, which he immediately identified as the worst session of the class. What followed was an hour of Gary tracing his own formation from a kid on Union Road in Midland who couldn't stop staring at the crucifix, through graduate school, liberation theology, democratic socialism, and fifty years of theological labor held together by Rauschenbusch's conviction that capitalism has overdeveloped our selfish instincts and shrunk our capacity for public ends. The crucifix, a seven-year-old on railroad tracks, and why the moral influence theory was second nature before Gary knew it was a theory Going to mass every morning at Union Seminary while reading Barth, Tillich, and Niebuhr — and the Jesuit friends who told him he was obviously a Protestant Gustavo Gutiérrez reading Rauschenbusch for the first time and asking why Americans don't talk about this treasure James Loder, a thousand-page manuscript, and the line "maybe you can find the book in here" His love Brenda — and why Gary can say almost nothing else except that his is a story of being saved by love and grace Why Hegel still grips him fifty years later — and why most people only know the wrong Hegel The six interpretive traditions of Hegel and why the theological-metaphysical one is the one most seminaries quietly abandoned William Temple, Whitehead, and why Gary became an Anglican almost entirely on the strength of one book Capitalism is bad for us and a catastrophe for the planet — a blunt response to a pastor whose congregation looks like a list of what capitalism does wherever it lands Purity politics, DSA, AOC, and why ridicule works but isn't good for us The flickering Galilean vision — and why it keeps flickering not despite being wrong but because it's right Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron the Niebuhr You Thought You Knew What Would a New Abolition Be? Gary Dorrien on the Black Social Gospel, Ida B. Wells & Reverdy Ransom Social Ethics for This Moment What God Do They Worship In There? The Black Social Gospel and the Crisis of American Christianity Theological Ethics & Liberal Protestantism James Cone and the Emergence of Black Theology The Future of Faith & Justice Theology for Action The Sacred, The Political, and Why We're All Vulnerable Come keep thinking with us — Theology Beer Camp 2026 This is exactly what we will be sitting with at Theology Beer Camp this October 8–10 in Kansas City. Our theme this year is the God-podcalypse. Cornell West is coming. So are a lot of your favorite theologians and podcasters and six hundred of your soon-to-be-favorite people. We are going to think together about what it means to be a people of faith in catastrophic times — without deodorizing the catastrophe, and without giving despair the last word. Don't wait. → TheologyBeer.Camp JOIN THE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
Cornell West says America is obsessed with problems but denies catastrophe — and the moment you reduce the catastrophic to the problematic, you have already deodorized the discourse, sanitized it, and started looking at the wasteland from the air-conditioned office of upper management. That line has been working on me since I sat with his Gifford Lectures, and this reflection is what came of it. I want to make one claim and trace it through two unlikely conversation partners. The claim is that the resurrection is apocalyptic blues — catastrophe lyrically expressed, the tragic named without evasion, despair stubbornly refused the last word — and that a church which cannot stay in the room with what is true is not capable of the gospel, because the gospel is a blues song. The conversation partners are Cornell, who has been telling us this in technical philosophical language for forty years, and episode three of The Last of Us, "Long, Long Time," where Bill plays Linda Ronstadt on the piano and his voice cracks, and sixteen years of love inside the apocalypse becomes a kind of theology no committee meeting and no strategic plan and no air-conditioned think piece about the future of the church will ever produce. We have routinely skipped past Good Friday to get to Easter because we wanted resurrection to be a problem solved rather than a song sung from inside the wreckage. The blues will not let us. Neither, I suspect, will the moment we are actually living in. Come keep thinking with us — Theology Beer Camp 2026 This is exactly what we will be sitting with at Theology Beer Camp this October 8–10 in Kansas City. Our theme this year is the God-podcalypse. Cornell West is coming. So are a lot of your favorite theologians and podcasters and six hundred of your soon-to-be-favorite people. We are going to think together about what it means to be a people of faith in catastrophic times — without deodorizing the catastrophe, and without giving despair the last word. Early-bird pricing ends April 30. Don't wait. → TheologyBeer.Camp JOIN THE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
