Christy, Matt, and Ben discuss the virtues of participating in book clubs, and some of the goodness that has emerged from the new Gravity Book Club. (We are selecting our next book right now, by the way!) Let us know what you think we should read and discuss together. Connect with Gravity Commons: Leave us a message or ask a question about this or …

We talked with Dr. Thomas J. Oord about the recent heresy trial he underwent in his denomination for LGBTQ+ affirmation, what led him to fully affirm LGBTQ+ people, and many of the issues and questions that come up when discussing human sexuality. Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. Oord is a bes…

In this impromptu bonus episode, Matt Tebbe convenes a panel of pastors to discuss the spiritual, emotional and social implications of a second Donald Trump presidency. They explore personal reflections on identity, the challenges of fostering unity in diverse communities, and the importance of recognizing and addressing systemic issues such as rac…

We talk with Pastor Timothy McCain about how to have healthy, honest conversations with those different from us. Timothy's new book is Honest Conversations: Talking to Understand; Not to Win, which explores how to have conversations across differences in culture, experience, and lifestyle. Whether you want to learn more about someone's culture as y…

We talk with Hebrew Bible scholar Jacob L. Wright about why no other ancient society produced anything like the Bible: a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Wright's book Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins was on The New Yorkers BEST OF 2023 list, as well as one of the …

Pastor and writer Joel A. Bowman, Sr. joins us for a wide-ranging discussion on thinking about and practicing politics through the lens of Christian faith. We touch on the upcoming presidential election, the history and theology of the Black church tradition, and the culture war. Rev. Joel A. Bowman, Sr. is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and has be…

Spiritual director, podcast host, and author Emily P. Freeman joins us to talk about what to do when you start to feel a shift and must decide if it's time to make a change, and how to know when the time is right. Emily's book How to Walk Into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away helps us begin to uncover the silent, nuance…

We talked with Chuck DeGroat about how to heal from the hidden hurt of what's happened to us that we couldn't control. His new book Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself—and to God—When You're Wounded, Weary, and Wandering is available today. Chuck DeGroat is a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Se…

Professor Grace Ji-Sun Kim join us to talk about the historical origins and theological implications of how the olive-skinned Jesus "became white" and how the invisible, infinite God became a white male. In her book When God Became White: Dismantling Whiteness for a More Just Christianity, she outlines how the myth of the white male God has had a d…

Author and mental health advocate Chris Morris has battled depression and suicidality his entire adult life: the grief of unrelenting illness, the shame of struggling, and the pain of poor guidance. In his book Resilient and Redeemed: Lessons about Suicidality and Depression from the Psych Ward, he shares how he has dealt with these challenges--and…

Professor David Gushee is back on the podcast to talk about how the moral teachings of Jesus can help those who feel the old version of their faith is no longer working to cultivate a more examined and robust faith. In Gushee's new book, The Moral Teachings of Jesus: Radical Instruction in the Will of God, he examines forty teachings of Jesus, draw…

We talked with podcaster, theology nerd, and former pastor Josh Patterson about leaving the pastorate, starting his (Re)thinking Faith podcast, working a "secular" job, and why he's looking forward to Theology Beer Camp (Oct 17-19 in Denver - join us and register using our code GRAVITYHOBBIT to get $50 off registration!). Joshua Patterson is the fo…

We continue our series with Jon DePue (co-author of Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel) about how to interpret specific scripture passages and theological ideas in the new "liberated" way he outlines in the book. Today we talk about "faith" - what does Paul actually mean when he talks about faith? What does it mean for us to have faith?…

We talked with podcaster and theology nerd Tripp Fuller about the history, mistakes, and legacy of the emerging church movement of the early 2000s, the state of the church and theology right now, and why he's excited about Theology Beer Camp this fall (Oct 17-19 in Denver). Tripp Fuller likes the LA Lakers, beer camps, Illia Delio, the Church, phil…

Khristi Lauren Adams's faith was first shaped by her experiences as a Black girl--learning about Scripture from her grandmother, Mama Hattie; "playing church" with her seven cousins over summer vacation; and grieving the murder of her sixteen-year-old friend when she was just fifteen. In Womanish Theology: Discovering God Through the Lens of Black …

Registered psychologist and award-winning researcher Hillary McBride joins us to talk about all things embodied. In her latest book Practices for Embodied Living: Experiencing the Wisdom of Your Body, McBride offers an experiential guide--centered on prompts, activities, and opportunities for reflection--to support readers who want to practice embo…

