Host Doug interviews Keith Giles — former pastor, prolific author, podcaster and longtime seeker — about his journey from playing in Christian rock bands and recording at the Green Room to leaving formal ministry so offerings would serve people in need. They discuss Keith’s house church and motel ministries, his deconstruction process, and the evolution of his theology.

The episode covers Keith’s writing (the Jesus Un-series and newer quantum-themed books), his Square One deconstruction community, co-hosted podcasts (Heretic Happy Hour, Second Cup), co-ownership of Quoir Publishing, and key themes like nonviolence, a Jesus-centered reading of Scripture, continual learning, and the idea of human and divine connectedness as a path to love and justice.

Becca Hoback is the premiere solo contemporary movement artist based in Nashville, TN. In this episode, we talk about her growing up as an evangelical Christian in a small city. Becca expresses her deep desire to do everything beyond perfectly into "extra credit" territory. After graduating and moving far from home, Becca went through her coming of age experiences. We talk about this, her continued processing of growing up in purity culture, and how this inspires her work. Hoback just performed the piece called Mellow Drama at the Kindling Arts Festival in Nashville. I wish you could all have witnessed this beautiful piece in which she shared much of what we discussed in the podcast but in a much more poetic way. The work was beautiful and incredibly well put together in the theatrical-dance style which has become her signature style.

Check out Becca's website, https://www.beccahoback.com/, to learn more about her work, how you can keep up to date with what she is doing, and how to support her in this work.

In this episode, Doug sits down with Dr. Matthew Huddleston, a physics professor at Trevecca University, to delve into his remarkable life journey. First we hear about his family's decision to move to the middle of Africa in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo when he was just a boy. He talks about the challenges of transitioning to Africa and the reverse culture shock of moving back to the U.S. as a teenager. We also hear about how Dr. Huddleston developed his passion for physics under the African night sky.

The episode also delves into the intriguing intersection of faith and science, discussing how Dr. Huddleston harmonizes his Christian beliefs with his scientific understanding, despite the perceived conflict between the two realms.

Listeners will also hear about Dr. Huddleston's recently published first novel, a science fiction adventure based on his study of physics. He also recounts his recent adventurous return trip to Congo after 35 years, where he revisits the village of his childhood and embarks on a quest to explore an undiscovered jungle waterfall.

Be sure to check out his novel at one of the following links:

Doug seeks the help of Kisha in attempt to understand gender, sexuality, patriarchy, feminism, complementarianism, egalitarianism, LGBTQA+ and more!

Growing up, the terms sex (as in male or female) and gender were synonymous. However, these terms have been separated to distinguish the nuance between a couple of concepts. Add to this the term "orientation", and we get three major categories related to a person's gender and sexuality.

As few as 0.018% of people may be born intersex, though the number could be as high as 1.7%. The range is due to the challenge of defining what intersex is from a technical, medical perspective. A good estimation may be 0.05%.1,2,3

Things get more complex when it comes to gender since this has to do with less concrete conceptions of oneself. First off, there are people who are anatomically male but feel female and those who are anatomically female but feel male. This is what I typically think of when I think of transgender, though as mentioned this term can be used more broadly.

In addition to those who consider themselves men or women, there are those who consider themselves neither (agender, non-gendered, ungendered, or genderless), both (bigender, dual gender), fluctuating (gender fluid), or another gender (third gender). These are all considered non-binary. This often falls under the umbrella of trans, however non-binary people may not identify as trans. It can be difficult to clearly categorize non-binary people in part because often these people resist classification. They believe people should be free to express and present themselves however they wish and feel that categorization is a way of putting limits on this freedom. This is probably part of the reason there are many different terms used by non-binary people.

We already defined heterosexual in relation to sexual orientation. Those people who are attracted to only those of their same gender are homosexual or colloquially "gay". Homosexual women are also specifically known as lesbians though this is more of a slang term. Beyond this, other people are bisexual meaning they are attracted to people of both genders. Other people don't experience sexual attraction and known as asexual.

As you might expect, definitions become complicated when it comes to non-binary and/or trans people. We've covered the major terms and I won't try to enumerate all of the possible other possibilities.

All this allows us to discuss the acronyms LGBT, LGBTQ, and/or LGBTQ+. This stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. Essentially it is intended to be an umbrella term for all of those which are not cisgender, heterosexual.

Crash Course has a good video on this topic as well as this one.

Doug sits down with Russ T Shipp, front man for the nautical surf-grunge rock band Rusty Shipp. They discuss Russ's upbringing in evangelical Christianity, and how his views have developed over time. Along with this, we discuss his theology and philosophy, as well as his passion to help people through his music.

Check out Russ's band, Rusty Shipp!

A brief introduction to the Digging Doug Podcast.