Gary Dorrien is the Niebuhr Chair at Union, and nobody alive can walk you through the whole arc of Reinhold Niebuhr with his range — from the German-American pastor's kid at Elmhurst and Eden, to the Yale divinity student who felt like a country boy among thoroughbreds, to the Detroit preacher at Bethel Church writing articles in 1916 begging German Americans to prove their Americanism months before Wilson took the country into war, to the young professor at Union who felt like an imposter for a decade and overcompensated by ridiculing everyone in sight, to the author of Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), the bomb that ended the social gospel's fifty-year run and rerouted the entire field of American social ethics overnight. This is the second live Q&A for the Theology for Troublemakers class, and Gary, Aaron Stauffer, and I work through student questions covering the whole trajectory: why Niebuhr still towers over the field; what H. Richard's devastating private letter did to his brother's theology; how he metabolized Augustine into Christian realism in the Gifford Lectures that became Nature and Destiny; why Children of Light and Children of Darkness (1944) is the road not taken; and how Niebuhr drifted into establishment Democratic Party machinery with no emotional drama at all — the one transition he made smoothly, and arguably the one that cost the most. Plus the neocons who stole him, William Cavanaugh calling Gary a heretic at AAR in Montreal, Ron Stone tearing up when he says "saint," and the legendary Claremont nickname Five-Beer Barthian. Gary and Aaron are both coming to Theology Beer Camp in Kansas City in October. The class lives at homebrewedclasses.com. JOIN THE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
There is a habit in Western theology so old it feels like air: imagining God as the supreme instance of coercive power — the divine despot whose omnipotence is measured by the capacity to override whatever resists. Whitehead called this the deep idolatry, and we would rather work like cross-builders than cross-bearers because of it. This essay argues that nonviolence is not a secondary ethical application of Christian faith, a political strategy, or a counsel of perfection for those with the luxury to afford it. Nonviolence is a metaphysical revelation — a disclosure of the actual structure of divine agency in the world, worked out across the long history of the cosmos and concentrated in the particular life of a first-century Jewish peasant. The power made perfect in weakness is not an exception to how the universe works. It is the deepest account of how the universe works. I am writing as someone who has done the cross-building too, and this is my attempt to name what is at stake when we make that choice, and what becomes possible when we stop. This audio essay is the kind of theology you will find at Process This — my Substack. You the join 75k+ subscribers and get them all delievered to your inbox. This lecture was sponsored by Humanitas, the Anabaptist Mennonite Centre at Trinity Western University. I was honored by the invitation, and the three days I spent with students and faculty were some of the best conversations I've had this year. My thanks to Dr. Myron Penner, who runs the Centre, and to Dr. Shannon Parrott and Dr. Jesse Nickel for their responses to the lecture — responses that sharpened the argument in real time. And to the Canadian podcast listeners who came out after the talk: you made the trip. ONLINE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins The injustices we face are immense — but they are not unique. Previous generations confronted the same powers with theological conviction and strategic brilliance. The question is whether we'll learn from them. This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
This is the first live Q&A for Theology for Troublemakers — the class Gary Dorrien, Aaron Stoffer, and I have been building for exactly this moment — and if the questions that came in after the first lecture are any indication, we've got a room full of people who came ready to learn. Gary is the Reinhold Niebuhr Chair at Union Seminary and has written more books and supervised more PhDs on the history of Christian social ethics in America than anyone alive. When Aaron said we could get Gary to join I was thrilled! This session covered the ground the first lecture opened up: what the social gospel actually was and why it took forty years to get its name (Walter Rauschenbusch held out until 1917, and even then conceded reluctantly), what social crises made the movement urgent, and why the Black social gospel is — as Gary puts it without hesitation — the better side of it. We went deep on the moral formation of Ida B. Wells and Reverdy Ransom: Wells going to four or five church services on a Sunday, working through her own rage at the Eliza Woods lynching before she could write about it, and eventually being burned out of Memphis for telling the truth about what lynching was actually about. Ransom, Harriet's son, clawing his way toward education in an Ohio that barely saw him, discovering socialist thought through George Herron's underlined pages, hiding his theological liberalism from bishops for years. We talked about the organizing question — why Frederick Douglass was wrong about race-specific organizations, why the Afro-American League and Council kept collapsing, why Booker T. Washington was the most famous living American in 1900 and used every bit of that power to undermine protest organizations, and what finally made the NAACP stick. And we ended with Ransom's late-life declaration that Africans and their descendants are the last spiritual reserves of humanity — part resignation, part prophecy, entirely worth sitting with. Next week: Reinhold Niebuhr. Gary's lecture is already on the resource page. If you haven't joined yet, come find us at www.HomebrewedClasses.com — it's donation-based, including zero. You'll get access to Gary's full lecture series tracing the history of Christian social ethics in America, Aaron's bonus interviews with leading scholars and activists, curated readings, discussion guides for small groups, and the online community. This is the class for right now. JOIN THE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
