The Biggest Table

Host Andrew Camp welcomes Lauren Peiser to The Biggest Table to discuss food, hospitality, and experiencing God’s love, focusing on disrupting coloniality in food and wine. Lauren shares a childhood shaped by control and “food as fuel,” then describes how studying in Italy transformed food into a sensual, communal, relational practice tied to neighbor, land, self, and God. They critique purity cul...

Host Andrew Camp interviews Ian Simkins, lead pastor of The Bridge Church near Nashville and author of “Every Table an Altar,” about how food and tables form people and reveal God’s heart. Simkins describes being raised as the oldest of seven in a home marked by biblical hospitality, then explores how first-century table fellowship signaled power and exclusion, making Jesus’ frequent, often subver...

Andrew Camp (The Biggest Table) and Mark Grapengater (Feast Days) introduce a collaboration episode about food, hospitality, and the table as a place to experience God’s love. They share how both attended seminary and worked in fine dining, then recount their personal journeys: Mark’s interest in cooking grew in seminary and was shaped by a formative Chicago fine-dining experience, while Andrew’s...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes Andy Littleton to “The Biggest Table” to discuss friendship, grief, and hospitality as places to experience God’s love. Littleton shares losing his best friend Sam 20 years ago in a car accident and how it shaped his longing and questions about friendship. Encouraged to write about it during the relational strain of 2020–2021, he organized a 2025 road trip in Sam’s 1971 V...

Host Andrew Camp interviews historian and author Kristin Du Mez about her background in the Christian Reformed Church, her scholarly approach to evangelicalism as a cultural historian, and a pivotal moment watching Donald Trump’s 2016 speech at Dordt University that prompted her to reassess white evangelical values. Du Mez argues support for Trump is not a “betrayal” but reflects deeper values emb...

Host Andrew Camp interviews University of Michigan lecturer and food studies scholar Margot Finn about her book "Discriminating Taste: How Class Anxiety Created the American Food Revolution." Finn describes shifting from a post-9/11 media project to food studies, tracing how contemporary “common sense” food ideals—sophistication, thinness, purity, and cosmopolitanism—are learned, historically recu...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes back psychologist and author Richard Beck to discuss Beck’s recent book on reading the Bible through a hermeneutic of love amid conservative and progressive polarization. Beck describes his journey from a Churches of Christ fundamentalist background through deconstruction and reconstruction, arguing both left and right need better strategies that resist confirmation bias....

Host Andrew Camp interviews Nephi Craig, executive chef of Café Gozhoo on the White Mountain Apache Tribe, relapse prevention specialist, and founder of the Native American Culinary Association, on the release of his memoir Our Knives Will Save Us . Craig describes writing the book as a tool about the “ingredients of a chef,” linking his 15 years of sobriety, relapse history, and healing to cookin...

Host Andrew Camp interviews Hugh Hollowell, pastor of Open Door Mennonite Church in Jackson, Mississippi and author of the memoir-essay collection Food Is Love, about how food and tables reveal God’s love, shape memory, and build connection. Hollowell calls the Last Supper his most compelling Christian story, arguing meals are intimate, mnemonic, and inherently communal, and that communion is scan...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes theologian Andy Root back to The Biggest Table to discuss Root’s recent books, especially Baal and the Gods of More , and what Christian “growth” should mean. Root argues Christianity is about “growing into someone” through relational participation in God’s life, not merely “growing something” like budgets, attendance, or resources, which can become a late-capitalist logi...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes historian Mark Johnson, author of “ American Bacon ,” who explains how his work on Alabama barbecue led him to study bacon’s shifting meanings. Johnson describes food as a narrative device for telling difficult histories and highlights a recurring theme of performance, including his claim that modern bacon enthusiasm can resemble minstrel-like impersonation, exemplified b...

Host Andrew Camp interviews writer and theologian Erik Freiburger about disability, belonging, and hospitality. Erik, a wheelchair user since a 1994 spinal cord injury, describes how his understanding of the word “disabled” matured, and explores whether disability is blessing or curse, concluding it is both/and, shaped by social exclusion, ableism, and human limits. They discuss prejudice and “whi...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes Matt Erickson, senior pastor of Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee and author of The Pastor as Gardener , to discuss gardening as a metaphor for pastoral ministry and discipleship. Erickson shares his family roots in gardening, favorite crops, and how crises—including the pandemic, racial justice tensions, and a friend’s moral failure—led him to agrarian biblical imagery such...

