A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Text us your questions! Democrats can pass huge bills and still lose the argument with the people those bills are meant to help. That’s the tension we dig into with Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist, Bernie Sanders alum, and proud “Mexican redneck” from East Texas who learned politics through factory work and union life. He comes in hot on one theme: voters don’t just weigh policies, t...

Text us your questions! We continue our conversation with pastor and author Matt Erickson of Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee. The job of many pastors feels like that of a CEO, with a focus on leadership strategy and the "three Bs": buildings, budgets, and butts in seats. This conversation offers a slower, deeper, and more hopeful way to think about church health, discipleship, and long-ter...

Text us your questions! Randy and Kyle sit down with Milwaukee pastor and author Matt Erickson to explore a different vision of pastoral ministry: not the pastor as CEO, brand manager, or religious expert, but the pastor as gardener. Matt’s book, The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry , grows out of real ministry pressure, including moral failures, church decline, the pandemic, and...

Text us your questions! We talk with Preston Sprinkle about his book From Genesis to Junia and the long road from a John MacArthur shaped complementarian framework to an egalitarian view that affirms women teaching, preaching, and leading in the church. We dig into the passages that always show up in this debate (especially 1 Timothy 2, along with Paul’s wider world), but we keep pulling the camer...

Text us your questions! The news cycle is moving so fast it’s training us to forget. We invited Mike Madrid, a longtime classical conservative political strategist, commentator, and Lincoln Project cofounder, back on the show to help us slow down and put the recent chaos into perspective. We start with crisis fatigue and the “flood the zone” feeling, then get concrete with the Minneapolis ICE crac...

Text us your questions! Prayer doesn’t always happen in a church. Sometimes it happens under streetlights or beside old trees. We open with Randy’s simple practice of late night walks and how nature has slowly become the place where his spirituality feels dynamic again. That shift also brings a collision with old religious instincts: the inner voice that says connection is dangerous, that wonder i...

Text us your questions! Bart Ehrman, an atheist New Testament scholar with a penchant for annoying evangelicals, now claims that the teachings of Jesus determined the moral instincts of the West. Bart joins us to talk about his new book Love Thy Stranger and why acts of care for immigrants, refugees, and people outside “our tribe” may be downstream of Jesus, even when the people doing the caring d...

Text us your questions! AI can now generate essays, photos, songs, and video that look real enough to fool experts. This impacts how and whether humans can trust one another, and it’s already reshaping how we learn, create, and relate to each other. Kyle sits down with Micah Voraritskul, author of Human Is the New Vinyl: Why Human Creativity Still Wins in the AI Revolution , to unpack why the viny...

Text us your questions! We recorded this live gathering in Chicago with the Post Evangelical Collective, and it still feels uncomfortably current. Alongside Dr. David Gushee and Keri Ladouceur (director of the PEC), we sit with a question that haunts a lot of post-evangelical and progressive Christian spaces: how do you keep loving the church after trauma, public rejection, and the weaponizing of...

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Text us your questions! What kind of God is worth trusting when life falls apart? We pull up a chair with Thomas Jay Oord and guest Chris Lilley for a spirited, vulnerable conversation about omnipotence, evil, and why love may be the only measure of divine power that doesn’t betray our moral core. The stakes are high: beliefs about God’s power shape how we face suffering, talk to our kids about ho...

Text us your questions! Our friend Jeff Cook—writer, podcaster, and Enneagram systems thinker—is back with us to discuss his recent book (volume 1 of a series because of course it is): about the Enneagram. (See our first conversation from S03E26 here .) Jeff explains how the Enneagram names the “why” beneath our choices, conflicts, faith, and love. Randy shares how the framework has sharpened his...

Text us your questions! Is the drive to be better than others making us worse? We talk with theologian Miroslav Volf about his book The Cost of Ambition and explore why comparison-based striving saturates our schools, churches, workplaces, and politics. Volf separates healthy aspiration from superiority-seeking and makes a compelling case for excellence without domination, rooted in agape, i.e., u...

