I sat down with the Rev’d Canon Dr Kara N Slade to talk Advent. We discuss judgment, hope, time and the church calendar, progress, music, navigating symbols of light and dark, preaching as invitation, Christmas coming with a bang, liturgy, and important Advent theologians such as Fleming Rutledge and Karl Barth. Welcome to the Second Annual Love Rinse Repeat Advent Special Spectacular!! Kara N. Slade is an Adjunct Professor of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She serves as associate r...
Dec 18, 2019•48 min•Ep. 42
I sat down with Amy Brown Hughes and Lynn H. Cohick to talk about their book Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries (Baker, 2017). We discuss responsible remembering, the emphasis on martyrdom, asceticism, virginity, and the renunciation (or at least creative use) of money during the era, the ways women were impacting the development of the dynamic theology of the early church, how Thecla “becomes what any specific gen...
Dec 12, 2019•50 min•Ep. 41
“The Stations speak to us in the political, social, and economic conflicts and dilemmas that descend on us all. And to a culture, to individuals, and, sadly, even to a church that scrupulously turn away from the reality of death, the Stations speak an important word about that final frontier.” I sat down with Mary Adams Parker and Katherine Sonderegger to talk about their book, Praying the Stations of the Cross: Finding Hope in a Weary Land (Eerdmans, 2019). We talk about their own approaches to...
Dec 04, 2019•48 min•Ep. 40
With the Melbourne Cup on our doorstep I sat down with David L. Clough to talk about ethics, theology and the relationships between human and non-human animals. We talk about the problems with a human-centred view of creation (where animals exist for our purpose), the surprising concern for animals demonstrated throughout the Christian tradition, the vocation of all creatures to live particular lives before God. I also ask what the anthropomorphism of Peppa Pig illuminates about our creaturely s...
Oct 31, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 39
I sat down with Professor Anthony G. Reddie to talk about his book Theologising Brexit: a Liberationist and Postcolonial Critique (Routledge 2019). We discuss what lay beneath the Brexit vote – unexamined colonial attitudes of exceptionalism, the legacy of Imperial Christian ecclesiology and missiology, the scourge of White supremacy, entitlement and privilege. I ask him about writing theology that is “polemical and subjective”, what drew him to Black Liberation Theology, the array of tools he e...
Oct 23, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 38
“The divine wind rustles, hovers, and swoops ‘over the face of the waters’, touches the created orders and catches the world up in the divine witness” I sat down with Amos Yong to discuss his new book , Mission after Pentecost: The Witness of the Spirit from Genesis to Revelation. We talk about what underpins his prolific and widespread writings, what is gained from approaching theology with pneumatology in the foreground, his approach to mission as an opening up to others, his commentary on the...
Oct 18, 2019•47 min•Ep. 37
Hip Hop theology allows us to live in ambiguity while still seeking the face of God. I sat down with Daniel White Hodge to talk about his book Homeland Insecurity: A Hip Hop Missiology for the Post-Civil Rights Context (IVP 2018) . We talk about his concept of the wild, learning theology and missiology from Hip Hop, the gospel messages of Tupac Amaru Shakur and Kendrick Lamar, the deep problems of short-term mission and white led urban ministry, missiology as civil disruption, why most conversat...
Oct 11, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 36
"A prolonged and careful study of Romans means finding that salvation is more complex, more cosmic, more challenging than we have usually imagined." I sat down with the esteemed New Testament scholar Beverly Roberts Gaventa to talk about her book "When in Romans: an invitation to linger with the Gospel according to Paul". We talk about why she was drawn (and remains drawn to Paul), her big picture approach to Romans centring on the themes of salvation, Israel, ethics, and community, Terrence Mal...
Sep 12, 2019•43 min•Ep. 35
I sat down with David Congdon and John Flett to talk about their new edited volume, Converting Witness: the Future of Christian Mission in the New Millennium . We talk about why David and John keep writing about mission, the present state of the field of missiology, how the Bible is/should be read for mission, the issues with the “Theological Interpretation of Scripture” movement, the problematic way the term “Christendom” is employed, and John offers the hottest of takes on a certain trinitaria...
