If not the Bible, where do our ideas about marriage come from? We take a jog through 2,000 years of church history, charting the evolution of Christian marriage to the institution we know today.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

Has the Church always cared about marriage? When did marrying for love become the norm and how does commonlaw marriage fit into the picture? How has marriage been used as a tool in religious power struggles?

Simon explains all, along with a few important ideas from the past few millenia that have shaped our view of relationships.

Coming up

Our next Q&A episode is on Monday 8th December, so if you’d like to ask a question on anything you’ve heard from the podcast so far, then make sure you get your question to us by Friday 28 November to feature. Contact us via email, social media or our Substack page.

Episode 5 – We need to talk about patriarchy – is released on Monday 22 December. Patriarchy is the invisible thread that has run through all of our conversations so far. Can our relationships ever be truly equitable under a patriarchal system?

About A God We Could Believe In:

A frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. We’re examining the things the church says and does that are embarrassing, confusing or even downright offensive. In other religious contexts, your questions might be forbidden but not here. So whether you’re a lifelong churchgoer with the scars to prove it, or you’ve never entered a church and are just interested in the debate, this is a safe space for you.

New episodes are released every other Monday.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com

Stay in touchEmail: [email protected]Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelieveinInstagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

In this special bonus episode we meet Lauren Jackson, a sex educator who shares her experiences of preparing our young people to navigate the world of sex and relationships positively and safely.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

Lauren shares her valuable insights into what our teenagers think about sex, and some ways parents and youth leaders can begin to approach the topic of sex and relationships with the young people in their care.

Resources

Lauren has put together some helpful resources for navigating sex and relationships here. If you have any questions for Lauren about anything covered in the episode, or for further advice, please pop us an email.

Coming up

Episode 4 – The binfire rages on – is released on Monday 24 November. Simon will be picking up the baton and running headlong through two millenia of Church history to explain how we arrived at our present day conception of marriage.

About A God We Could Believe In:

A frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. We’re examining the things the church says and does that are embarrassing, confusing or even downright offensive. In other religious contexts, your questions might be forbidden but not here. So whether you’re a lifelong churchgoer with the scars to prove it, or you’ve never entered a church and are just interested in the debate, this is a safe space for you.

New episodes are released every other Monday.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com

Stay in touchEmail: [email protected]Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelieveinInstagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

We wrestle with your questions in response to our latest episode, Marriage in the Bible is a binfire.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

If the depiction of marriage in the Bible is so chaotic then what are we supposed to do with it? Does God bring anything important to marriage, and why don’t churches seem to have anything to say to single people over 45?

Coming up

Next Monday 17 November, we’re releasing a special bonus episode with sex educator (and childhood friend of Rachel) Lauren Jackson. Lauren shares her valuable insights into what our teenagers think about sex, and some ways parents and youth leaders can begin to approach the topic of sex and relationships with the young people in their care.

Episode 4 – The binfire rages on – is released on Monday 24 November. Simon will be picking up the baton and running headlong through two millenia of Church history to explain how we arrived at our present day conception of marriage.

About A God We Could Believe In:

A frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. We’re examining the things the church says and does that are embarrassing, confusing or even downright offensive. In other religious contexts, your questions might be forbidden but not here. So whether you’re a lifelong churchgoer with the scars to prove it, or you’ve never entered a church and are just interested in the debate, this is a safe space for you.

New episodes are released every other Monday.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com

Stay in touch: Email | Facebook | Instagram

A binfire? Bit harsh? Not unless you’ve read the thing… Here Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis takes us on a tour of the Bible to see if we can find an example of a marriage we’d actually want to emulate.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. In particular, this episode contains references to sexual violence, rape and femicide as depicted in the Old Testament. Please look after yourselves.

The modern church likes to appeal to something called the ‘biblical doctrine of marriage’ but the evidence for such a thing feels a little thin on the ground. We examine the examples of attitudes towards marriage found in the Old Testament texts and ask what we should be doing with the ancient erotica of Songs of Solomon.

We then explore marriage in the New Testament. Many of our biblical ideas about marriage come from the writing of Paul, so we unpick some of his teaching and motivations. Crucially, how wise is it to create eternal rules from the ideas of a man who was convinced the world was about to end?

Coming up

Our next Q&A episode is on 10 November, so if you’d like to ask a question on anything you’ve heard from the podcast so far, then make sure you get your question to us by Friday 31 October to feature. Contact us via email, social media or our Substack page.

Episode 4 – The binfire rages on – is released on Monday 24 November. Simon will be picking up the batten and running headlong through two millenia of Church history to explain how we arrived at our present day conception of marriage.

About A God We Could Believe In:

A frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. We’re examining the things the church says and does that are embarrassing, confusing or even downright offensive. In other religious contexts, your questions might be forbidden but not here. So whether you’re a lifelong churchgoer with the scars to prove it, or you’ve never entered a church and are just interested in the debate, this is a safe space for you.

