Practicing Gospel Podcast

In 2017 The United States Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency concerning the epidemic of opioid addiction. That epidemic has greatly increased and, consequently, made terribly worse because of the Covid-19 Coronavirus disease pandemic. However, attention to the opioid epidemic was diverted due to the Covid-19 crisis. It is vital that we as the general public...

The final year of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Biden administration has seen a flurry of issues bearing on religious liberty. There were two cases before the Supreme Court, one, Tanzin vs Tanvir, upon which the court ruled and another, Fulton vs The City of Philadelphia, the ruling of which is still pending. There was a new justice, Amy Barrett, appointed to the Supreme Court...

Within the context of our nation at this time, our perceptions of Islam are driving our greatest fears. Islam is the subject of deep misinformation, misunderstanding, and political distortion. As the result, few of us have an accurate understanding of Islam or are aware that there are broad-based efforts and many Muslim activists in peacebuilding throughout the Muslim communities around the world....

As. early as one hundred years after the time of Jesus and the first generations of Christians, Christian thinkers recognized that Jewish Christian Scripture was not exhaustive in its claim to knowledge and there was insight and wisdom into the way and truth of things in non-Christian sources. While there have always been objections on the part of some Christians to doing so, as Tertullian’s...

From the beginning of the Church on the day of Pentecost just after our Lord ascended back to God, congregational singing and, in particular, hymns have been a part of Christian worship. Two of Christianity’s earliest documents, the New Testament letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, use the same trilogy of words to describe the music of Christian worship. Ephesians 5: 18-19 (NRSV) reads,...

Part of the outgrowth of Meta Commerse’s work in racial healing is the development of The Race Relations Station . The Race Relations Station is a community action project which has the vision of a well, diverse, and just community and has as its mission racial healing and relationship building through story. In this episode my guests, Liz Huesemann and Father Dennis Fotinos, introduce us to...

My guests for this episode are the creators and editors of and some of the artists who participate with Foundling House . Foundling House is a website, journal, and resource, birthed in Knoxville, TN, dedicated to exploring the human truths of the Kingdom of Christ through story, art, and music. It has been the tendency of conservative Christianity to desire and often demand answers that are certa...

During my interview with Ken Sehested in the previous episode, and especially as I reflected on the interview immediately afterwards, I felt there was more that need to be discussed and it shouldn’t wait until a date several months in the future as I initially planned. So, I contacted Ken and he graciously agreed to a follow-up interview. This episode, therefore, is Part 2. What I have under...

As I say in the introduction to this episode, I have two goals in this ongoing series on peacebuilding. The first goal is to enable you to become aware of the extent of people active in peace work and peacebuilding efforts and to learn how each person draws resources from her or his faith or worldview perspective to do her or his peace work. The second goal is to provide for you practical resource...

In her extensive work with peacebuilding, Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer (Listen to PGE12 below.) stresses the importance of focusing more on the heart than the head. By this she means that building bridges of peace and relationships between people who disagree and/or are in conflict more often occurs when the people involved in the disagreement/conflict tell and listen to each other’s personal s...

As I say in my introduction to this interview, in her superb book, These Truths: A History of the United States , historian Jill Lepore holds a particular understanding of history. She says that history is, ‘…not merely a form of memory but also a form of investigation, to be disputed, like philosophy, its premises questioned, its evidence examined, its arguments countered (p. xvi).’ She argues th...

As I say in the introduction to this episode, an article in  The Lancet by Jane Davis makes the case that reading literature out loud has potential for healing and wellness. As a part of The Reader Organization, Davis says, “Our hypothesis is that reading literature aloud with others offers something uniquely valuable.” She goes on to say, It “…facilitates the creation of a...

The reason I am seeking to keep Steady State Economics as a subject before you, as my audience, is that few other economic options subsume economics under the ecosystem. Rather other economic options subsume the ecosystem under the economy. In addition, most other economic options growth oriented economies and assume that the ecology can be saved while still growing the economy and this does not p...

This episode is Part 3 of my interviews with Meta Commerse. In this episode we bring together the threads of Meta’s writing and aesthetic arts and her healing arts into the tapestry of their use in racial healing. As I say in the interview, if we are going to have a better future, especially together as people broken by prejudice, misperception, understanding, and the terrible history of hat...

This episode is the Part 2 of 3 interviews with Meta Commerse. Part 1 focused on Meta’s poetry and novel . In this episode we discuss the story/journey of Meta’s development of Story Medicine and her use of it to facilitate healing. As Meta said in Part 1, “My work with people, it takes them to those stories, to those places that they had not told and they had not spent time with...

My guest for this episode is Meta Commerse. Meta is a poet, a novelist, and a healer. My initial motivation for this interview was and still is as a continuation of my series on Racial Reconciliation, because Meta offers a class through her Story Medicine Wisdom School titled, ‘Story Medicine for Racial Healing.’ But as I learned that Meta was a poet and novelist and had developed this...

The Ekklesia Project began as the result of conversations about the works of Catholic political scientist, Mike Budde , and Protestant theologian, Stanley Hauerwas . Both Budde and Hauerwas hold that the primary task of Christian churches is to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Budde and Hauerwas, each in their on way, go on to claim that churches’ efforts to live faithfully to Chr...

Although I have interviewed Melissa Rogers on her book,  Faith in American Public Life , this episode will be the first in an ongoing conversation with The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty , now called BJC . The purpose of this series is to do two things. First it is to keep before you that there have always been certain Baptists who have, since their beginnings, argued for/advocated...

The Revised Common Lectionary came about ultimately as the product of the Ecumenical Movement and the conviction that it is God’s will that the Church be united–one body–the body of Christ. Specifically, it was the product of The Consultation on Common Texts which was formed by Catholic and Protestant liturgical scholars in response to the reforms in the liturgy mandated by the S...

This episode is the second of what will be an ongoing series on Steady State Economics. In my mind, this approach to the economy provides the best option moving forward in light of the environmental crises developing due to approaches to the economy focused upon economic growth. One of the things that appeals to me about this approach is that it is compatible with both capitalism and socialism, so...

As long as Biblical Storytellers are willing to be guests for this podcast, I want to have an ongoing series that enables you to enjoy this art form. There are multiple reasons why I enjoy this art form, but one of the main reasons is that it combines two ancient practices–storytelling and the public reading of scripture. Throughout human history storytelling has played a fundamental role in...

As I say in the interview, I am always thankful for those who open me to new insights and possibilities, especially as those insights and possibilities relate to my faith and enable me more fully to experience God, even if the terms they/she/he use(s) are not the same as mine. Judaism and Christianity have always been influenced/shaped by and borrowed concepts, ideas, and practices from other peop...

The challenge of Christianity and Christian churches in the United States and Europe is that traditional churches and denominational organizations are struggling. The gap between growth of the population as a whole and the number of those identifying themselves as Christians is increasing. In addition, attendance in ‘traditional’ denominational churches has been on the decline for over...

Even though great progress has been made addressing the spread of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and in treating those who have been infected with it, thousands are still being infected each year and people are still dying from it. To bring us up to date on this disease and issues related to it, such as Hepatitis C and Opioid addiction, and to learn how we, as Christians, can join with those who hav...

My guest for this episode is Dr. Melissa Rogers . Dr. Rogers was Associate General Counsel then General Counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty . Following this, she became Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration and Special Assistant to President Obama. Questions about the place of religion in...