Text us your questions! We talk with political strategist, author, and Lincoln Project member Mike Madrid about data, culture, and why both parties keep getting the Latino vote wrong. Mike takes us inside the Lincoln Project’s 2020 strategy and the personal costs of resisting Trumpism, then draws a sharp line between principled conservatism and punitive nationalist populism. From energy policy to...

Text us your questions! Dawne Moon and Theresa Tobin are back to discuss their book Choosing Love , which represents the culmination of their research over the last several years into the community of conservative LGBTQ+ Christians. This book expands on many of the topics we covered in our first conversation while adding insightful material on the varied ways this community understands their conse...

Text us your questions! What happens when political labels lose their meaning? Dr. Laurie Johnson, political philosopher and president of the Maurin Academy , joins us to unpack the tangled roots of America's culture wars and explore pathways toward overcoming our divisions. We discuss her book The Gap in God's Country: A Longer View on Our Culture Wars . The conversation begins with a c...

Text us your questions! Ready to transform your relationship with the Bible? Zach Lambert, pastor of Restore Church in Austin and author of Better Ways to Read the Bible , offers a healing pathway for those wounded by scripture in this candid conversation. Growing up in a Southern Baptist megachurch during the "fundamentalist takeover," Lambert experienced firsthand how the Bible can be...

Text us your questions! What happens to prayer after you rethink religion and spirituality? Does it feel empty, confusing, or even impossible? If so, you're not alone. In this episode, the three of us discuss our journeys from structured, wordy, and sometimes demonstrative prayer lives to something altogether different. Randy reflects on his charismatic past where intercessory prayer dominate...

Text us your questions! What happens when a successful religious leader transitions genders and loses everything? Reverend Dr. Paula Stone Williams takes us on her extraordinary journey from privilege to authenticity. Paula once stood at the pinnacle of evangelical success – CEO of a large nonprofit, television host, magazine editor. But beneath this accomplished exterior lived a truth she'd...

Text us your questions! How did the role of "pastor's wife" replace ordination for women in church history? Is the news that there was women's ordination in church history hitting you unexpectedly right now? It's cool, we get it; take a moment and come back when you're ready. Historian and actual pastor's wife Beth Allison Barr returns for a potentially revelator...

Text us your questions! Matthew Vines returns to discuss how the revised edition of his book addresses critiques from prominent theologians, the distinction between affirming theology and queer theology, and the possibility of affirming, orthodox Christianity. Matthew unpacks the scholarly consensus that modern sexual orientation concepts simply didn't exist in biblical times—a fact many prom...

Text us your questions! Pope Francis, a man who inspired even many Protestants and non-Christians with his refreshingly prophetic voice, has died. The process to select his successor is ongoing as we release this. To help us understand what's happening, as well as its historical significance, we're talking with our friend and returning guest Shaun Blanchard, a Catholic theologian and the...

Text us your questions! Matthew Vines is here to discuss the revised and expanded edition of his influential book God and the Gay Christian , marking eleven years since its initial release. The book sent shockwaves through evangelical Christianity and remains a powerful and compelling case for an affirming reading of the Bible for those who want to hold onto biblical authority (if you're coun...

Text us your questions! This is a conversation we've been avoiding: how are we doing now that Donald Trump is president again? As we had a break between interviews, we decided to try to unpack how we're feeling, what we're doing, what we've learned about ourselves, and what we're worried and hopeful about. This is an unusually impromptu and unpolished conversation for us....

Text us your questions! This is a re-release of an episode from our second season when we spoke with philosopher C Thi Nguyen. We think it bears re-listening in our current moment. ===== What happens when we seek simple answers in a complex world? Philosopher C Thi Nguyen takes us into the machinery of belief, understanding, and value formation, exploring how we navigate information landscapes des...