New episodes are released every other Monday.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com

Stay in touch

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelievein

Instagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

After two full episodes of A God We Could Believe In we take stock and address some of your comments and questions on sex, relationships and the Church. Should we be affirming the “traditional” view of marriage and are we just making excuses to justify our own wants and desires?

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

There’s a vanishingly short section answering the question “What’s the best advice we’ve been given by a church or vicar?”. Then, to prefigure a major theme in our next few episodes, we examine what the recent news of Bishop Sarah Mullally’s appointment as the next Archbishop of Canterbury means for the centuries-old patriarchal juggernaut, the Church of England.

Coming up

Episode 3 – Marriage in the Bible is a binfire – is released on 27 October, where resident our biblical scholar Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis takes us on a whistle stop tour through the Bible, as we go hunting for the mythical model of a good Christian marriage.

Our next Q&A episode is on 10 November, so if you’d like to ask a question on anything you’ve heard from the podcast so far, then make sure you get your question to us by Friday 31 October to feature. Contact us via email, social media or our Substack page. You can also leave a comment anonymously, using this form.

Correction - 22 October: A previous version of this description, as well as the episode itself, incorrectly listed the Q&A deadline as Friday 7 November. This has now been updated to Friday 31 October.

About A God We Could Believe In:

A frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. We’re examining the things the church says and does that are embarrassing, confusing or even downright offensive. In other religious contexts, your questions might be forbidden but not here. So whether you’re a lifelong churchgoer with the scars to prove it, or you’ve never entered a church and are just interested in the debate, this is a safe space for you.

New episodes are released every other Monday.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com.

Stay in touchEmail: [email protected]Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelieveinInstagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

So what does the church actually teach about sex? We unpick the widely held view within Christianity that sex is only morally acceptable when it takes place within a marriage, and how this view is reinforced.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

We discuss how, for all the church’s squeamishness when it comes to sex and pleasure, society hasn’t necessarily served us any better. Power, purity and gender roles all come under the microscope and the role of shame in policing behaviour is explored.

We ask what we would do differently when it comes to talking about sex and relationships. We begin to outline a more positive and holistic framing and at one point, Simon even explores the implications of thinking about Jesus during sex.

Coming up

Our first Q&A episode is on 13 October, so if you’d like to ask a question on anything you’ve heard from the podcast so far, then make sure you get your question to us by Friday 3 October to feature. Contact us via email, social media or our Substack page.

Episode 3 – Marriage in the Bible is a binfire – is released on 27 October, where resident our biblical scholar Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis takes us on a whistle stop tour through the Bible, as we go hunting for the mythical model of a good Christian marriage.

Stay in touchEmail: [email protected]Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelieveinInstagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

In this episode, we share what we remember of church teaching on sex and what that meant for us in our earliest relationships.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse, gender and identity, including some references to sexual violence in this episode at around 34 minutes in, so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

We dig up memories of vivid youth group purity exercises designed to embed fear and shame. We unpick the unbalanced messaging that portrays male sexuality as something uncontrollable and female sexuality as something to be guarded, at the expense of desire, autonomy and consent.

We also share how our perspectives have changed. Simon reflects on growing up in a sexually open but chaotic environment before becoming a Christian and gradually moving beyond rigid moral rules. Charlotte recounts her struggle with sexual violence and the absence of support or empowerment in church settings. Rachel describes navigating a Christian upbringing, her bisexuality, and the decision to embrace intimacy with her partner.

Coming up

The next episode is released on 29 September, where we go even further into the world of church teaching on sex and explore the outworkings of that messaging further. Our first Q&A episode is on 13 October, so if you’d like to ask a question on anything you’ve heard from the podcast, then make sure you get your question to us by Friday 3 October to feature.

Stay in touch

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelievein

Instagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein

Introducing A God We Could Believe In, a frank and honest look at Christianity as we find it today. In this episode you’ll meet the team and find out what brought us together and why, for our first full series, we’ve decided to dive headlong into the thorny topic of sex and relationships.

Content warning: This series covers issues of sexual relationships, abuse,  gender and identity so listener discretion is advised. Please look after yourselves.

In this introductory episode, you’ll meet hosts Tim Woodson, practical theologian and soon-to-retire Baptist minister Simon Hall, biblical scholar Charlotte Naylor Davis, and poet and former social worker Rachel Hall. We share the story behind this new podcast and set the tone for the important conversations to come.

New episodes will be available every other Monday. Episode 1 is already available, where we discuss what we have learned in church about sex and how that shaped our earliest experiences of relationships.

Support the project by sharing it widely and join our Substack community for bonus episodes and reflections at agodwecouldbelievein.substack.com

Stay in touchEmail: [email protected]Facebook: www.facebook.com/agodwecouldbelieveinInstagram: www.instagram.com/agodwecouldbelievein