Aug 27, 2019•53 min•Ep. 34
I sat down (in person!) with Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Graham Joseph Hill to talk about their new book, Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalising the Church and Renewing the World . We talk about the process of co-authoring, why they focused on practices, justice, lament, race, beauty, hospitality, and how writing the book has shaped their experience with The Sermon on the Mount. Grace Ji-Sun Kim received her M.Div. from Knox College (University of Toronto) and her Ph.D. from the Univer...
Aug 12, 2019•59 min•Ep. 33
I sat down with Meredith Lake to talk about the Bible in Australia. We bust myths about the history of the Bible in this country, talk about where one goes looking to find the cultural history of a book so contested, the way the Bible shows up in almost every major national conversation and debate (often on both sides), the role of the Bible in colonisation, its use by immigrants, and the way Indigenous Christians – from early on through today – have reappropriated the Bible, turning it back on ...
Aug 04, 2019•31 min•Ep. 32
"These words remind us that God loves the world by doing something concrete for it..." I sat down with Geoff Thompson to talk about his new book "In His Own Strange Way: a Post-Christendom, Sort-of Commentary on the Basis of Union." We talk about Jesus, the way the BoU wraps the story of the church in the much bigger story of Christ and cosmos, the importance of going 'back to basics' when asking questions of the Bible, and the purpose of Ordained ministers as ensuring "the church keeps its witn...
Jul 22, 2019•42 min•Ep. 31
“Humans are not fixed or static, and neither is God’s storyline with human beings” I sat down with Linn Marie Tonstad. Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, author of God and Difference, and the Cascade Companion Queer Theology. We talk about how Queer Theology isn’t about apologetics, Linn’s own apologetic for not doing apologetics, a church without judgment, why rights based approaches to justice – which seek to graft LGBTIQ people onto existing structures – fall ...
May 23, 2019•51 min•Ep. 30
I sat down with Karen Gonzalez to talk about The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong. We talk about the process of writing the book and what its like to include so much of one’s own story, We discuss how basing her story on the sacraments deepened her thinking on the practices, the complicated stories of migrants in the Bible, speaking to churches about immigration, taking action, and which Biblical story of migration needs its own Hamilton inspired rap musical! Karen ...
Apr 26, 2019•57 min•Ep. 29
“How do we build a better world? One key way is by learning to raise our children with justice, mercy, and kindness.” I sat down with Cindy Wang Brandt to talk about her progressive Christian approach to parenting. We discuss what its like to write about parenting while parenting, talking with kids about the tough issues (like racism, climate change, gender inequality), extending autonomy to children and asking what it means to really listen to them. We also touch on her own faith journey, and h...
Apr 09, 2019•56 min•Ep. 28
“I did not have a plan for how I would accomplish falling in love with scripture. I simply decided that I had to and went from there.” I sat down with Rev Emmy Kegler to talk about her new book One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins. We discuss her personal journey with Scripture and how it led to this book, what its like to write a book on God and the Bible while showing up each week to minister, the vitality and significance of Jacob wrestling and being wounded by a mysterious...
Mar 31, 2019•52 min•Ep. 27
“From page to page, chapter to chapter, book to book, we encounter the human and divine in the same verse, the same ink, as one bleeds into the other.” I sat down with Melissa Florer-Bixler to talk her new book Fire By Night: finding God in the pages of the Old Testament. This is an exceptional, exciting, and accessible work, drawing us into the nuance, beauty, and challenge of the OT in order to draw us deeper into the life of God. We talk about reading slowly, how difficult texts often reveal ...
Mar 12, 2019•49 min•Ep. 25
“The God made known in the stories of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is a God who was sojourning with our people, here in this country, long before the calling of Abraham, or Moses, or St Paul. Our dreaming can be ‘read’ as a legitimate witness to that sojourning and should therefore be engaged as an equally rich source of revelation and guidance regarding the living of a human life that is good, beautiful and true” I sat down with Gary Worete Deverell to talk about his book, Gondwana Theol...
Feb 11, 2019•49 min•Ep. 24
