Christ the center, Christ for me, Christ for us, Christ as church, Christ the humiliated and exalted one, Christ the Lord who is nothing like der Führer who reigned over Berlin at the time a young Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave these university lectures. In this episode we sift through Bonhoeffer's appropriation of Luther's christology, lightly inflected by Karl Barth, as well as his own corrections and innovations, in the service of a community centered on Christ... and no one else. Notes: 1. You may...
Sep 26, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 19
Sarah discusses why God heals infections and cancers, but doesn't regrow amputated limbs, on this episode of Enter the Bible with Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston! Check out related episodes Illness and Healing and Miracles (with Some Help from C. S. Lewis) .
Sep 19, 2023•33 min
Elect exiles, spirits in prison, slaves, wives, the devil qua prowling lion, but above all lots and lots of the risen Lord Jesus... the First Epistle of Peter has it all! Dad and I get so carried away with this brief letter than we sort of rush to finish at the end, and even so have an outsized episode. But don't worry, we get into that bit about Christ preaching to the dead. Plus, Dad mispronounces French again, and Sarah goes off on Bible-believin' Christians who deny that baptism saves, when ...
Sep 12, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Season 5Ep. 18
Dad discusses just what the phrase "faith of Christ" in St. Paul's letters means on this episode of Enter the Bible with Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston!
Sep 05, 2023•28 min
Or, the one in which Sarah at long last reads the first work of Protestant dogmatics, and has an existential/vocational crisis as a result. Dad talks her off the ledge. Notes: 1. Melanchthon, Loci Communes (1521 edition) and Loci Communes (1559 edition) (there are lots of other editions in-between) 2. Quere, Melanchthon's Christum Cognoscere 3. Sarah's To Baptize or Not to Baptize and Small Catechism: Memorizing Edition 4. Related episodes: Bondage of the Will, Before Auschwitz What do you think...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 17
Dad discusses how the 12 tribes of Israel entered the promised land on this episode of Enter the Bible with Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston!
Aug 23, 2023•27 min
The famous, no, infamous, no, notorious treatise by the reformer at his most white-hot passionate. Mild-mannered Erasmus didn't stand a chance. And neither do you. Which turns out to be good news! In this episode Dad and I sort out what The Bondage of the Will is actually about, what it isn't about, how it is true freedom even for religiously-minded people (maybe especially for them...?), and the delights of a theology you can't possibly programitize. Notes: 1. Luther, Bondage of the Will, in LW...
Aug 15, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 16
Late in life, after penning thousands of pages, Augustine received a request from an admiring but understandably intimidated friend for something a little shorter. This "handbook" is the result—a veritable greatest-hits compilation for this most influential of Western fathers. Everything from evil as privation to predestination, when and whether to lie and how to grow in love, justifying faith and almsgiving to oneself (!). Notes: 1. We read this edition of Augustine's Enchiridion 2. See also ou...
Aug 01, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 5Ep. 15
Sarah talks with Kelsi Klembara of the Outside Ourselves podcast about A-Tumblin' Down , and a few other things besides! Plus, here's the link to my new podcast: Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Stories . Or just search for it in whatever app you're using right now!
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 2 min
What happened after I posted the protest to the suppression of our episode.
Jul 19, 2023•2 min
Why our last regular episode didn't show up in your podcast app. Please, please listen to this message. Update: Literally within five minutes of my uploading this short protest, both Apple and Spotify let the episode on "The Inhumanity of Lockdown" through. Take the lesson and protest censorship! They back down. At least for now.
Jul 18, 2023•3 min
We break our habitual reserve on what's been inflicted on the body politic over the past three years with this extended discussion of lockdown—and its essential inhumanity cloaked in the garb of science and righteousness. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben with his concept of biopolitics is our guide. We realize that this has been an incredibly painful set of issues for many of you to even attempt to discuss, so we try to model a way of talking about without rancor even while calling it like we...
Jul 18, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Season 5Ep. 14
Not your usual Queen of the Sciences crossover! Sarah talks with Kemper Donovan of the All About Agatha (Christie) podcast to parse the great detective novelist's short story "Star over Bethlehem," and more generally Agatha's little known but deeply felt Christian faith.
Jul 11, 2023•1 hr 29 min
To everything there is a season... even a season for gaining an appreciation of the odd little book of Ecclesiastes. Maybe middle age is precisely that season. Overcoming our own initial biases against Ecclesiastes, which is the ultimate inkblot test within the canon of Scripture, we place the Preacher in historical context as a template for taking the ancient wisdom of Israel's faith into radically different contexts. More relevant and less existentialist-nihilist than you thought! Notes: 1. Of...
Jul 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 5Ep. 13
A couple years ago we did an episode entitled " Poor Anselm " because we felt sorry for the vilification of this major medieval theologian's work on the atonement in Cur Deus Homo, which we thought deserved better. So we thought, why not give his first treatise, Monologion, a try? Um. Well... In this episode, we go from defending Anselm to rebuking him for his account of the Trinity by reason alone, which just plain doesn't work and has caused trouble in western Christianity ever since. And yet,...
Jun 20, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Among the many remarkable Gregories of the early church, the one from Nazianzus stands out to such an extent that he has earned the simple epithet: "The Theologian." In this episode, we explore why! In particular, Gregory's five famous theological orations (plus two letters to neighborhood priest Cledonius) present one of the best and most formative accounts of the doctrine of Trinity, emphasizing the priority of Person over Nature and the distinction among the Persons residing in their relation...
