Many Protestants don't understand or appreciate how transformational Vatican II was for the Catholic Church and the whole global Christian Church in general. Our friend and Catholic theologian Shaun Blanchard co-wrote a book called Vatican II: A Very Short Introduction. In this episode, we chat with Shaun about the size, scope, and impact of Vatican II in the 1960s, and we wonder about when the next changes at the next Vatican Council might be. In this episode, we tasted a barrel select of...

If you're an American evangelical or used to be, there's a good chance you've heard of the Enneagram. You may have even run into it in another context or heard about it from friends who are really into personality tests. We've discussed it briefly on the show before, and we've wanted to eventually give it its own episode because Randy has found it really beneficial and Kyle is a bit of a skeptic. Lo and behold, one of our Patreon supporters, Jeff Cook, is, like, the Enneagram guru, in...

Tom Oord is back! Dr. Thomas Oord and his daughter Alexa compiled and edited a book called Why the Church of the Nazarene Should be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming."  We wanted to talk to them about the book because everyone in the church (not just the Church of the Nazarene) is talking about human sexuality and whether or not the church should be LGBTQ+ affirming. LGBTQ+ inclusion and affirmation is something that's really important to us, and we love making space to have these much-needed...

We speak with theologian and philosopher (and former pastor) Thomas Jay Oord about his new book The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence. We cover Tom's objections to the classical idea that God is all powerful, including that it's unbiblical, philosophically unsound, and makes the problem of evil impossible to solve. It's a fun interview and Tom is a good sport about putting up with Kyle's objections and quibbles. We get into the weeds a bit on this one, but given the...

If you heard our recent episode on hell and universalism, you may recall that Randy mentioned having Keith DeRose, a philosopher at Yale, on the show at some point to respond to some of the objections Kyle had to universalism (the idea that everyone is eventually reconciled to God). Well, we reached out to Keith and he graciously agreed to chat with us. Our conversation covers more ground than just universalism though; we also discuss certainty, the problem of evil and theodicy, and why Keith...

Content note: This episode contains themes of sexual abuse and rape. Sheila Gregoire is an author who has written several books that break the mold of Christian books about sex and marriage. Her latest book, She Deserves Better, is about raising girls as followers of Christ in ways that leave purity culture and teaching about modesty in the dust while showing us a better way. We also talked to Sheila about her 2021 book The Great Sex Rescue, in which she points out the inherent misogyny in a...

Every now and then we like to talk to someone who is an expert in something we know almost nothing about. What better topic than philosophy and neuroscience? Andy Clark is Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and is a well-known voice within philosophy of mind, pushing the boundaries of how we conceive of the brain, its connections with our environment, and in his new book, how it actively constructs our experience through prediction. The book is The Experience...

Do you keep a healthy distance between yourself and the book of Revelation? Have a loved one who believes super weird things about Revelation? If so, you're in good company. Scot McKnight wrote a brilliant book called Revelation for the Rest of Us that turns all of those weird ways of interpreting Revelation on their heads and shows us what Revelation truly is.  It turns out that the book of Revelation is a brilliantly subversive book about resisting the evil ways of whatever empire the...

In this special Easter episode, Kyle and Randy discuss all their questions about resurrection. They cover its significance to them, its coherence, whether it makes any sense to hope for it, apologetic approaches to it, how much it matters, and why Randy finds conversations about it kind of frustrating. Happy Easter! Extra resources (including those mentioned in the episode): N.T. Wright: Surprised by Hope and The Resurrection of the Son of GodSufjan Stevens: Carrie and LowellWe explore...

Who will be saved in the end? Does the Bible support eternal conscious torment, annihilationism, or ultimate reconciliation (or all three)? Can a good God condemn a majority of human beings who've ever lived to eternal hell? In this episode we tackle these questions and more, and we find out that Randy and Kyle don't quite agree on this one. In this episode, we tasted both Kinnickinnic Whiskey by Great Lakes Distillery and Heaven's Door Distillery's Straight Bourbon Whiskey. To skip the...

Are science and religion compatible? Should there be any crossover whatsoever? Why is it dangerous when we try to make our science fit into our religion? These are questions that Randy and Kyle chat about in our latest episode. Kyle strongly thinks that science and religion are in completely different categories and should almost never mix. Randy likes the "almost" in that statement. The guys really, honestly tried to have a debate in this episode...we'll see if they were successful. The...

Bonnie Kristian is a journalist who writes for Christianity Today and has been published in The New York Times, The Week, CNN, The Daily Beast, and many more. Bonnie wrote the book Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community. The title says it all. How can we have good faith conversations and dialogue when we're dealing with "alternative facts" and call every report we don't agree with "fake news"? These are important...

