Practicing Gospel Podcast

This episode is a followup on my interview with Professor Joerg Rieger . The intent of all of Professor Rieger’s work, including the subject of my first interview with him about his book,  Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity , is that theology should have an affect on one’s lifestyle and an impact on the world. In order to realize that intent, Profess...

Because of our nation’s commitment to capitalism and the desire to be technologically advanced and leaders in the global business market, across the political and theological spectrum, most parents are interested in and committed to having their children go to college/university. Those students are also enculturated into valuing and wanting to go to college/university. And because of the ext...

In this episode I speak with Professor Joerg Rieger about his book,  Theology in the Capitalocene : Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity . Professor Rieger explains why the term, “Capitalocene” should be used instead of the term “Anthropocene.” He helps us understand what is happening because of the Capitalocene, especially as it negatively impacts in a new way many of...

I confess to being guilty of what I have observed in most others who, like me, were born, raised, and continue to live in the United States. I take my citizenship for granted. I vote in all major elections, pay my taxes without much complaint, respect and am thankful for government and law enforcement officials, show up for jury duty (although I have never been selected for a jury), and abide by t...

This episode is my third interview on democracy. In this episode my guest and I will be discussing the Movement Action Plan or MAP model for organizing social movements that enable a group of citizens to create change in our culture and in our country through changes in our national, state, and local governments. This model is outlined in the book, Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Soc...

This episode is my third interview with Dr. Laura Lengnick about her book,  Resilient Agriculture . In my blogspot for the second interview, at the request of Dr. Lengnick, I clarified that the discussion in the second interview was recorded in June of 2024 before the impact of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina toward the end of September, 2024, and was not a response to that event. Howev...

In this episode, Amy Cantrell returns to speak of her life’s work and calling. Amy Cantrell lives in Asheville, North Carolina and is founder and Co-Director of BeLoved Asheville dedicated to creating home, health, equity, and opportunity for all.  BeLoved is a community of people putting love into action every day.  We bring people from all walks of life together to create innovative soluti...

At the age of 96, Luci Shaw is a prolific poet, writer, and editor as well as being a photographer. With 19 volumes of poetry and one on the way, 8 books, and two children’s books, Luci has spent a lifetime sharing her gift and love of writing. Along with her first, now late, husband Harold Shaw, she was a co-founder of Harold Shaw Publishers where she was senior editor and eventually President. S...

My guests for this episode introduce us to an updated version a type of organization which has been around since the late 1880s, but which most of us have never heard of or know anything about. The type of organization is a Settlement House. The updated version is modeled in a Settlement House one of my guests founded and the other has helped strengthen and sustain. It is called The Good Neighbor...

This episode will be the first in a series that explores how the Church and the Christian faith is doing globally. In each episode I will have a guest from a different country or area to talk about the Christian experience and the Church’s challenges in the place of my guest. My guest for this episode is Dr. Bennett Uche Enyioha. Dr. Enyioha is an experienced Baptist pastor, author, educator...

As I did in my spoken intro to this episode, I want to begin this blogspot with a clarification. The interviews that have made the two parts and episodes with Dr. Lengnick were done in early June. You may know that beginning September 24 the rain from Hurricane Helene began to come through the area where I live, which is in Black Mountain, North Carolina, just east of Asheville, North Carolina. Th...

In this episode and the next I interview Dr. Laura Lengnick about resilient agriculture. Resilient agriculture is a step beyond sustainable agriculture and is being developed as a correction to industrial agriculture and in response to climate change. Dr. Lengnick is the author of  Resilient Agriculture: Expanded and Updated Second Edition: Cultivating Foods Systems for a Changing Climate . This b...

This episode checks in with Choristers Guild . I began my ministry in church music in the late-1970s and early 1980s, and Choristers Guild was a primary source I turned to for wonderful and high-quality children’s Christian music. Back then, church music was organized around graded choirs and music ensembles. But during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the “seeker” churches grew ra...

This episode is Part 2 of my interview with Jeffrey Stout on democracy. In Part 1 Dr. Stout explained the different ways democracy has been understood throughout history, he gave us two definitions of liberty and freedom, and he spoke of the seven virtues he believes are essential for citizens to develop in order to participate in maintaining a healthy democracy. In this episode, Dr. Stout discuss...

This episode is Part 1 of my conversation with Professor Jeffrey Stout about our democracy. There is a broad conviction that our democracy here in the United States is in crisis. In my mind, Dr. Stout is one of the most important scholars of democracy and also one of the best guides for us learning what we, as citizens, need to understand and do to improve our democracy and maintain its thriving....

This episode is my second interview with John Mabry. In this episode we focus specifically on his music and his newest album, No Stranger . As you will hear in the episode, John has a brain tumor that can be removed, but the result will be that it will make him deaf. So, the airing of this episode of John’s music is especially pertinent and poignant. I am deeply honored and blessed that John...

This episode is the first of what I hope will be a series of conversations with pastors about how they are leading, guiding, and navigating their churches through current times. As the Pew Research Center has documented, Christianity in the United States is in decline. Thousands of churches each year are closing. In churches across the nation across the theological and political spectrum, congrega...

My guest for this episode is Liz Cooledge Jenkins. In this episode we discuss her book  Nice Churchy Patriarchy: Reclaiming Women’s Humanity from Evangelicalism . Liz is a writer, preacher, and former college campus minister who lives in the Seattle area with her husband Ken and their black cat Athena. After spending thirteen years as a young adult in evangelical communities, Liz is passiona...

In this episode I welcome back Dr. Jonathan “Jay” Augustine to discuss the sequel to his book Called to Reconciliation: How the Church Can Model Justice, Diversity, and Inclusion . You can listen to my interview with Dr. Augustine on that book in episode 89. The sequel is  When Prophets Preach: Leadership and the Politics of the Pulpit . If  Called to Reconciliation is about the Church...

My guest for this episode is Dr. David Bjorlin . Dr. Bjorlin is a hymn text writer. As an Assistant Professor of Worship at North Park University, David prepares his students for lives of significance and service by guiding and equipping them with practical skills centered around worship. “I believe what and how we worship forms the people we are and the way we interact with the world,” he says. A...

One of the things we have gotten wrong for too long has been our understanding of and, consequently, treatment of people with disabilities. Although it is not happening broadly enough or quickly enough, efforts to correct our understanding and our behavior are taking place. One of those efforts is The Penguin Project which is a nation-wide organization and effort to involve people with disabilitie...

This episode is a continuation of my series on palliative care and end of life issues. My guest is Dr. Aditi Sethi . Dr. Sethi is a hospice and palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, and musician. Featured in the forthcoming film The Last Ecstatic Days, Aditi is an emerging and important voice for shifting our culture’s understanding and approach to dying, death, and bereavement care. Dr. S...

The reason I feature storytelling as often as I do in this show is because of its capacity as an art form to build bridges between people and connect them, existentially and emotionally to experience the ‘world’ within the story, and thereby existentially and emotionally to experience the lives of others and The Other. Storytelling is a therapy and, as you know from my interviews with...

There is an increasing awareness of a several things related to aging. One is the fact that modern medicine and health practices are making it possible for people to live longer so that more people are able to live to being senior adults and to do so for a long time. Another is that members of the Baby Boom generation are retiring. A third is that for many people the experience if aging is not a g...

This episode is a part of a continuing series to enable you to hear the spectrum of American Indian/Native American/Indigenous/First Nations voices, especially in their response to Christianity and its history in the United States. If you are interested in this interview, you may also be interested in my interview with Dr. Tink Tinker, an Osage man, in Episode 8. My guest for this episode is The R...