We talk with writer and artist Jenai Auman about the experience of being left out or pushed out of the church, and how to find spiritual rest and belonging in a God who loves, restores, and blesses the outcast and the marginalized. In her book Othered: Finding Belonging with the God Who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed, and Marginalized, Jenai draws on her…

Today we start a new regular series on the podcast, based on our conversation a couple months ago with Jon DePue about Liberating the Gospel from Mere Justification. The paradigm shift in Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel (the book Jon co-authored with Douglas Campbell) is such a big one for most of us that we thought it'd be helpful t…

After twenty years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a global pandemic, protests against racial violence, and frequent shootings, more Americans than ever are living with the effects of trauma. Our conversation with Army veteran and Episcopal priest David Peters helps us see the good news that Jesus was born and died in a traumatized world, and his s…

Matt and Ben respond to a listener question about finding a place in the body of Christ after clergy sexual abuse. Connect with Gravity Commons: Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode. Join the Gravity Community to interact with other listeners, and get our list of curated links …

In the face of the rising threat of Christian Nationalism to both church and democracy, Beau Underwood joins us to talk about how some of the hidden undercurrents are present not just among evangelical Christians, but in the mainline church, which is the theme of the book he co-wrote with Brian Kaylor, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants He…

We're starting a Book Club, and you're invited! We talk about why we wanted to do this, how you can be involved, and the first book we'll discuss: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by journalist Tim Alberta. The Book Club will be a weekly discussion on Fridays at 12pm ET starting August 2, 2024 (re…

Though evangelicals emphasize fidelity to the gospel above all else, many have fallen in step with "a different gospel" of Christian nationalism. Analyzing Scripture, church history, and current events in the United States and Russia, Joel Looper offers evangelicals a theological rationale for resisting Christian nationalism. Joel Looper teaches at…

There is no such thing as substitutionary death sacrifice in the Torah, which changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus's death. The consistent message throughout the entire NT is not that Jesus died instead of us, rather, Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed the image of his death. It's not about substituti…

What if obedience is not the goal of Christian parenting? What if it's our job as parents to instead help our kids get to know God and discover that God can be trusted? In her book Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn't Have to Heal From, pastor and parent Meredith Miller helps families nurture the kind of faith that can flex and grow, be broken…

Men today are starved for sexual formation. They've been failed by parents, churches, and culture alike, leading to widespread shame, confusion, and brokenness in the area of sexuality. We talked with therapist Sam Jolman about helping men reconnect their God-given sexuality with innocence, awe, and joy, and shows readers how to celebrate--instead …

Lee C. Camp joins us (again!) for a wide-ranging conversation about human flourishing, habits, ethics, politics, philosophy, and faith. This is Lee's second time on the podcast - we talked with him in 2020 about his book Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. Lee C. Camp is an award-winning teacher and Professor of Theolog…

In a world experiencing turbulent change, we need people who are resilient, kind, open, generous, and brave. How do we become those kinds of people? In Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, popular podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield uses the seven deadly sins as a framework to explore this question. Elizabeth Oldfield hosts The Sacred, a p…

We talk with spiritual director Terra McDaniel about how to rediscover the lost practice of lament, so we can heal and hope again. Most people don't know how to process personal or communal mourning and instead struggle to honor our tears, vulnerability, and the full weight of these disillusioning times. But tending our grief is exactly what we nee…

Matt posted something on Facebook recently about people who attempt to "police" those going through deconstruction, who seem to: equate deconstruction with de-conversion, say people deconstruct so they can sin, say people deconstruct to 'be cool or hip or trendy or for street cred', criticize 'giving up' on the local church, and blame deconstructio…

In their new book Beyond Justification: Liberating Paul’s Gospel, Douglas Campbell and Jon Depue address a growing frustration among many Christians of how to understand what seems to be contradictory messages from Paul about the Gospel. On one hand, Paul usually talks about a participatory, transformational good news full of freedom, resurrection,…

The fact that "good evangelical Christians are Republican" seems obvious means the propaganda is working. Professor and author Scott Coley helps us understand how evangelicalism became fused with right-wing politics and now presses evangelical theology into the service of authoritarian politics, which he outlines in his new book Ministers of Propag…

A dramatic misinterpretation of the Jewish tradition has shaped the history of the West: Christianity is the religion of love, and Judaism the religion of law. In the face of centuries of this widespread misrepresentation, Rabbi Shai Held, in his book Judaism Is about Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life, recovers the heart of the Jewish tradi…

In her book Forgiveness After Trauma: A Path to Find Healing and Empowerment, Christian minister and scholar Susannah Griffith explores what the Bible says--and doesn't say--about the biblical call to forgive. She helps readers understand a "trauma-informed forgiveness" that is healing and restorative, framing forgiveness within broader concerns ar…

