Theology in the Raw

Are evangelicals really defined by Donald Trump, culture wars, and the pursuit of political power? Or are we missing a much bigger picture? Bonnie Kristian joins Preston to discuss her book,  In Defense of Evangelicalism: A Response to Its Cultured Despisers . A journalist and deputy editor at Christianity Today, Bonnie offers a defense of evangelicalism while openly criticizing its failures...

What does faith look like when healing doesn’t come? And how can churches move beyond welcoming people with disabilities to creating genuine belonging? Cameron and Annie Horner join Preston to explore disability, marriage, suffering, and what the church misses when disabled voices are sidelined. Cameron and Annie share how they met at the Exiles in Babylon conference and how vulnerability shaped t...

When does church leadership become spiritual manipulation? And how do you disagree with a pastor who says, “God told me”? Preston talks with New Testament scholar Joshua W. Jipp about how even well-meaning Christian leaders can cross the line from serving people to controlling them. Drawing on his book, How (Not) to Be a Tyrant, Josh explores what the Bible’s worst rulers reveal about power, ambit...

Are Christians being fair in how we understand Islam? Palestinian Christian scholar Dr. Daniel Bannoura joins Preston Sprinkle to explore Islam and Christianity, religious violence, what the Quran says about Jesus, and the treatment of women. In the fourth and final episode of our Understanding Islam series, Daniel helps me process my conversations with Javad Hashmi, Gabriel Said Reynolds, and Far...

Watch our Extra Innings conversation on Patreon, where John Mark Comer shares his evolving views on women in church leadership and the questions he’s still wrestling with:  https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw What is constant noise doing to our souls? And why can being alone with God feel so uncomfortable? John Mark Comer joins Preston to discuss his latest book, Into the Quiet: Followin...

Watch our Extra Innings conversation by joining the Theology in the Raw Patreon community: https://patreon.com/theologyintheraw What happens when the story you grew up believing meets the people whose voices were missing from it? Peter Beinart joins Preston to discuss how spending time with Palestinians challenged his understanding of Israel, Jewish identity, and the relationship between safety an...

What happens when immigrants who came to the U.S. legally lose their status and face deportation? And what happens to their American-born children when the country their parents could be sent to is considered too dangerous to visit? Matthew Soerens joins Preston to unpack some of the biggest questions and misconceptions surrounding immigration. Why don’t immigrants just come legally? Do undocument...

Join the Theology in the Raw Patreon Community to Watch our Extra Innings! https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Is the Book of Revelation a roadmap to the future, or was it meant to help Christians see their own world more clearly? New Testament scholar David deSilva joins Preston to walk through Revelation from the seven churches to the New Jerusalem. They discuss why John wrote to real commu...

Join the Patreon Community: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Fariza Gulomikova grew up in a Shia Ismaili family in Tajikistan. As a child, she saw how much a person could lose by leaving Islam. Then her cousin became a Christian, and the kindness she encountered at his church challenged everything she thought she knew about Christians. In part three of our Understanding Islam series, Fariz...

Join the Theology in the Raw community to hear Preston’s Extra Innings response to this conversation. How does the Qur’an compare to the Bible? Do Muslims read it the way evangelical Christians read the Bible? And if the Qur’an is Islam’s sacred text, why are the Hadith so important for understanding what Muslims believe and how they live? In part two of our series on Islam, Preston sits down with...

Join the Theology in the Raw community to listen to my "Extra Innings" response to my conversation with Javad. What do Christians misunderstand about Islam? Is it inherently violent? Was it spread by the sword? What do Muslims believe about Christians, Sharia, women, the Quran, and the Hadith? In the first episode of our three-part series on Islam, Preston sits down with Dr. Javad Hashmi, a Muslim...

Who decided what a “good woman” should look like? Long before social media, paintings, sculptures, religious images, and other forms of visual culture were shaping our expectations of women. Those images did not merely reflect society. They helped define beauty, sexuality, motherhood, virtue, and even what Christians imagined a godly woman should be. Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt is an art historia...

Are parents accidentally making their kids more anxious by protecting them from discomfort? Dr. Chinwé Williams joins Preston to explain why anxiety, depression, loneliness, and social avoidance have risen among young people. They discuss the role of smartphones and social media, the disappearance of real-world community, constant exposure to frightening news, trauma, pornography, and the pressure...