Brad Jersak is an Eastern Orthodox theologian, author, and great friend of this podcast. Brad recently published a book called Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction. In this interview, we chat about what Brad calls the Great Deconstruction, the history and tradition of deconstruction within and outside of our faith tradition, why Brad is a devotee of Simone Weil, and how to move forward in your faith after deconstruction (if you can). In this episode, we tasted Hooten...

Humility is one of those fleeting virtues in our world, and it feels like we need a healthy dose. Being comfortable with what we know and what we don't know, what we're good at and what we're not, and not trying to live in hubris and pretense. It's not easy, but it is really important. In this episode, Randy and Kyle talk about humility, pride, certainty, apophatic theology, and more. In the most humble of ways, of course. The beer we tasted in this episode is Flesh to Stone barleywine from...

Randy S. Woodley is a Native American theologian, community builder, and seed farmer, and sees little difference between those vocations. We speak with him about the relationship between Christianity, Judaism, and Native American religion, the contrasts and similarities between indigenous and Western worldviews, why he thinks the Bible shouldn't have been translated into indigenous languages, and what a sweat lodge is like. He's a prolific author with a podcast of his own, as well as a down...

For New Year's, we're re-airing an episode from Season 1 in which we discuss the question "What is truth?" We think it's as timely now as it was when we first released it and probably deserves a bit more attention than it got then. We hope you enjoy re-listening or perhaps catching it for the first time. We'll be back on our regular schedule with new content on January 13. ===== Truth is a tricky term these days, with everyone believing their own "facts" or having their own "truths" or...

Merry Christmas! In this episode, we talk with Kelley Nikondeha about her book The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope. Kelley helps us reimagine the meaning of Advent by taking us into the complex political, religious, and ethnic landscape that forms the backdrop of the Christmas story, and encourages us to trade our often whitewashed, Americanized, empire-friendly understanding of the story for something grittier, more authentic, and more...

Dave Lutz is a therapist in Seattle who works with families, couples, men, youth, and more. He's also a former college pastor at a mega-church whose faith journey has evolved and simplified into a spacious and beautiful place. And he's Randy's former college pastor who is in many ways to blame for who Randy is and what he's doing on this podcast. Dave recently wrote a book called Freedom for the Ragged Saint, and we took that as an opportunity to share this beautiful person with our PPWB...

We were raised in the church, and now it's our turn to parent our kids and figure out how to pass on a healthy spiritual journey to them. We don't really know how to do it, but we know we don't want to do it in ways that we were raised on in the church. Does that sound familiar? Bekah McNeel wrote Bringing Up Kids When the Church Lets You Down from exactly that perspective. In this episode, we chat with Bekah about her experiences growing up in the church, working in the church, being let...

Our second political episode ever! Does it have anything to do with the elections occurring next week? You bet! Did we invite this guest on the show to trash nationalism some more? Sure did! BUT: Paul Miller is not our typical guest. For one thing, he's a self-described conservative patriot. He's a professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He worked for George W. Bush. And he's a Christian (a Baptist to be specific). From that perspective, he mounts an...

Austen Hartke is a transgender Christian man who wrote the book Transforming: the Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. The book is a gift to the trans Christian community, as well as to parents, church leaders, and the church in general. While the church and politicians debate and degrade transgender people's existence, they are trying to live lives without loneliness, isolation, and self-hatred. Austen's book does an incredible job of sharing the stories of real life trans and...

Sometimes it's appropriate to carefully weigh all sides of an issue, patiently sorting through reasons, listening to perspectives, and respectfully dialoging with people who believe differently. We spend most of our time on this podcast trying to commend and practice that sort of thing. On the other hand, sometimes ideas are just bad, and it's appropriate to say when something is dumb or harmful and move on. As Qohelet of Ecclesiastes might say, there's a time for argument, and a time for...

This one is for the whiskey geeks. In this special bonus episode, we join our friends TJ, Chuck, and Brian at the Power of Bourbon YouTube channel for a blind-tasting of six exquisite bourbons. Along the way, we also find time to chat a bit about our podcast and introduce ourselves to their subscribers. And now we're sharing the experience with you, so you can get to know them! What you hear here is a slightly condensed version of the livestream we did on their channel. You can find the full...

We speak with philosopher James (Jamie) K.A. Smith about his new book How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now. It's a contemplative exploration of what it means to be a temporal creature, a being constituted by a past and oriented toward a future. If that sounds heady, it's honestly one of the most spiritual and restful books we've featured on the show, and it's also philosophically informed and beautifully written. Jamie also loves music, and...

Stanley Hauerwas. Do we need to say more? The man is the preeminent living American theologian and has formed and shaped Christian thought and practice for decades. Stanley is a gift to the Church, and we loved chatting with him. We talked about sola scriptura, Kierkegaard, pacifism, how to be a Christian in America today, and much more. The audio for this episode is not to our regular standard. We apologize for that, and hope you can hang in there. It's worth it when we're talking to a...