Jun 06, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Sarah talks with Jason Micheli of the very excellent Crackers and Grape Juice podcast... and a little foreshadowing at the end that Dad might just get an episode of his own, too!
May 30, 2023•54 min
Mariology is both Christology and Israelology—or should be, anyway. In this episode Dad and I work through the biblical witness about Mary, patristic affirmations of her as the God-bearer, what the doctrine of the virgin birth does and, perhaps more importantly, doesn't mean, and conclude with some suggestions for expanding and developing Mary's theological significance as not only birth mother of God but also adoptive mother of the church of both Jews and Gentiles. Notes: 1. Quotes from Cyril o...
May 23, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 5Ep. 10
Sarah's talk at the 2023 Mockingbird conference in New York, brought to you via the Talkingbird podcast. Check out the Mockingcast too!
May 16, 2023•35 min•Ep. 29
It's easy, too easy, to blame the past for not knowing what we know now. Much more useful is to examine how the past arrived at its conclusions, and see if we can discern what led in fruitful directions and what led to disaster. In this episode, Dad and I review the contents of his book, also called Before Auschwitz, examining what led Christian theologians to support, denounce, or try to avoid taking a stand on the rise of Nazism. It's a master class in theological method when the stakes were n...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Never pass by a nice round anniversary! On this 100th full and regular episode of the podcast, Dad and I reminisce about the origins of Queen of the Sciences, reveal the secrets of how we prep and record, share statistics and fan reviews, tell which are our favorite episodes (and yours!), and look onward to many more episodes to come. Notes: 1. Ten most downloaded QotS episodes, from #10 down to #1: Bonus episode on Law and Gospel Part 1, Hannah Arendt, Luke Part 1, Critical Social Theory, Bonho...
Apr 25, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Dad talks to Chad Kim of the History of Christian Theology podcast about his book, Divine Complexity .
Apr 18, 2023•52 min
Continuing our quest for the quest for the historical Jesus, in this episode we take a look at the Jesus Seminar, and in particular representative scholar Marcus Borg. Dad as usual is the very picture of responsible scholarship. I manage to be not quite as snarky as in the last episode, but given the choice between Borg's milquetoast mystic and Schweitzer's apocalyptic nut, I'm with the latter. Fortunately, it is not a choice we need to make, which should be your takeaway from these two episodes...
Apr 11, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Modern techniques and approaches to the discipline of history were inevitably turned on Jesus. But you may be surprised to learn that, at the origin, the desire was not to deconstruct but to shore up belief in Jesus, if not all the subsequent doctrinal accretions around him. In this episode, Dad walks us through the early history of the quest for the historical Jesus, its findings, what it gave and what it took away, and what any of it has to do with classic christology. Meanwhile, I essentially...
Mar 28, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 6
John Drury of the Fresh Text podcast and I (i.e. Sarah) discuss John 11 at great and enthusiastic length! If you enjoyed this episode, by all means subscribe to Fresh Text ! John discusses a lectionary passage each week with a great array of scholars and preachers. Highly recommended!
Mar 24, 2023•1 hr 11 min
Martin Luther King is revered. But is he revered for the right reasons? In this episode we counter the domestication of King as only an advocate of civil rights, and instead encounter him as the prophet and preacher who called America to be born again in costly love toward the racially other. We also survey his range of theological convictions and insights, connecting him with his famous namesake, in pursuit of a Beloved Community for our time. Notes: 1. The Essential Martin Luther King Jr. 2. K...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Martin Luther King is the famous preacher of the civil rights movement (and indeed, we'll be getting to him in the next episode). But behind King, and crucial to him, is pastor and theologian Howard Thurman. In this episode, Dad and I immerse ourselves in Thurman's great work of spiritual theology, Jesus and the Disinherited, its portrait of Christ, and the challenge to all believers to take up the cross of radical love. Notes: 1. Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited 2. Related episodes: Jefferso...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 5Ep. 4
On the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dad and I turn to the insightful critical comments of Orthodox theologians around the world, and share our own takes on the situation. Notes: 1. A Declaration on the "Russian World" (Ruskii Mir) Teaching 2. Hovorun, Is the "Russian World" Condemnable? 3. Bintsarovskyi, On Some Misconceptions about Russia's War against Ukraine...
Feb 24, 2023•33 min
After the broad overview last time, in this episode we dive into some Matthew-specific detail, from the genealogy to parables to the zombie apocalypse, I mean resurrection of the saints of Jerusalem. What do you think five years of top-quality theology podcasting is worth? Register your vote by joining our highly select band of Patrons . Get some cool swag and support your favorite podcast in remaining stridently independent and advertising-free!...
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Save the best for last? In this episode, Dad and I finally get around to the First Gospel, as it is sometimes called. We talk over our previous prejudices against Matthew and how on this read we came to a new and fresh appreciate of just what this evangelist is up to. Notes: 1. Related episodes: Mark 1 , Mark 2 , Luke 1 , Luke 2 , John 1 , John 2 , Sermon on the Mount , Sarah's Sermon on the Mount , Sarah's talk on the Sermon on the Mount for CCET 2. Check out my book Sermon on the Mount: A Poet...
Jan 31, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 2
