Crackers and Grape Juice

“It is true that theological doctrines and religious practices do shape and form religious experience, but it is no less true that experience tends to resist such shaping and forming. Attention to the complex interaction of these two insights is a key dimension of the account of “grace as experience” that follows below.”

Our guest this week is a Simeon Zahl, University Lecturer in Christian Theology at the University of Cambridge. Simeon’s new book, which ranges from Martin Luther to Karl Barth, Sarah Coakley to queer affect theory, is The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience. 

https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Christian-Experience/dp/0198827784

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For our latest episode, we're bringing you a conversation Jason had with the inestimable Fleming Rutledge, at the beginning of the COVID quarantine, about God's way of rejecting and electing throughout scripture.

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Our guest today is Dr. Ryan Newson, Professor of Theology and Ethics at Campbell University, about his new book, "Cut in Stone": Confederate Monuments and Theological Disruption."

Confederate monuments figure prominently as epicenters of social conflict. These stone and metal constructs resonate with the tensions of modern America, giving concrete definition to the ideologies that divide us. Confederate monuments alone did not generate these feelings of aggravation, but they are far from innocent. Rather than serving as neutral objects of public remembrance, Confederate monuments articulate a narration of the past that forms the basis for a normative vision of the future. The story, told through the character of a religious mythos, carries implicit sacred convictions; thus, these spires and statues are inherently theological.

In Cut in Stone, Ryan Andrew Newson contends that we cannot fully understand or disrupt these statues without attending to the convictions that give them their power. With a careful overview of the historical contexts in which most Confederate monuments were constructed, Newson demonstrates that these "memorials" were part of a revisionary project intended to resist the social changes brought on by Reconstruction while maintaining a romanticized Southern identity. Confederate monuments thus reinforce a theology concerning the nature of sacrifice and the ultimacy of whiteness. Moreover, this underlying theology serves to conceal inherited collective wounds in the present.

If Confederate monuments are theologically weighted in their allure, then it stands to reason that they must also be contested at this level―precisely as sacred symbols. Newson responds to these inherently theological objects with suggestions for action that are sensitive to the varying contexts within which monuments reside, showing that while all Confederate monuments must come under scrutiny, some monuments should remain standing, but in redefined contexts. Cut in Stone represents the first detailed theological investigation of Confederate monuments, a resource for the larger collective task of determining how to memorialize problematic pasts and how to shape public space amidst contested memory.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

The one, the only David Bentley Hart joins Jason and Dr. Johanna Hartelius to talk about his latest book, Theological Territories: A David Bentley Hart Digest. In particular, we talk about an essay included in the Digest that's timely for our current cultural moment of historical re-examination, "The Story of the Nameless: The Use and Abuse of History for Theology."

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

"Sing lustily and with good courage." John Wesley wrote those words in the Hymnbook for Methodist in 1761. We at Crackers and Grape Juice take those words seriously! Therefore we decided to bring you some of our current "Quarantunes" - songs that have inspired, enlightened, and even enraged us as of recent. Here's the playlist:

1. Thoughts And Prayers - Drive-By Truckers (Jason Micheli)
2. Sea of Love - Langhorne Slim & Jill Andrews (Teer Hardy)
3. What If I Never Get Over You - Lady A (Johanna Hartelius)
4. Cowboy Take Me Away - The Chicks (Tommie Marshell)
5. Moon River - Jacob Collier (David King)
6. Beautiful Strangers - Kevin Morby (Taylor Mertins)

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"The Lost Cause had taught me that faith, particularly faith in Jesus and going to church, was an indispensable part of what it meant to be a good person. But now that very same faith which The Lost Cause had commended was forcing a decision which would impact my past, present, and future. If I kept my faith in The Lost Cause, I would be unable to preach the gospel to the woman sitting next to me. If I wanted to share the gospel with anyone who wasn’t white, I would have to abandon the secular faith of my ancestors. The two were irreconcilable."

Rev. Bryan Jarrell joins Jason and Teer to discuss the Lost Cause, statues in Richmond, and the moment his evangelical world was flipped upside down when he met the real-life consequences of the Stars and Bars.

https://mbird.com/2020/06/under-robert-e-lees-shadow-growing-up-in-the-lost-cause/

Before you listen, do us a solid and help out the podcast.

Click over to http://www.crackersandgrapejuice.com. Click on “Support the Show.”

Become a patron.

For peanuts you can help us out....we appreciate it more than you can imagine.

https://crackersandgrapejuice.com
https://www.facebook.com/crackersnjuice
https://twitter.com/crackersnjuice
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www.teerhardy.com
www.jasonmicheli.org

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

Rev. William H. Lamar IV joins Crackers & Grape Juice to talk about his latest piece featured in Faith & Leadership: 'It's not just the coronavirus -- bad theology is killing us."

The Rev. William H. Lamar IV is pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He previously served Turner Memorial AME Church in Maryland and three churches in Florida: Monticello, Orlando and Jacksonville. He is a former managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. Lamar is a graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Duke Divinity School. He is the co-host of "Can These Bones," the Faith & Leadership podcast, and can be reached on Twitter @WilliamHLamarIV

https://faithandleadership.com/william-h-lamar-iv-its-not-just-coronavirus-bad-theology-killing-us

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

Jason and Teer are joined by author Tara Isabella Burton to discuss her latest opinion piece in the New York Times and new book, 'Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World.'

From the publisher: "In Strange Rites, religious scholar and commentator Tara Isabella Burton visits with the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley; Satanists and polyamorous communities, witches from Bushwick, wellness junkies and social justice activists and devotees of Jordan Peterson, proving Americans are not abandoning religion but remixing it. In search of the deep and the real, they are finding meaning, purpose, ritual, and communities in ever-newer, ever-stranger ways."

http://www.taraisabellaburton.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Rites-Religions-Godless-World/dp/1541762533

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe

Drew Hart joins Jason and Teer to discuss his forthcoming book, 'Who Will Be A Witness ' (September 2020), the ghosts of America's racist past, and what the Gospel says to us in a moment of pandemic, protest, and movement.

Drew G. I. Hart is a public theologian and professor of theology at Messiah College. He has ten years of pastoral ministry experience and is the recipient of multiple awards for peacemaking. Hart attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Missio Seminary and his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences, campuses, and churches across the United States and Canada. His first book, Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, utilizes personal and everyday stories, theological ethics, and anti-racism frameworks to transform the church's understanding and witness.

https://drewgihart.com/
https://twitter.com/DruHart
Pre-order 'Who Will Be A Witness' - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Will-Be-Witness-Deliverance/dp/1513806580

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crackersnjuice.substack.com/subscribe