Queen of the Sciences

Dad gives a Bible study on Hebrews (as you may have surmised from the episode title). Many thanks to Pastor David Drebes of College Lutheran Church in Salem, Virginia, for arranging and assisting in the production of this bonus episode! Support us on Patreon!

Michael Chan of the outstanding Gospel Beautiful Podcast talks with Dad and me about Dad's long-awaited commentary on the book of Joshua . If you like Queen of the Sciences, you'll like Gospel Beautiful, so be sure to add it to your podcast feed! Support us on Patreon!

Sarah's talk for the 2020/2021 conference of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. Check out Sarah's "poetic paraphrase" of the Sermon on the Mount. Support us on Patreon!

Dad gives a Bible study on Galatians (as you may have surmised from the episode title). Many thanks to Pastor David Drebes of College Lutheran Church in Salem, Virginia, for arranging and assisting in the production of this bonus episode! Support us on Patreon!

We're ending the third season of the Queen of the Sciences with an apocalyptic bang! Whether you're a fanatical dispensationalist stockpiling canned goods against a rapture that might just leave you behind, or a sniffily disapproving enlightened sort with your own fanatical visions of making the world a better place, we have good news for you: Jesus. History is in his hands, not yours, and you can...

Of course we could have covered the two (or three) Uses of the Law, but what fun would that be? Instead, in this episode, we explore the patterned consistency of all law-based systems—scientific, psychological, jurisprudential, and religious—and why we not only need them, but can't even function without them; yet also, how that exact patterned consistency makes all laws hackable, gameable, and man...

We are not fighting against flesh and blood. No, really, NOT flesh and blood! But if not that, then what? In this episode, Dad and I establish what the "powers and principalities" of Ephesians 6 (and other passages) are not and circle around what possibly they are—but, more importantly, what it means to arm ourselves with the gospel to identify and resist them, confident in the victory of Christ o...

There I was, living my tidy little mainstream Protestant life, when Karl Barth sprung the Blumhardts on me. Took a few years (or decades) to follow up, but now I (and even Dad) have become fans of these indigenous German Lutheran revivalists. In this episode we discuss the difference between revivals stemming from European Pietist roots and from American roots, cover the lives of Johann Christoph...

Hagiography happens. Even if you're Protestant. In this episode, we review the history of the saints as both products of the gospel and pathways to the modern practices of science and biography, make the case for why Lutherans and other Protestants should embrace hagiography in an evangelical key, disambiguate veneration from invocation, and, of course, we mention Bonhoeffer. Notes: 1. Among the t...

Why cover justification by faith once when you can do it twice? In this episode we look at the "faith(fulness) of Christ" controversy, how much it's rooted in a faulty understanding of what Luther meant by "faith," what Luther really did mean by "faith," and how that pretty much solves the problem. Whew. Also, why good works don't justify but also why love doesn't justify, either. Notes: 1. Bird a...

The distinguishing quality of Christians is that they believe in Christ... a point that seems almost too obvious to make. But in fact, having belief as the central and distinguishing feature of a religion is so rare and weird that religious scholars have pushed back against the study of other religions through the lens of faith—to the point of not even wanting to study Christianity through that le...

The story of a prophet wherein the cows get the last word! Dad and I enthuse over this simultaneously hilarious and deep little book, ranging from hyperomnipresence to mutable immutability to the self-defeating prophecy and the spiritual dangers of resenting God's mercy. Support us on Patreon! Notes: 1. Luther's commentary on Jonah in LW 19 2. Steiger, Jonas Propheta 3. Sonderegger, Systematic The...

The pastoral ministry doesn't have the social clout it used to, but it's hardly alone. "Vocations of judgment," as we term them in this episode, are under siege everywhere, as the understandable suspicion of human fallibility leads more and more to an outsourcing of human judgment to regulations, bureaucracy, and AI. We hope you'll agree that this is hardly an improvement. In this episode, we try...

Dad and I talk over my new book, To Baptize or Not to Baptize: A Practical Guide for Clergy. Pick it up at the vendor of your choice !

And here I was wondering if anything could beat justification for being a great idea hidden behind a lousy word. Well, pragmatism, you win. Dad renders this unpromising term lively and insightful, shows how its approach avoids the extremes of both rationalism and empiricism, and can prove to be a helpful handmaiden to theology (but, of course, not a foundation. Heavens no). Also, how to cope with...

You can't get too much of a good thing! Picking up where we left off in the last episode, we discuss why "rectification" may be preferable to "justification," what human faith has to do with the faith(fulness) of Jesus, forgiveness vs. the defeat of the dominating power of sin, what on earth Paul is talking about with the "powers," and whether he is in fact suggesting an undoing of all the distinc...

In this episode we only begin to tackle the myriad of issues in this searing, white-hot, impassioned blast from our favorite apostle early in his career. Who were these Galatians, and more importantly, who weren't they? Who were the interloping Teachers, and why does it turn out that sola gratia isn't specific enough? If the law is so treacherous in Paul's reading, why can he turn around and talk...

What to do when there is no longer common faith or common facts? Reversing the tide of history is not an option, but the church recentering itself on its task of being conformed to Christ and learning to speak in the new language of the Spirit is. In this episode, we review what we've covered in the past two, why they run aground, and how Christian speech in the public square can aid civil discour...

In matters civic, we have great sympathies with empiricist and classical-liberal critics of the recent woke madness induced by Critical Social Theory. And yet... In this episode we distinguish among the many children of the Enlightenment, point out the strengths of the empiricist/liberal tradition but also its corresponding weaknesses that CST exploits, and exhort secular empiricists to reconsider...

Hot diggity dog! Here we go, investigating the obscure Marxist theory beloved of academics that has gone viral in the past year... in both senses of the word. In this episode you'll get an effective innoculation, for the good health of your own mind as well as the polis at large. Support us on Patreon! Notes: 1. Hedges, " Cancel Culture: Where Liberalism Goes to Die " 2. Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach...

Second-century bishop and theologian Irenaeus of Lyon is famous for his teaching on recapitulation—how Christ our head redoes everything Adam and the rest of us did wrong—and so, in our worst pun yet, in this episode we recapitulate his teaching. Also, why heresy is not so much a deviation as a dead-end, how redemption is not getting airlifted out of creation, and how my dogma outran your karma. S...

Five years in the writing, and more than a quarter-century after the fact, I Am a Brave Bridge: An American Girl's Hilarious and Heartbreaking Year in the Fledgling Republic of Slovakia recounts the first year that the Hinlicky family spent as missionaries in Slovakia in 1993 (the year of Slovakia's independence) and 1994. In this bonus episode, Dad and I talk about the theological themes embedded...

Among a certain kind of Lutheran theologian, liking Barth just isn't done. We are not that kind. In this episode, Dad walks us through the theological development of the great Swiss Reformed theologian, why Lutherans made it difficult for Barth to receive Luther and what Barth nevertheless gained from Luther, and highlights of Barth's massive theological oeuvre. And we once again discuss the disti...

All memoirs are meditations on providence—so I learned from writing one of my own (see Note #1 below!). I used to think that all Christian memoirs went back to Augustine, but it turns out he had a biblical precedent: Nehemiah, who most unusually in the canon of Scripture reported his own acts and motives in the first person. In this episode, Dad and I consider the advantages of drama over concepts...

Now is the winter of our discontent... or is it the winter of our ecumenism? Either way, the mission-motivated drive to reconcile bitterly divided Christians has succeeded so well that all the frisson has vanished right out of it, but hasn't succeeded enough to actually make us one as Jesus and his Father are one. So in this episode, Dad and I talk through our own interest in and commitment to the...