Gospel Conversations podcast

Our Hope & Hell series has raised a lot of interest; people like the ideas a lot but everyone has questions. We created a panel of three to address eight of these questions that our listeners sent in. In this talk, Ron, Andrew, and Tony give their responses in a free-flowing, exploratory, and honest dialogue. Mark Ridgway facilitates the dialogue. Get full access to Gospel Conversations at gospelc...

As we continue to ponder the hope of 'apokatastasis', we confront some of the 'so what's' beginning with evangelism. At face value, it looks like a doctrine of 'universal salvation' makes evangelism unnecessary—why preach if everybody gets saved eventually anyway? Tony addresses this question by first changing the question—and then building a far bigger picture of 'salvation' into which we can pla...

Tony finally confronts the scary verses in this talk—the passages that at face value talk about hell, judgment, and wrath. Traditionally they have so gripped the dark imaginations of the church that they have totally overshadowed the even clearer verses that declare universal hope. But we need to answer the question—What do the 'Bad News' verses really say about eternal hell? What do they really t...

St Augustine laid the foundations for the doctrine of Hell in his epic tome the City of God. But did he get it right? Tony gives a penetrating diagnosis of where Augustine's thinking had 'code errors' that distorted the gospel and predisposed him to the idea of hell as never-ending torment. Unfortunately, the church of Rome validated his thinking and excluded the broader eschatology that we are no...

In this talk, Tony advances Gregory of Nyssa's picture of the Restitution of all things. The question of 'universal salvation' needs to fall onto a big eschatological landscape not onto a narrow one. Only then does it make sense. That is what Gregory does. Tony gives us a detailed summary of his epic eschatological vision of creation in 'On the Making of Man', which explores the profound implicati...

Our second talk builds a richer view of 'judgment'. What house is God building? is a better question—and it immediately opens up a new view of judgment. Architects judge as part of their creative process. This positions 'judgment' out of the penal system and inside a creation system. Tony explores this new perspective in this talk. Get full access to Gospel Conversations at gospelconversations.sub...

We recorded the questions and discussions that followed Tony's first talk. We have not done this before, so we hope that some of you will find it valuable to hear the inquiries and comments that followed the talk. Get full access to Gospel Conversations at gospelconversations.substack.com/subscribe

Hell is the question we all avoid but it is the corollary of hope. How do we fit the two together? Is the traditional model of hell right? Or scriptural? Could everyone get saved in the end? Tony begins to address these vexed questions by first examining the landscape of the debate—the language and assumptions, the possibilities, the history and the problems of all the usual positions. He ends by...

Rikk finishes his series on Design as the new Theology in this talk. He spends time synthesising his argument thus far—that the language of design offers a fruitful lens to view the gospel because it makes sense of some of the deep paradoxes of creation like change and agency—in fact, more sense than traditional theology does. Then he concludes with a breathtaking reading of Genesis through the le...

Rikk lays out the groundwork for why 'design' is a richer angle to understand God and His work than 'theology'. Design opens up a messier world and a world where change is a good thing—which in turn challenges our traditional picture of the omnipotent and unmoving God. Instead, we find a God who is dynamic and involved in life's dramas—in fact, an incarnate God. Get full access to Gospel Conversat...

This series is deliberately provocative. Rikk takes us on a journey to rid ourselves of the prison of religious language and open up a broader, more accessible and more comprehensive vocabulary to both explore and express the wonders of our God and his working. He calls this 'the grammar of life'. Rikk has been on this journey personally—with great effect and he begins his talk with that personal...

Coleridge famously defined imagination as the human mind's replication of the divine creation of the world. In this pyrotechnic talk, Sarah unfolds Coleridge's extraordinary grasp of human creativity—and how we mirror the divine—through his touching introspective poem 'Frost at Midnight'. This poem is both a theological tour-de-force, as well as one of the great pieces of literature on the creativ...

