Gravity Commons Podcast

Sociologist Lisa Weaver Swartz joins us to talk how gender and power work in American evangelicalism, beyond the level of policies, theological positions, and aspirations. Her book Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power explores this dynamic by examining the formation of evangelical leaders in two seminary communities, one complementarian (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and one egalitarian (Asbury Theological Seminary).

Lisa Weaver Swartz holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame. She lives in the bluegrass region of Kentucky where she teaches sociology and writes about gender and religion. You can connect with her via her website.

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• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
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What can we do to combat the misinformation that's impacting the people we care about and dividing our communities? Life and politics in the US are suffering from a raging knowledge crisis, and the church is no exception. Experienced journalist and author Bonnie Kristian helps us unpack this crisis and explore ways to combat it in our own lives, families, and church communities.

These are the themes of Bonnie's new book Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community. Drawing from her extensive experience in journalism and her training as a theologian, Kristian explores social media, political and digital culture, online paranoia, and the press itself. She explains factors that contribute to our confusion and helps Christians pay attention to how we consume content and think about truth. Finally, she provides specific ways to take action, empowering readers to avoid succumbing to or fueling the knowledge crisis.

Bonnie Kristian is an experienced journalist and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). She writes and edits opinion pieces on foreign policy, religion, criminal justice, urbanism, civil liberties, electoral politics, and more. Her column, "The Lesser Kingdom," appears in print and online at Christianity Today. A graduate of Bethel Seminary, Bonnie lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and twin sons.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact us at [email protected].

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Christy, Matt, and Ben look back on 2022 and reflect on breakthroughs, challenges, learning, growth, and their favorite podcast episodes, as well as look to what 2023 will bring for their lives and the podcast. Ben and Matt also open a Christmas gift from Christy.

Podcast episodes mentioned:

• David Ford: A Fresh Encounter with Jesus Through John’s Gospel
• Marc Alan Schelske: Cultivating Spiritual Growth Through Journaling
• Deconstructing Spiritual Practices, Embracing New Paradigms (Book series beginning)
• KJ Ramsey: Stepping Through Fear Toward the Voice of Love
• Melissa Florer-Bixler: How to Have An Enemy
• Brandon O’Brien: How We Misread Scripture With Western Eyes

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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Many American Christians have good intentions, working hard to welcome immigrants with hospitality and solidarity. But how can we do that in a way that empowers our immigrant neighbors rather than pushing them to the fringes of white-dominant culture and keeping them as outsiders? We talk with Karen González about these questions, which are the themes of her new book Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration.

A Guatemalan immigrant, González draws from the Bible and her own experiences to examine why the traditional approach to immigration ministries and activism is at best incomplete and at worst harmful. By advocating for putting immigrants in the center of the conversation, González helps readers grow in discipleship and recognize themselves in their immigrant neighbors. Accessible to any Christian who is called to serve immigrants, this book equips readers to take action to dismantle white supremacy and xenophobia in the church. They will emerge with new insight into our shared humanity and need for belonging and liberation.

Karen González is a speaker, writer, storyteller, and immigrant advocate, who herself immigrated from Guatemala as a child. Karen is a former public school teacher and attended Fuller Theological Seminary, where she studied theology and missiology. For the last 13 years, she has been a non-profit professional, working for organizations that serve refugees and other immigrants. She wrote a book about her own immigration story and some of the immigrants found in the Bible: The God Who Sees: Immigrants:The Bible, and the Journey to Belong. Her second book is Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in our Christian Response to Immigration. She also has bylines in Sojourners, Christianity Today, The Christian Century, and others. She is also the co-host of the Latina-focused podcast Cafe with Comadres. You can reach her via her website Karen-Gonzalez.com or on social media at @_karenjgonzalez.

You can connect with Karen on her website, Twitter, or Instagram.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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We talk with Dr. David Cramer and Dr. Myles Werntz about Christian nonviolence, which is not a settled position but rather a vibrant and living tradition. In their book A Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence: Key Thinkers, Activists, and Movements for the Gospel of Peace, they offer a concise introduction to diverse approaches to, proponents of, and resources for Christian nonviolence.

