In the Shift

Episode 39: Our guest for this episode is Dr Tripp Fuller and (in one of our more meaty theological episodes) we dive further into all things 'Jesus'. Is Jesus just a nice guy, or did God jump down from heaven into human form... or is it possible that something else is going on here? We talk about all of this in relation to Tripp's latest book, Divine Self Investment , in which he proposes an open...

Episode 38: In this episode I talk again with Dr Thomas Jay Oord, but this time we turn our attention toward Jesus. If God is present in and through all things and by very nature is not intervening but rather is uncontrolling love, then how do we make sense of the Jesus story? In this conversation we wrestle with Jesus' identity and the historic claims of his divinity and humanity, discuss his mir...

Episode 37: For many of us the idea that God is all-powerful and all-knowing is assumed to be the very definition of divinity. But here we bring together threads from recent episodes to suggest that God might not be all powerful (in the way we typically understand power) and may not know the future. But what does this mean? It can be an unsettling idea, but perhaps it also allows us to more honest...

Episode 36: In this episode I talk with Dr. Nicola Hoggard Creegan about the God-world relationship, the depths of wonder within nature, the role of empathy and cooperation in evolution, the subtlety of God's presence and action in the world, and what it means to say that God is non-finite.    Dr. Nicola Hoggard Creegan is a theologian based in Auckland. She is co-director of New Zealand Christian...

Episode 35: We're back! After a brief 2020 hiatus, this new episode features a conversation with the brilliant Dr Sarah Lane Ritchie. She is a scholar who works at the intersection of theology and the sciences, and in particular in relation to questions surrounding the human mind, the relationship between God and the physical world and the development of religious belief. In this episode we discus...

Episode 34: This episode of In the Shift explores the related themes of human vulnerability and divine presence. We are often tempted to use God - and the idea of God's intervention - to cover over the awareness of our own vulnerability. But if we are able to come face-to-face with it, perhaps there are important insights to be gained, not only about ourselves but also about God. This episode also...

Episode 33: In this episode I'm joined by theologian and philosopher Dr Thomas Jay Oord for a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation on the themes of his work especially in relation to his latest book, "God Can’t: How to believe in God and love after tragedy, abuse, and other evils". We discuss what it means to say that God's nature is uncontrolling love, how this impacts on the way we understa...

Episode 32: In this episode we explore the challenges that arise when we consider the "sovereignty of God". In the Christian tradition God is typically understood as the one who is all powerful (omnipotent) and under whose domain and dominion all things take place. But this gives way to questions of what we do with suffering and pain. If God is in charge then what is going on here? In this episode...

Episode 31: We're back with a new series exploring the question of divine intervention! In Christian faith, many people are introduced to the idea of a God who is actively responsive, in 'control' and who answers prayer. But when crisis hits or some kind of disruption to our beliefs takes place we can start to question these assumptions (and with good reason). So what do we do with this and how do...

Episode 30: This is the final episode of the In the Flesh series, and we talk about where and how we store memory, what it means to 'know' something, how our bodies can surprise us about what we believe, and about the intersections between mysticism and revolution.

Episode 29: In this episode I talk with massage therapist Cheri Inoue about her experience growing up as Japanese-Canadian, the challenge of race, identity, Christianity as whiteness, the journey of learning to embrace difference, and how this story intersects with her work as a clinician. It is a wide-ranging conversation that explores working with people's bodies and particularly their pain, app...

Episode 28: This episode explores some of what evolution tells us about what makes human beings distinct, the embodiedness of our existence, the emergence of consciousness and why this might be connected to the universe becoming self-aware. And then we ask what insights and resources faith and spirituality might provide us in navigating this experience of humanness, and what kind of meaningful lif...

Episode 27: Are there things in scripture that don’t allow Christians to accept evolutionary theory? In order for Christians to have "faith" do they have to resist the claim that we have a common ancestor with apes? And if not, then what insight does evolutionary theory actually give us into what it means to be human, and how can this help us to understand faith, spirituality and some of our funda...

Episode 26: To understand what it means to be embodied humans, we need to grapple with evolution. But this also means unpacking the apparent conflict between science and religion that often plagues certain streams of Christianity. Many people assume that the claims of science go against the claims of religion, and vice versa. But the reality is, it is only some versions of religion that have a pro...

Episode 25: This episode explores a dynamic of spirituality that does more than just overturn exclusion, but moves intentionally toward inclusion. For some of the early Christians, their experience of the divine Spirit served to break down the barriers that excluded people based on ethnicity, gender, social class and even religious identity. This appears to have taken place, not by eliminating div...

Episode 24: In this episode I talk through my own personal and theological journey of change. From being surrounded by, inheriting and adopting conservative and exclusionary views toward LGBTQI people, through to a full change of mind and heart, and the embrace of an affirming theology.

Episode 23: This episode features a conversation on sexuality, faith and the journey of coming to a kinder understanding of God and self. Ben grew up in a conservative Christian home, but as a young man had to wrestle with an emerging sexuality that didn’t fit the Christian script he’d been given. This is a personal and honest discussion exploring that journey, what it meant for his spirituality,...

Episode 22: Many forms of Christianity (along with other religions too) hold to a belief that God can heal physical bodies in answer to prayer. In some streams, there are particularly potent versions that claim healing as a promised answer to prayers of faith and conviction. But there's a lot of dishonesty in this conversation, and the reality of people's experience seldom matches the rhetoric. So...

Episode 21: In this episode I talk with Professor of theology and ethics Dr Shane Clifton about the intersections between disability, theology and embodiment. In 2010 Shane had a serious accident that left him a quadriplegic (C5 Incomplete). Since that time his research has explored the intersection between disability studies, virtue ethics, and theology. In this conversation we talk about his acc...

Episode 20: What is a human being? Are we just flesh and blood, or is there something more going on here? What, or who, is the 'real' us? These are questions that humans have been contemplating for thousands of years. In recent times, the idea of humans as body-soul-spirit has become common in certain streams of Christianity... suggesting that the "spirit" is the most real you. But this can lead t...

Episode 19: In this episode we examine the language of purity, and the way it is used within the Christian tradition. To do so, we explore the psychology of disgust, the principles of contamination, and what all of this has to do with our sense of embodiment. In particular, religious language about sex and sexuality is shaped almost entirely by a purity discourse. But there are some problems that...

Episode 18: In the Christian tradition, the terms "holiness" and "the flesh" have often been used to set people in a battle against their own selves, a constant internal wrestle. In seeing life as this ongoing struggle, the result can be repeated feelings of failure and shame and an external projection of self that tries to cover over harsh internal judgements. But what if holiness has much more t...

Episode 17: This is the beginning of a new series called "In the Flesh", focused on the intersection of faith and spirituality with our reality as physical and embodied human beings. We talk about some of the complicated ways that Christianity has understood the body, including pentecostal dancing in the 80s, stories of worship leaders wanting to leave their bodies so they can love God more, and t...

Episode 16: At the centre of Christianity is a non-violent revolutionary who rejects traditional modes of power, and is executed by the combined forces of empire and religion. But the new life that emerges in the wake of his death inspires his followers to believe that self-giving love is ultimately more powerful than the strength, might and violence of these dominant systems that sought to oppres...

Episode 15: This is the second of 3 episodes exploring the meaning of the death of Jesus. Nietzsche famously said that God is dead and we have killed him. Was he right? Perhaps the answer is yes... and no. In this episode we explore how the cross becomes an icon for the death of God, or at least of many ideas we have of God. And yet it also becomes the location of divine solidarity; the presence o...