American history has profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, Christianity. In her book Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith, Dr. Elesha Coffman tells the story of Christianity in the United States by focusing on 13 key events over four centuries of history. Elesha helps us understand our faith and…

The Beatitudes are some of the most-quoted and least-understood words of Jesus. Pastor and author Ryan Post helps us hear the Beatitudes anew as good news to form us into Christlikeness. Ryan Post is the lead pastor of Village Church in Burbank, CA and the author of Healthy Prayer: Integrating Structure, Silence, and Spontaneity and the book we tal…

Many Christians and churches are rediscovering that God cares deeply about justice, but opinions abound as to what an approach to biblical justice might look like in contemporary society. We talk with biblical scholar Michael Rhodes about justice-oriented discipleship that is critical for the formation of God's people, which is the theme of his new…

Children are marginalized in our churches, dismissed into Sunday school or silenced for lengthy sermons aimed at adults. Ryan Stollar has spent his career advocating for the rights of children, and in his book The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology, he proposes a liberation theology of the child, whereby we can avoid stunting their spiritua…

Pastor, podcaster, and public theologian Trey Ferguson knows that faith can get messy. In his book Theologizin' Bigger: Homilies on Living Freely and Loving Wholly, he encourages us to re-engage our imaginations and construct theologies that speak to our current contexts. Our conversation covers topics like how we read the Bible, our inherited trad…

We talked with biblical scholar Pete Enns about how the Bible actually works, what to do when your faith takes turns you never saw coming, and lots more. This is kind of a mashup conclusion for our past series on the Bible and our series on deconstruction. Pete Enns is the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, and th…

As a Black autistic pastor and disability scholar, Lamar Hardwick lives at the intersection of disability, race, and religion. He wrote How Ableism Fuels Racism: Dismantling the Hierarchy of Bodies in the Church to help Christian communities engage in critical conversations about race by addressing issues of ableism. Lamar Hardwick is the lead past…

There are lots of misconceptions about "deconstruction" (i.e. it's the "easy way out" or a way to avoid accountability). But Angela Herrington, in her new book Deconstructing Your Faith Without Losing Yourself, defines it as healing from religious trauma by releasing harmful beliefs, and accompanies people on that journey in her work. Angela Herrin…

Many First Nations tribes communicate with the cultural and linguistic thought patterns found in their original tongues. Terry Wildman joins us to talk about The First Nations Version (FNV), his indigenous translation of the New Testament, which recounts the Creator’s Story—the Christian Scriptures—following the tradition of Native storytellers’ or…

Jon Ward's life is divided in half: two decades inside the evangelical Christian bubble and two decades outside of it. In his book Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation, Ward tells the engaging story of his upbringing in, and eventual break from, an influential evangelical church in the 1980s and 1990s. Ward sheds ligh…

What does it look like to love someone you disagree with? In Loving Disagreement: Fighting for Community through the Fruit of the Spirit, Kathy Khang and Matt Mikalatos share how the fruit of the Spirit informs our ability to engage in profound difference and conflict with love. Kathy Khang is a writer, speaker, and yoga teacher. She's contributed …

Most of us assume that all shame is toxic shame (feeling bad for the person I am). But can shame be "good"? In this episode we continue a conversation we started a few episodes ago in our Christmas episode, where we wondered about the way Jesus seems to leverage shame to seek repentance and restitution from oppressors. We received some excellent re…

We started Gravity in 2015, and up until recently the official name of the organization was Gravity Leadership. But we recently changed our name to Gravity Commons. Why? Show notes: Read the article online: Why We Changed Our Name to Gravity Commons Join the Gravity Community. Connect with Gravity: Leave us a message or ask a question about this or…

In her book Eve Isn't Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions, the Rev. Dr. Julie Faith Parker reads biblical texts through a feminist lens, discussing how vital our readings of the Bible can be as a source of strength, guidance, and joyful defiance. Julie Faith Parker lives in NYC where she is a visiting scholar at Union Theo…

We talk with pastor and professor Cheryl Bridges Johns about why our reading of the Bible needs to be "re-enchanted" for us to encounter it as God's Word. She is the author of Re-Enchanting the Text: Discovering the Bible as Sacred, Dangerous, and Mysterious. Cheryl Bridges Johns is a pastor and theologian who has taught collee and seminary student…

Christy, Matt, and Ben spend some time reflecting on the past year: what they're learning and hoping for in the new year (and opening Christmas presents!). Connect with Gravity: Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode. Join the Gravity Community to interact with other listeners, a…