So many clergy members and theology nerds messaged me after JD Vance told the Pope to dial back the theology talk that I had no choice — I called my friend Kevin Carnahan, co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics and author of an extremely technical book on just war theory that he will tell you not to read. Kevin teaches at Central Methodist University in Missouri and he showed up having apparently thought about all of this in serious depth while the rest of us were just screaming into the void. What followed was one of the best episodes we've done. We traced the actual history of just war theory from Aquinas through John XXIII's Pacem in Terris— which moved the Catholic Church so close to pacifism in practice that nearly no war could satisfy its criteria — through the moment nuclear weapons broke the entire framework, through drone warfare and AI targeting that's broken it further, and right up to a Trump administration that dismantled the actual government office dedicated to minimizing civilian harm and then had the audacity to invoke just war theory as a fig leaf. Kevin's read on the papal conflict: the Pope knows exactly what he's doing and is faithfully representing a tradition that JD Vance passed through on Peter Thiel's E-Z Pass lane. We also got into the three streams of Protestant ethics on war — peace churches, just war thinkers, and crusaders — why Hegseth fits cleanly into the crusader category, why Trump fits none of them, why the Lord of the Rings is the best undergraduate ethics text available, and what Bonhoeffer's prayer for his own country's defeat sounds like in 2026. Tripp eventually brought up Tolkien. Bo noted it took an hour and eleven minutes. Bonhoeffer was invoked. John Cobb got in at the end. The trifecta complete. For those regular Homebrewed Christianity listeners, this is an episode of another weekly podcast Theology Nerd Throwdown that I do with Bo Sanders and our (nonviolent) army of theology nerds in the chat. If you enjoy it, subscribe to the TNT feed and feel the lure to join live most Friday mornings. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Kevin Carnahan is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri.
It's Ruining Dinner with Diana Butler Bass on Tax day! Also, apparently, the day the Vice President told the Pope to stop doing theology. Diana Butler Bass joined me for what was supposed to be a casual religion news roundup and turned into something I didn't entirely expect — a full-on church history seminar about what happens when empire tries to silence the gospel and why it never actually works. We started where everyone started this week: JD Vance, a newly minted Catholic who received what sounds like the Peter Thiel E-Z Pass lane through RCIA, publicly suggesting that the Pope — the Pope — should think more carefully before opining about theology. The same Pope who then responded to a Pentagon threat referencing the Avignon papacy by giving an even stronger anti-war speech. We talked about Trump's Easter posts, the Jesus meme, the "I thought I was a doctor" explanation, and the remarkable spectacle of evangelicals — evangelicals — saying the president might be demon-possessed. But Diana being Diana, she kept pulling the historical threads, and we ended up somewhere genuinely useful: the long story of how American Christianity split the sacred from the secular, why that split is breaking down, what it means for a congregation trying to figure out what to do with the 250th anniversary of a nation that's currently threatening popes and bombing people on Easter Sunday, and why Whitehead's image of the flickering Galilean vision might be the most honest thing you can say right now about where hope lives. We didn't ruin anything. The ruining is, as Diana noted, already adequately covered. Want to hangout with us in person?! Join 600+ Listeners, 30 theologians, & 30 God-Pods at Theology Beer Camp 2026 this October 8-10 in Kansas City! This conversation was originally for our Substack members, but we're sharing a portion with all of you – join us at The Process This or The Cottage to catch future episodes live! Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality. a Few Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp How the Lectionary Kept Me Christian Two Books, One Night: Finding Beauty in What We Can't Control Religious Liberty & Violence – Unpacking the First 100 Days of Trump 2.0 The Interlocking Crises of Religion & Democracy Faith in a Toxic Public Square The Resurrection of Jesus 2024: The Sequel The Christology Ladder The Indictment Edition of Ruining Dinner American Saints in a Cynical Age You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS - Theology for Troublemakers: Christian Social Ethics from the Margins The injustices we face are immense — but they are not unique. Previous generations confronted the same powers with theological conviction and strategic brilliance. The question is whether we'll learn from them. This 6-week online course, led by Dr. Gary Dorrien and Dr. Aaron Stauffer, recovers the radical tradition of Christian social ethics — from Reverdy Ransom and Reinhold Niebuhr to James Cone and the Welfare Rights Movement — and asks what faithfulness demands of us right now. Weekly lectures, live Q&A conversations, guest lecturers, and an online community included.
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