Accidental Tomatoes

The women of Appalachia have something to say, and our guest for this episode is giving them a place to say it! Alicia Matheney Beeson of the Wild & Wonderful Women of West Virginia Podcast joins Joe and Brandon to talk about why it's so important for the world to listen to the women leading new generations of Appalachians.

While the institutional church struggles to adapt its content to an increasingly online audience, new forms of community are emerging that start from the digital space and grow into all new paradigms of how experience can be shared in virtual spaces. In this episode, innovator James Kang of Pastoria.co talks with Joe and Brandon about how asynchronous content can form the basis for experiential communities and how leaders can leverage new technologies to create transformational experiences unbound by time and space.

If the #hollergospel is about bringing people up from the low places in the world, Brad Davis knows it well because he's been there. In this episode, Brad talks openly and frankly about his time as a drug dealer in the Southern West Virginia coalfields, the almost inescapable spiral of fear and hopelessness of the drug culture, and what motivates him to be part of the solution in a region that seems trapped in multiple layers of addiction.

Joe and Brandon preview Season 3 of the podcast, discussing upcoming guests, plans for new features on the accidentaltomatoes.com website, as well as their favorite Halloween costumes and their aversion to horror movies.

As we continue to prepare for our upcoming third season, we revisit one of our favorite episodes from Season 1 where Joe interviewed social justice activist and author Shane Claiborne in a wide-ranging conversation covering issues from the Sermon on the Mount to gun violence and the death penalty to the Christian response to injustice in the world.

In this re-airing from Season 1 Episode 21, Joe talks with public advocacy specialist Dr. Tomeka Robinson of Hofstra University about why it’s important to center the voices of the marginalized in conversations around justice and equality and the role intersectionality plays in our exercise of privilege.

While we take a short hiatus from new episodes before launching Season 3, we revisit our most-downloaded episode from our first two seasons: Spiritual Trauma with Emily (Stuart) Davey. If you or someone you know has been shamed or ostracized by a religious community or institution, or if you feel like you just don’t fit in those places anymore, this episode is for you.

What if a faith community could see all of its resources—money, time, or access to services—as equal and valid? What if churches asked their neighbors what they need before presuming how to help them? In this episode, Rev. Wendy Hudson of Two Rivers Church in Charleston, SC talks about mutual aid, decolonizing mission, and how her community compensates people from historically marginalized groups for the work they do.

You've seen his cartoons. You've admired his paintings. You've read his books. Now, hear his story! "Naked Pastor" David Hayward sits down with Brandon and Joe to talk about deconstruction, reconstruction, faith development, and how community is at the center of it all. Check out all of David's work at nakedpastor.com

Do all faith traditions lead to the same destination? Or is the idea that all spiritual roads lead to the same place itself insufficient? In this episode we welcome back West Virginia University Sociology Professor Jim Nolan to talk about his concept of the “Temple of Truth” and how different perspectives and entry points lead not to the same place, but deeply into each other.

BONUS: Jim shares his “Apostate’s Creed,” a corrective to unthinking and uncritical religious dogma.

*For a diagram of Jim's Temple of Truth, find the episode page on our website at https://accidentaltomatoes.com