A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Text us your questions! What happens when the foundation of your identity crumbles beneath you? When the lens through which you understood the world no longer works? Psychologist Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren joins us to explore this profound transition that one-fifth of Americans have experienced—leaving religion behind. Drawing from eight years of groundbreaking research across multiple countries, Van...

Text us your questions! Tom Oord is back! This time, we're discussing his "main thing": open and relational theology. We explore what it means and its significance in reshaping our understanding of God, love, prayer, and more. Tom answers our questions graciously, and we try to convince Randy that he's wrong. How is open and relational theology different from classical theism?...

Text us your questions! This episode explores the complexities of spiritual evolution and its impact on marriages and relationships. Our friend Keri Ladouceur shares her wisdom, and we discuss stories of navigating changing faith and the strain it can place on intimate partnerships. We cover how questioning beliefs impacts relationships, emotional labor amidst change, the stigma and fear surroundi...

Text us your questions! Faith deconstruction has become a defining trend in American Christianity, and disagreement persists about what’s driving it. In this episode, we talk with Scot McKnight and Tommy Preson Phillips about their book Invisible Jesus , which considers why so many Christians are critically re-examining their faith. Rather than treating deconstruction as a problem to be solved, th...

Text us your questions! This is one of our favorite interviews we've ever done. Nicholas Ma (son of famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma) is a filmmaker best known for producing the 2018 documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? about Fred Rogers. We speak with him about his latest documentary Leap of Faith , which follows a group of Christian pastors from diverse sociocultural and demographic backgrounds...

Text us your questions! This is a re-release of an episode from our first season: our first conversation with Kristin Kobes Du Mez, which happened to fall just after January 6, 2021. It seems fitting to revisit it now. ===== In this episode, we chat with Kristin Kobes Du Mez about her book that's been making waves and is brilliantly titled Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupte...

Text us your questions! Brian Zahnd is back with us to discuss his favorite novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov . Brian is starting a public online course going through the book, which is notoriously philosophically and theologically rich, so we thought it would be fun to have him on to discuss its major themes and why it has been so influential in his life. We cover Dostoevsky&...

Text us your questions! Jonathan Merritt joins us to discuss his children's book My Guncle and Me . We also discuss what it was like to grow up with a dad who was the president of the SBC, his experience being involuntarily outed, and how to maintain relationships across serious ideological and personal divides. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon . Annual me...

Text us your questions! This episode was recorded live at Theology Beer Camp 2024 . We sat down with Brian McLaren and Tim Whitaker (from The New Evangelicals podcast) to discuss Brian's history in the emerging church movement, the current progressive religious movement (of which we're a part), the Christian nationalist backlash, and our political moment. For those of us who think of our...

Text us your questions! Jeff Cook is back with us to dive deeper into our conversation from a while back about the soul and why Kyle is a materialist (and why Randy thinks he's silly for it). We discuss the difference between the claim that God is non-physical and the claim that humans are, Jeff's reservations about materialism, the mystery of the Incarnation and Christ's dual natur...

Text us your questions! After more than three years, Kristin Kobes Du Mez is back on the show to discuss her new short film For Our Daughters , which examines the connection between the culture of submission and sexual abuse within the evangelical church and the Christian nationalist effort to influence the 2024 presidential election. It tells harrowing stories of survival and coverup and puts a s...

Text us your questions! More Jim Stump! We hope you loved Part I of our conversation with Dr. Jim Stump as much we did. Here's Part II! In this one, we talk about the problem of evil and more about AI. Also...aliens!  Seriously. Cheers! ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon . Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-t...

Text us your questions! Are Christianity and evolution compatible? Can a person trust God and trust science at the same time? Jim Stump wrote a book called The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith , and we are very much here for it. In this interview, we chat about the Bible, science, evolution, the soul, afterlife, and many other juicy topics. We actually had so much to...

Text us your questions! Welcome to Season 5! We're joined by Sarah McCammon, a National Political Correspondent for NPR and author of The Exvangelicals , an insightful and empathetic look at the stories of those who have left white American evangelicalism. Sarah is also an exvangelical herself, so she has a unique perspective that blends both personal experience and rigorous journalism. The E...

Text us your questions! How do we grow and steward our children's spirituality when we've deconstructed so much of the spirituality that we were raised with? And even if we figure that out, how do we guide and encourage our kids on their spiritual journeys when there are so few quality resources and books that don't get all cheesy and cringe? We aren't the only ones asking thes...

Text us your questions! Good, Bible-believing Christians should just automatically be Republicans. Everybody knows this. Have you heard that sort of argument or been led to believe that this is just the "biblical" way? If so, that probably means you've been given a hearty serving of propaganda. Our friend and philosopher Scott Coley wrote Ministers of Propaganda: Truth, Power and th...

Text us your questions! Evangelical megachurch pastors saying cringe things is nothing new, right? However, there's a point when cringe turns destructive and abusive. That's what this episode is about. Dallas/Ft. Worth megachurch pastor Josh Howerton said some very ugly and destructive things, and then doubled down with a weak (plagiarized) apology. Our friend Sheila Gregoire has some po...

Text us your questions! We speak with Bruce Reyes-Chow about his recent book Everything Good about God Is True , a primer on what it means to choose faith in the midst of a bleeding world and an often broken church. We discuss the Christian ethic of loving enemies, listening, having compassion across ideological division, embodying faith in the public square, biblical literalism, Christian formati...

Text us your questions! Jeff Cook is back with us to dive deeper into deconstruction, inspired by our interview with Keri Ladouceur , the Executive Director of the Post-Evangelical Collective . We discuss the nature of deconstruction, its corporate, personal, and ethical dimensions, and what it implies about what's next. And because we're nerds, we also touch on ecclesiology and postmode...

Text us your questions! Psychologist and author Richard Beck joins us to discuss his recent book Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age . Richard is an engaging critic of some forms of contemporary "disenchanted" spirituality. He's also a fun dialogue partner and a good sport, who was willing to roll with Kyle's annoying philosophy questions. Some...

Text us your questions! David Gushee is back on the show to discuss his book Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies , an erudite, timely, and disturbing take on American democracy, its struggles with authoritarianism, and its place on the global political stage. We discuss such questions as: How are government and morality related? What does the United States have in common with France, Ge...

Text us your questions! Believe it or not, this is our 100th episode! And what better way to spend it than diving back in with Peter Rollins, a guest who is unusually suited to the regular themes of our show, while also throwing some wrenches into pretty much everything we do. :-) Picking up with where we left off in Part 1, we explore the sense in which Pete is a trinitarian Christian, some diffe...

Text us your questions! Break out your dictionaries folks, this one got in the weeds a bit. But if you're familiar with Peter Rollins, you're probably not too surprised by that. Peter is a philosopher, public intellectual, and self-described anti-guru who writes and speaks extensively about concepts like the death of God, negative theology, "pyrotheology," and Atheism for Lent....

Text us your questions! Trey Ferguson of the New Living Treyslation and Three Black Men podcasts joins us to discuss his new book Theologizin' Bigger: Homilies on Living Freely and Loving Wholly . We talk about the Bible, the difference between "theologizin'" and theology, the racial dynamics of deconstruction, why evangelicals are so obsessed with "facts," why they&a...

Text us your questions! In this episode, Kyle and Randy discuss the philosophy of the soul and its implications for religious belief, the lived experience of faith, and even ethics. Kyle is a materialist, which means he thinks humans are physical objects, and Randy leans towards dualism, which involves belief in a soul or non-physical part of a human being. Are there any good arguments either way?...