Hey friends, Check out the top voted questions from my September Q & A! For the full episode, join the Theology in the Raw Patreon Community at https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Here's the full list of Questions: 00:59 Isn’t it unfair to consider gay-affirming Christians “outside the fold” when pro-war Christians have an equally unbiblical view, but are not treated as such? 09:15 Prophe...

What if Christian unity doesn’t mean agreeing about everything? Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez joins Preston to discuss the difference between genuine Christian unity and the false peace created by forced agreement. Drawing from her new book,  False Peace , Pricelis explains why sameness can silence people, erase meaningful differences, and prevent churches from addressing conflict honestly. The...

What does the Bible really mean by modesty, and why have Christian conversations about clothing so often produced shame, especially for women and teenage girls? Dr. Sandra Richter is a renown biblical scholar, author, and professor of Old Testament at Westmont College. The 2nd edition of her killer book, The Epic of Eden, releases in November 2026. Sandy is also a faithful mom, and one of her daug...

Colleen Ramser is an EMDR-certified licensed professional counselor (LPC) who specializes in trauma, particularly the effects of spiritual abuse, domestic abuse, and complex trauma. She’s a survivor of spiritual trauma, which she talks about in the show, and she’s the author of the book  The Shattered Soul: Restoring Wholeness and Rebuilding Your Faith After Spiritual Trauma , which addresses...

To listen to or watch our extra innings conversation, become a member of the Theology in the Raw community at https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw. Dr Sandra Glahn has spend more than a quarter of a century working as a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. She's the cofounder of the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity and the author of more than 25 books--her latest being A Woman's Pla...

Max Lucado is a pastor with decades of ministry experience and one of the most bestselling Christian authors of all time, who’s written more than 40 books that have sold around 150 million copies and have been translated in 56 languages. His latest book is  Unbreakable Courage: Strong Faith in an Age of Anxiety, Chaos, and Exhaustion. Chapters  00:07:42 Revisiting 2020: Covid and BLM 00:...

Max Lucado is a pastor with decades of ministry experience and one of the most bestselling Christian authors of all time, who’s written more than 40 books that have sold around 150 million copies and have been translated in 56 languages. His latest book is  Unbreakable Courage: Strong Faith in an Age of Anxiety, Chaos, and Exhaustion. Chapters  00:07:42 Revisiting 2020: Covid and BLM 00:...

Be sure to check out our “Extra Innings” conversation where we discuss what the Old Testament actually says about sex outside of marriage. Surprisingly, there’s no explicit verse in the OT that forbids it. To listen to the full conversation, become a member of the TITR community at https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Dr. Dru Johnson (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is Templeton Senior Researc...

To listen to our extra innings conversation, head over to patreon.com/theologyintheraw and become a member of the TITR community and get access to all of my extra innings conversations and a bunch bonus content Dr. Alison Cook is a therapist, psychologist of religion, bestselling author, and host of the top-ranked The Best of You podcast. She holds degrees from Dartmouth College (BA), Denver Semin...

Dr. Daniel Bannoura (Ph. D. Notre Dame University) is a Palestinian theologian and Director of Public Engagement at the  Bethlehem Institute for Peace & Justice . Daniel received his PhD degree in Qur'anic Studies from the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the history and redaction of the Qur'an, Christian-Muslim relations, and Palestinian theology. Daniel also host of “Ac...

If you want to listen to our "Extra Innings" conversation about whether marriage is necessary for men to be truly masculine, head over to patreon.com/theologyintheraw and become a member of the Theology in the Raw community. Dr. Zachary Wagner (DPhil, Oxford) is an author, ordained minister, and New Testament scholar. He’s written two books that deal with masculinity, male sexuality, and virtue: N...

Join the Theology in the Raw Community on Patreon to listen to our Extra Innings Segment about whether or not you need to be married to truly be masculine. You’ll also get bonus episodes, Zoom meet ups, and more!  What does it mean to be a man? It's a question that's generating plenty of heat online, but not much clarity. In this first episode of a two-part series on biblical masculinity, Pre...