The Two Cities

On today’s episode we begin the season of Lent with a discussion on ecological grief with our guest, Hannah Malcolm, who is PhD Candidate in Theology at Durham University studying ecological grief as a form of theological knowledge. She is also the editor of Words for a Dying World: Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church (SCM Press, 2020) containing essays, poems, and anecdotes relate...

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall, Associate Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College (Hamilton, Ontario) and the author of Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle's Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Baker, 2016). Our the course of our conversation we discuss a number of historical and cultural background issues, including, the Artemis cult at Ephesus, Pau...

In this episode of The Two Cities podcast we are joined by Dr. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, who is Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University (Waco, TX), and the author of When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul (Baker, 2016). Over the course of our conversation we talk about Dr. Gaventa’s current research on Romans for the New Testament Library ser...

In this episode of The Two Cities podcast we talk with Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University, about her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith and Fractured A Nation (Liveright, 2020). Over the course of the conversation Dr. Du Mez tells us about some of the most shocking findings from her book, how Jesus and John Wayne fits within her lon...

In this episode Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Rev. Daniel Parham are joined by Dr. Lisa Bowens, associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the author of African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation , which was published by Eerdmans in 2020. In this episode Dr. Bowens talks to us about her research on t...

As part of our broader series on gender in biblical scholarship, Christian tradition, and the contemporary church, we turn to discuss Women in the Patristic Era. In this episode, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Dr. Chris Porter are joined by Dr. Lynn Cohick, who is Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs, and Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. We begin...

Continuing our conversation on gender dynamics in Scripture and the Church, in this podcast episode we talk about the binary of Complementarianism and Egalitarianism regarding how to conceive of the relationship of men and women in marriage and in the church. Has the entrenchment of the binary led us to miss aspects of the text? For this conversation, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, and Grac...

In this episode we talk about the significance of the women mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. For this conversation, Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert are joined by Dr. Jeannine Brown, Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN), member of the NIV Translation Committee, and author of a few commentaries on Matthew. We talk about why genealogies are worth digging...

Carrying on in our conversation on gender, we turn to discuss women in 1 Corinthians with particular attention given to the passage about head coverings in 1 Cor. 11 and women being silent in the church in 1 Cor. 14. In this episode, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Brandon Hurlbert, and Dr. Logan Williams are joined by Dr. Lucy Peppiatt, who is Principal of Westminster Theological Centre in the UK and aut...

In this episode, Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Grace Emmett are joined by Dr. Valérie Nicolet, Associate Professor of New Testament at the Protestant Institute of Theology in Paris, to continue an earlier podcast conversation on Paul and masculinity. Our conversation begins with Paul's self-presentation, esp. in Galatians, and then extends to address the fuzziness of gender categories i...

In this episode a group of team members from The Two Cities (Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, Rev. Daniel Parham, Dr. Chris Porter, Dr. Logan Williams) are joined by Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu, who is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary, to discuss his recent piece published with the Public Theology Network, entitled, “The Stubborn Invisibility of Whitenes...

Carrying on with our series on gender and the Bible, Amber Bowen and Dr. John Anthony Dunne are joined by Aimee Byrd, who is the author of several books, including Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Zondervan Academic, 2020). In this episode Aimee explains that, despite what one might suspect from her outspoken detractors, her book is ultimately about discipleship. She critiques the m...

Continuing our discussion on gender from last week with Grace Emmett ("Paul & Masculinity"), we turn to look at the relationship between preaching and gender. In this episode, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Sangalang Ng, Rev. Daniel Parham, and Dr. Chris Porter reflect on this topic  from the vantage point of our different cultural and ecclesial contexts. Rather than debate particular text...

Kicking off a discussion on gender in the Bible and how this syncs up the Western Church and broader culture, Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Logan Williams chat with Grace Emmett, a PhD Candidate in New Testament at King's College, London, who recently submitted a thesis entitled, "Becoming A Man: Unmanly/Manly Self-Presentation in the Pauline Epistles." In this episode we discuss ma...

Concluding our series on the intersection of faith and politics we turn to address fake news and the spread of misinformation. In this episode Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Chris Porter are joined by Rachel Wightman, who is Associate Director for Instruction and Outreach at the library at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Over the course of our conversation we discuss what makes misinf...

As another installment in our series on faith and politics, we discuss abortion and single issue voting in the United States. Joining Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Brandon Hurlbert, Tim McNutt, and Dr. Chris Porter for this discussion is our special guest, Jennie Riley, who recently submitted her PhD thesis in Theology at Durham University (England), focusing on the relationship between Evangelical Chri...

In the run up to Election Day in the United States (Tuesday, November 3rd), here at The Two Cities we've been doing a series of political podcasts. This episode extends that conversation further, but situates it as part of a conversation with a major pop-cultural artifact— Watchmen . Originally a comic series in the mid-1980s, Watchmen is revered as one of the best graphic novels of all time. It w...

Continuing further our recent conversations on politics and political engagement from a Christian perspective (cf. the episodes entitled, "Faith and Politics with Rev. Baroness Maeve Sherlock" and "War & Political Theology with Michael Spalione"), Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Dr. Chris Porter discuss social identity theory and how our social identity shapes our present lack of bi-partisanship in...

Continuing our conversation on the role of faith in our political discourse and political engagement, in the present episode Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert talk with Michael Spalione about his doctoral research on the topic of war within political theology. Having just recently passed his viva in pursuit of a PhD in political theology from Trinity College, Bristol through the Universi...

In this tumultuous election season in the States, in which partisan entrenchment often leads to a lack of kindness and respect across the aisle, we have brought in a guest from across the pond to help sort us out. Joining Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert is special guest Rev. Baroness Maeve Sherlock, who is Curate at St. Nics Durham in England, and is also a member of the House of Lords...

In 2012 there was global interest in a small Coptic fragment the size of a business card that records Jesus saying the words "my wife." The fragment was presented to a group of scholars at a Coptology conference in Rome by Dr. Karen King of Harvard Divinity School, who herself had received it from a private collector. This presentation naturally drew immediate media attention. Very soon after this...

Continuing our conversation on the Enneagram, we wanted to dive deeper into some of the lesser known aspects of the popular personal formation tool. In particular, we wanted to discuss the issue of Childhood Wounds, which essentially deal with the way that our personality types were shaped by experiences that we had with our primary care givers as kids. Taking this a step further, in this episode...

In this episode we carry on our conversation on the Enneagram from last week ("The Enneagram—What Is It?") by diving more deeply into how we have all responded to the unique challenges of 2020. Engaging this topic is our largest panel of team members to date on The Two Cities podcast: Amber Bowen (Type 4), Dr. Josh Carroll (Type 7), Dr. John Anthony Dunne (Type 7), Paloma Herrera (Type 7), Brandon...

The Enneagram is a well-known "personality test." For many, it is used as a simple means of compartmentalizing people. For others, it is a helpful tool to raise personal awareness and promote healthy growth. In this initial episode on the Enneagram, Dr. Josh Carroll, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Brandon Hurlbert, and Rev. Daniel Parham promote the idea of viewing the Enneagram as a tool rather than a t...

In this episode we discuss how churches can be more inclusive of people with disability and varying ability. John Anthony Dunne talks with Brittany Hurlbert, whose work is in educational and therapeutic settings, working primarily with people who have autism. After explaining what autism is, what its relationship to asperger's is, and some general misconceptions, we discuss some biblical principle...