Host Andrew Camp interviews religious ethicist and Northeastern professor Liz Bucar about her book, " Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us. " Bucar shares her path into religious studies and explains how “spiritual salad bar” approaches—popular among Gen Z and driven by personalization and algorithms—can miss religious context, community, and ethica...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes writer and fellow podcaster Jeremy Jernigan to The Biggest Table to discuss faith, hospitality, and wine while comparing two pinot noirs: California’s Meiomi (engineered for consistent, fruit-forward sweetness) and Oregon’s Lemelson single-vineyard pinot (limited production, terroir-driven complexity). Their tasting becomes an analogy for faith, contrasting mass-produced...

Host Andrew Camp interviews Anglican priest and writer Hannah Miller King about her book Feasting on Hope and how the Eucharist reframed her grief after her father died of cancer. King describes needing a bigger theological framework than “pray and hope,” finding healing and belonging through weekly communion, and seeing the Lord’s Table as both comfort and a foretaste that stokes longing for God’...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes theologian and ethicist Michael Morelli to discuss artificial intelligence in relation to humanity, modernity, and the Christian table. Morelli defines today’s “AI” as machine learning and generative systems that process vast data, perform tasks, and simulate personality, while noting debate about true sentience. They address AI’s ubiquity, marketing that frames it as neu...

Host Andrew Camp welcomes Amar Peterman, a constructive/public theologian, to discuss Peterman’s forthcoming book, "Becoming Neighbors: the Common Good Made Local" (Eerdmans), releasing March 12. Amar argues the common good must be built locally by actually knowing and loving the people across the street, rather than assuming a universal or national common good. Using the potluck table as the book...

In this episode of The Biggest Table, host Andrew Camp delves into the intersections of food, theology, and the psychological theory of disgust with Paul and Billie Hoard, who co-authored the book Eucontamination . Paul, a licensed counselor and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and Billie, a trans woman and writer, discuss how concepts of disgust operate at both individual and sociological levels,...

In this episode of The Biggest Table, host Andrew Camp talks with Dr. John Anthony Dunne, an associate professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary. Dr. Dunne shares his journey from a fundamentalist Baptist background in Las Vegas, Nevada, to becoming an aficionado of fine beverages and an expert on the biblical theology of alcohol. The conversation covers the best craft beers shared at academic...

In this episode of The Biggest Table, host Andrew Camp engages in a rich conversation with Michael Twitty, a renowned culinary historian, food writer, and author of acclaimed works such as ' The Cooking Gene ' and ' Kosher Soul .' Twitty provides insightful commentary on his journey and his role in culinary history, emphasizing the significance of food as a medium for experiencing and expressing c...

In this episode of The Biggest Table podcast,  the discussion centers around food, eating, and hospitality as a means to experience God's love. Andrew is joined by guests Kellie Lisi and Martin Lohrmann, who co-authored the book, Food Theology: Nourishing Faith in Local Communities . Andrew, Kellie, and Martin explore the central thesis of the book—that God’s love is made physical through food—and...

In this episode of 'The Biggest Table,' host Andrew Camp welcomes Anna Rollins, author of ' Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Gir l.' They discuss her memoir, which examines the harmful parallels between diet culture and evangelical purity culture, both of which pressurize women to fear their bodies and appetites. Anna shares her personal struggles with disordered eating, rooted in...

In this episode of The Biggest Table, host Andrew Camp converses with Victoria Loorz, a wild church pastor, eco spiritual director, and author, about her unique perspective on spirituality and nature. Victoria discusses her journey from being a pastor of indoor churches to founding the first Church of the Wild in Ojai, California, and her involvement with the Ecumenical Wild Church Network. The co...

In this episode of 'The Biggest Table,' host Andrew Camp converses with Laura Baghdassarian Murray, Director of Spiritual Engagement and Innovation at Fuller Seminary and author of 'Becoming a Person of Welcome.' Laura shares her journey in practicing and understanding hospitality, particularly how it evolved during the pandemic through digital silent retreats. They discuss the theological foundat...