Dr. David Cramer is managing editor at the Institute of Mennonite Studies, sessional lecturer at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and a teaching pastor at Keller Park Church in South Bend, IN.

Dr. Myles Werntz is associate professor of theology and director of Baptist studies at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, TX. He is the author or editor of several books, including Bodies of Peace.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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Get ready for your understanding of Genesis 22 to be turned upside down by J. Richard Middleton. While we normally think of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son as proof of his love for God, the exact opposite might be true: Is it possible that a careful reading of Genesis 22 could reveal that God was not pleased with Abraham's silent obedience?

That's the theme of Middleton's book Abraham's Silence: The Binding of Isaac, The Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God, which we discuss with him on today's episode.

J. Richard Middleton is professor of biblical worldview and exegesis at Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan University and author of The Liberating Image and A New Heaven and a New Earth as well as co-author of Truth is Stranger than It Used to Be and The Transforming Vision.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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Willie Dwayne Francois III joins us to talk about the practicalities of anti-racism. Specifically, we discuss the prevalence in US society of what he calls "white noise": the racist speech, ideas, and policies that lull us into inaction on racial justice, which is the theme of his book Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race.

Willie Dwayne Francois III is senior pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville, NJ, and president of the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality. He serves as assistant professor of liberation theology at NY Theological Seminary and directs a master's degree program at Sing Correctional Facility. He created the Public Love Organizing and Training (PLOT) Project and has served in various orgs engaging racial justice issues, including the Atlantic City chapter of Black Lives Matter, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and the NJ Dept of State's MLK Jr. Commission. He's an active speaker and has written for HuffPost, Sojourners, The Hill, the Christian Century, and Religion Dispatches. 

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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Marc Alan Schelske join us (again!) to talk about journaling: what it is, why it works, and how to do it. No matter what your history is with journaling, Marc's method (outlined in his new book Journaling for Spiritual Growth: Six Weeks to Build a Habit that Fosters Spiritual and Emotional Maturity) is eminently practical and powerfully effective for fostering spiritual formation. 

Marc is a reader, a thinker, a writer, and speaker. He's the teaching elder at Bridge City Community Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, where he gets to inviting people into a life of following Jesus more and more. You can connect with Marc and learn more about his work on his website marcalanschelske.com.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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How does the Christian faith relate to a world stuck in ideological captivity? What happens when vast numbers of people abandon faith for pre-packaged sets of ideas they received from podcasts, videos, and online personalities? Those are the themes of Chris Nye's new book A Captive Mind: Christianity, Ideologies, and Staying Sane in a World Gone Mad, and the topic of our conversation in this episode.

We talk about how Christianity is not an idea in the first place, and therefore confuses, disrupts, and corrects any cultural ideology. The gospel doesn't just give us a new philosophy, but a new mind and a new life.

Chris Nye is a doctoral student at Duke University’s Divinity School and the author of Distant God (2016) and Less of More (2019). For fifteen years, he has served as a local church pastor and is currently on a sabbatical. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and various other publications. He lives with his wife and son in Portland, Oregon.

You can connect with Chris and learn more about his work on his website: chrisnye.co.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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We talked with Craig Greenfield about the profound difference it makes to shift our "missional posture" from providers / hosts / insiders to receivers / guests / outsiders. This is what his new book Subversive Mission: Serving as Outsiders in a World of Need is all about. 

Craig Greenfield is the founder and director of Alongsiders International, a grassroots movement of young Christians reaching the world's poorest children. Originally from New Zealand, he has lived and worked for more than two decades in marginalized communities in Asia and North America. He is the author of The Urban Halo, Subversive Jesus, and Subversive Mission: Serving as Outsiders in a World of Need.

You can connect with Craig and learn more about his work on his website craiggreenfield.com.

Connect with Gravity Leadership

• Leave us a message or ask a question about this or any other episode and we'll answer it on a future episode.
• Join our online community for free to get a curated list of interesting and edifying links each week, plus all kinds of other goodies.
• Check out the Gravity Commons, a place to connect and learn with others in the Gravity community.
• Check out Gravity Leadership Academy, our 12-month training intensive for Christian leaders who want to bring lasting transformation to their culture.
• Are you interested in advertising on the Gravity Leadership Podcast? Contact Gino Curcuruto at [email protected].

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