How can we be confident about what we know—especially in an age of scepticism? This is the question that John addresses in this compelling talk on the 'Need to Know'. You would think that Christians are on the back foot here because we rely on faith to know—but John turns the tables on the sceptics and proves that 'radical doubt' is everybody's lot in life. Strangely this leads to the only conclus...

Leisa Aitken is a practising psychologist who has discovered the significance of hope in human flourishing—but equally, she has discovered the shallowness of the profession's grasp of hope. She is now advancing a doctorate to integrate the richness of Christian hope with the practice of psychology. In the first talk, she takes us on her personal journey and introduces the points of interaction bet...

Moses was the most innovative designer of a social system in world history. The ten commandments sit at the heart of this design. But where does the Sabbath fit? It is the only ritualistic member of the ten words, and it seems out of date in today's world. Tony claims that in fact the Sabbath is the linchpin of the whole design, and is vitally relevant to today's world. Discover why in this talk....

Tony looks at Moses as a social designer—which is a modern way of describing his role as prophet and king/leader. And not just any designer, but arguably the most innovative social designer in history. For in fundamental ways, he laid the foundation for the modern world. How did he do it, and what can we learn from him about how we might act, out of faith, in the public space? Get full access to G...

In this talk, Tony introduces our theme for the year—the theology of Hope lays the foundation for action in the world. But Hope has not been well understood or developed by the church over the centuries, so we have narrowed this foundation down to a mere 'return of Jesus'. Tony explains that Hope in the Bible reframes how we look at everything in reality. It thus becomes the grounds for reform, op...

If the traditional evangelical gospel does not work for the postmodern world, what is the alternative? This is the question that Tony explores on this talk. His answer is to shift our framing of the argument from sin to creation. This does not deny sin, but it starts with a far bigger picture of the issues and one that is much more relevant to the hearts and minds of the postmodern generation. Get...

Tony Morgan describes how he found God in Insurance. For years he was stuck in a dual carriage pathway that separated his faith from his work, but then he discovered that ‘insurance’ was not just the context for expressing his faith—it was co-working with God and thus it was true worship. Insurance also brought him face to face with one of the most imponderable areas of God at work—i.e. areas of h...

Tony begins our Faith at Work series by stretching the scope from 'Faith at work' to 'God at work'. This immediately opens up the topic beyond the normal approaches of evangelism and ethics, to the role and nature of faith in the public space—indeed to the broad question of the relationship between the individual and the state. He gives us a broad framework with which to think about this important...

Tony interviews Mark Scott about his experience of leading large organisations as a 'follower of Jesus'. Mark ran the Australian Broadcasting Commission (Australia's equivalent of the BBC) and helped it transform into the digital era. He now leads the NSW Dept of Education. How does a believer lead such large 'secular' organisations? Mark talks with remarkable candour and authenticity about how hi...

Lots of people think Iain shines best in question and answer sessions. He really ponders the questions and welcomes tough questions. He does not offer glib answers but has the gift of going behind the face value of the questions and addressing the assumptions they are making. The questions in this extended session were deep and wise—so it brought out the very best of Iain. Get full access to Gospe...

Iain finishes these first three talks by asking ‘So what?’ How are we expected to live in the face of the vast tension between our view of creation, and our experience of suffering and evil?  He makes a very significant claim at the start of this talk—how we frame our response to this tension will dictate our choices and views of the world and our faith. He gives us a simple but profound series of...

Perhaps this talk is the most radical of all the talks in this series. Having painted a wondrous picture of the Jerusalem view of creation and humanity, Iain confronts the question of evil and suffering. In fact, he claims that you simply cannot just paint a positive picture without addressing the dark side as well. How do we interpret the presence of evil and suffering in the face of Jerusalem st...

This talk builds the foundation for the rest of Iain's talks in this series. In it, Iain describes the critical paradigm shifts that separated the ‘Jerusalem’ story from the rest of the great philosophies of the ancient world—from Greece to Egypt to China. Despite all of their differences, these philosophies came from a common worldview—the cosmos is eternal, the cosmos is built for the gods and h...