This Is Not Church Podcast

In this episode we chat with Matthew Distefano. Matthew is a best-selling author, blogger, podcaster, long-time social worker, and hip-hop artist. He is an outspoken advocate for nonviolence, happily married, with one daughter. Outside of writing, his interests include gardening, hiking, and European football. He lives in Northern California. Matthew has released two books in the last year. Don't...

In this episode we chat with Brandon Dragan. Brandon Dragan earned his J.D. from Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, TN and won the American Bar Association Journal’s 2021 Ross Writing Contest. He draws on a wide range of influences—from literature, to history, to philosophy—to craft meaningful and often surprising narratives that challenge the status-quo and reach for a deeper underst...

In this episode we chat with Father Shannon Kearns. Shannon TL Kearns is a transgender man who believes in the transformative power of story. As an ordained priest, a playwright, a theologian, and a writer all of his work revolves around making meaning through story. He's the co-founder of QueerTheology.com, which has reached more than a million people all over the world through videos, articles,...

In this episode we chat with Kevin Sweeney. Kevin Sweeney is co-founder and lead pastor of Imagine Church—an urban church in Honolulu that is welcoming of all people, sees imagination as the key to the future, chooses authenticity over performance, substance over hype, and quality over quantity.  He is the host of podcast “The Church Needs Therapy” and is the author of the forthcoming books, “The...

In this episode we chat with Willie Dwayne Francois III. Willie Dwayne Francois III (DMin, Candler School of Theology) is senior pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville, New Jersey, and president of the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality. He serves as assistant professor of liberation theology at New York Theological Seminary and directs a master’s degree program at Sing Sin...

In this episode we chat with Keith Giles. In this bonus episode we catch up with Keith Giles and all his goings on. Keith is the author of several books, including: "Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible" and "Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb." Keith Latest book Sola Mysterium was released by Quoir on 6/28/22. Keith is the co-host of the...

In this episode we chat with Will Jawando. Will Jawando is an attorney, an activist, a community leader and a councilmember in Montgomery County, Maryland, a diverse community of more than one million residents. Called “the progressive leader we need” by the late congressman John Lewis, Jawando has worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Sherrod Brown and President Barack Obama. His writing has...

In this episode we chat with Linda Kay Klein. Linda Kay Klein (she/her) is author of the award-winning book,  Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free . She is also a religious deconstruction & purity culture recovery coach, and the founder and president Break Free Together, a not-for-profit organization serving individuals recovering from...

In this episode we chat with Charles Marsh. Charles Marsh is a professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. His books include God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Princeton), which won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Knopf), which was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography an...

In this episode we chat with Frank Schaeffer. Frank Schaeffer is a  New York Times  bestselling author of more than a dozen books. Frank is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director of four low budget Hollywood features Frank has describe...

In this episode we chat with Gabriel Gordon. Gabriel Gordon graduated with a double major in Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Ministry from Oklahoma Baptist University. He is currently working on his Master of Theological Studies at Portland Seminary. He is the director of student ministries with Christ Church Episcopal and a co-founder of The Misfits Theology Club: a blog dedicated to working towa...

In this episode we chat with Phile Drysdale. Here is Phil's bio in his own words.  I’m not a world renowned theologian, I’ve not been through years of seminary, I’ve not even been a pastor of a church. However I have something going for me that many do not… I’m never scared to ask questions of what I believe. If what I’m standing on is a solid foundation then it will stand. If not – then I’m glad...

In this episode we chat with Albert Tate. Albert Tate is the founding and lead pastor of Fellowship Church in Los Angeles County California. He began his ministry pastoring just a few families at Sweet Home Church in Mississippi before serving the historic Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California. Hearing the call from God to plant a church, Albert and his wife, LaRosa, launched Fellowship Churc...

In this episode we chat with Barton Breen. Barton Breen is 59 years old. Originally from Canada he is a dual citizen in the US and has lived in the US for 40 years. He was a minister a district worker and church administrator for 20 years in an evangelical conservative denomination. he left church in 2005 has worked secularly since then. He left church entirely in 2008 while working through a peri...

In this episode we chat with Christena Cleveland. Christena Cleveland Ph. D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization,  Sacred Folk , which creates resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation. A weaver of Black libe...

In this episode we chat with Brian McLaren. Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a faculty member of  The Living School and podcaster with Learning How to See, which are part...

In this episode we chat with Katey Walter Anthony. Katey Walter Anthony PhD is a professor of aquatic ecology, biogeochemistry, and permafrost science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her research focuses on methane emissions from Arctic lakes, the degradation of permafrost, and their associated feedbacks to global climate through the carbon cycle. She and her work have been featured in  Nat...

In this episode we chat with Meg Calvin. Meggie Lee Calvin (Meg) is an Amazon Bestselling Author of the book, I Am My Own Sanctuary: How A Recovering Holy-Roller Found Healing And Power. Meg is a wife, mom, speaker, podcaster, and coach who helps her fellow Spiritually-Attuned Go-Getters find confidence and certainty in who they were meant to be.  You can connect with Meg on: Facebook       Instag...

In this episode we chat with Ben DeLong. Here is his bio in his own words:  I was born in Iowa, grew up as a pastor’s kid, and eventually became a pastor myself. What I later learned was that becoming a pastor was my way of coping with wounds and trauma that had built up within me since childhood. I have since given up being a pastor and turned my focus to becoming an author. My lovely wife has be...

In this episode we chat with John Dominic Crossan. John Dominic Crossan is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University, Chicago. He has written twenty books on the historical Jesus in the last thirty years, four of which have become national religious bestsellers:  The Historical Jesus  (1991),  Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography  (1994),  Who Killed Jesus  (1995), and  The Birth of C...

In this episode we chat with the authors of the book - After Jesus Before Christianity. Dr. Erin K. Vearncombe is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, appointed to the Office of the Dean. She received her Ph. D. in a collaborative program at the University of Toronto between the Department for the Study of Religion and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. A specialist in w...

In this episode we chat with Paul Swearengin. Paul Swearengin is a licensed minister, author, podcast host and emotional and spiritual well-being coach dedicated to affirming those searching for personal transformation and renewal in today’s often confusing culture. Known as the TikTok Pastor, and a survivor of the emotional abuse of an evangelical upbringing, Paul brings in this season an importa...

In this episode we chat with Amy Courts.      Amy Courts is a singer-songwriter, musician, writer, activist, and Seminarian based in Minneapolis, MN where she lives with her husband and son. Amy grew up in Denver, CO the youngest of four preacher's daughters and, after graduating in 2003 with her B.A. in Biblical Studies, moved to Nashville, TN where she independently produced and released two alb...

In this episode we chat with Ellen Compton.  I will let Ellen introduce herself. Allow me to introduce myself with a few miscellaneous thoughts: I am a family-prioritizing, coffee-drinking, truth-telling, authenticity-seeking, list-making, God-following, world-loving, ambiverted,  former  closet writer. The words  laid back  have never been used to describe me. I am an unabashed over-user of hasht...

In this episode we chat with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza is a TransQueer Activist, Latinx Scholar, and Politicized Theologian working in the borderlands of church and faith communities, social change movements, and higher education institutions. Important to note about Dr. Robyn is that they are a non-binary Transgender Latinx who is trained as a constructive philoso...