Homebrewed Christianity

Get ready for a mind expanding and assumption challenging episode with the one and only Rupert Sheldrake. When a guest comes to the podcast on recommendation from John Cobb you have to get pumped. Prior to the interview I read two of Sheldrakes books that I would definitely recommend to you.

In this wide-ranging conversation we end discussing the dogmatism of scientific materialists, the nature of consciousness, parapsychology, pets, psychedelics, ritual, pilgrimage, neo-darwinism, the changing shape of religion, epigenetic, creativity in evolution, Bergson, Whitehead, and why Rupert loves the doctrine of the Trinity.

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and From 2005 to 2010 was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project, Cambridge.

Rupert Sheldrake was not only kind enough to join the podcast, but is coming back for a live session with all the members of the Cosmic Campfire Online Book Group. If you want to join the fun and ask Rupert your own questions then head on over and sign up!

If you want to hear more from Sheldrake here's a few places to go.

Clearly you want to watch his BANNED TED TALK.

Check out his books Science and Spiritual Practices: Transformative Experiences and Their Effects on Our Bodies, Brains, and Health and Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery. Both are available in physical, digital, and audio versions.

Sheldrake also has a very informative and resource rich website. There you can find links to all the different podcasts that he has released. For a fun introduction to Rupert's work check out his visit to Russell Brand's podcast and his conversation with Joe Rogan.

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Ilia Delio, OSF, is the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, a wide read author, popular speaker, and down right passionate communicator at the intersection of religion, science, and our evolving universe. I had a complete blast talking to her and we covered a bunch of different facets of her work including her journey from molecular biology to the monastery to the academic study of theology. We also tackle:

• the role of mystery in theology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cyborgs
• cosmic evolution
• reconciling God with the scientific world
• the ecological crisis

At the end of the interview Ilia suggested two places to begin reading her work, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love and Hunger for Wholeness, A: Soul, Space, and Transcendence. When asked what three books she would recommend to dig deeper into the topics we tackled in our conversation she said...

Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect For Religion In The Age Of Evolution and God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution by John Haught

Christianity and Evolution, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Bonaventure's Soul's Journey to God which can be found in this most excellent collection of his writings.

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Do Progressive Christians Want to Make Disciples?

We got a call from Deacon Luke Allison and he has a topic that makes the progressive Christian wiggle - discipleship. Jesus called them and told us to do it, but has that time passed? What does disciple-making look like in our pluralistic world? How does the relationship of Jesus to his disciples in the New Testament impact our contemporary vision? Can the call to make disciples ultimately be divorced from the imperial legacy of the church?

I am sure you are thinking of more questions this one topic brings up. Well once I heard the question I knew we needed to talk about it. Here's my contribution to the conversation. Let me know what you think and any other questions that pop up.

 

You can be cool like Luke and submit your question via the SpeakPipe RIGHT HERE.

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This is a very live and rowdy collection of Baptist Professors of Religion.

In the first segment I am joined by my high school friend and Theology Professor Ryan Newson & gifted homebrewer and Claremont buddy Seth Clark. We talk about Baptist identity in and out of the South.

Then Ryan introduces his friend, colleague at Campbell University, and scholar of the New Testament, Alicia Myers. Our conversation is way too awesome. If you don't enjoy it you aren't listening. We talk about...

• Where did babies come from (in the Bible)?
• How Aristotle understood bodily fluids.
• Biblical interpretation in 2nd Temple Period Judaism
• How Angels had sex just for fun.
• How the character of Mary the Mother of Jesus is understood in the early church.
• The changing nature of family and church in the New Testament
• The experience of women in the life and leadership of the church.
• Breastfeeding during a worship service
• The consequences of our hyper-sexualized culture
• How can we change the place of bodies in spiritual formation

Alicia D. Myers is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Greek at Campbell University Divinity School. Her previous publications include Characterizing Jesus: A Rhetorical Analysis on the Fourth Gospel's Use of Scripture in Its Presentation of Jesus (2012) and Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John (co-editor, 2015).

 

I am very grateful that our friends at Newgrass Brewing Co. welcomed the podcast and all the Baptist Professors of Religion to the brewery for the evening. The beer was delicious, so if you are near Shelby, NC then you definitely want to stop by for a pint.

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Larry Norman is the Father of Christian Rock, integral to the Jesus People movement, an American Kierkegaard with a guitar, and the perfect figure to wrestle with the tangled shape of evangelicalism. Plus Larry Norman remains one of the most influential figures in my own faith journey. First, I encountered him through my Dad's records, discovering a unique prophetic voice set against the country and church's neglect of the poor, lust for war, and desire for more. Then I came to know Larry talking to him after his shows. I saw him 17 times before he passed. He learned my name, remembered my story, encouraged my intellectual quest, gave me song writing tips, and let me sing a verse of The Rock that Doesn't Roll with his band at a show in Florence, South Carolina (that was on my bucket list).

PS I deleted 1200 words of love about Larry... the point being, what's the chance I would actually LOVE a book about him?

It is rare that I love a book, the topic, and the guest this much! Not only that, this book isn't even by John Cobb, about process theology, or involve a visit from Catherine Keller. There is no exaggeration needed when I say that Gregory Thornbury wrote a fascinating, stimulating, and intoxicating biography of one of my heroes - Larry Norman. His newest book, Why Should the Devil have all the Good Music: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock, is so good I have read it twice. The first time I couldn't slow down to savor the book, because I wanted to know all the details about Larry I didn't know and the second time I only read a chapter a day and was sad when it ended.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Gregory 1/4th as much as me. Then you will want to get yourself the book and check out some old school Jesus rock for yourself. I even posted a cover of his tune The Great American Novel almost 8 years ago on YouTube.

The New Yorker has a great piece up featuring Gregory titled The Unlikely Endurance of Christian Rock that the interested should definitely check out.

Gregory Alan Thornbury has been a college professor, dean, and president of The King’s College in New York City. A popular writer and speaker on philosophy, religion, and contemporary culture, he currently serves at the New York Academy of Art.

Once you decide to be wise and purchase Why Should the Devil have all the Good Music: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock you can head over the book's webpage for resources, info, and whatever extra praise you need to put you over the line!

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Prepare yourself for some seriously zesty podcasting with my friends Diana Bass and Brian McLaren at the Wild Goose Festival. During the episode we will attempt to answer a number of different questions and topics listeners like yourself sent in. It is always a treat to get to talk to Diana and Brian and this time was no exception.

Find out who Diana and Brian respond to a bunch of different questions like...

• Who are your heroes of the faith?
• How can we cultivate gratitude in the craziness of today?
• Can you be sane and use Facebook?
• How should the church see our current political crisis?
• Is democracy worth saving?
• Can the planet handle another 500 years of Christian leadership?
• What's a post-NationState-Capitalist-Techno-Society do for spirituality?

This Episode is sponsored by...

Lutheran World Relief Famers Market Coffee is providing good coffee that makes a difference. You should try it.

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With a freshman in high school, Amy and Christian Piatt are getting familiar with a whole new set of doubts. This got them thinking about how much doubt we’re surrounded by every day. But a question keep nagging at them… Is our doubt getting worse? From AI mimicry to feel-good stories gone bad, it seems… Read more about Season of Doubt

The number of people with doubts, questions, and experiences that send them out from the religious tradition of their birth is growing. For many religion is left behind completely, opting for an untraditioned spirituality, and others find the idea of God, Ultimate Reality, or any other substitute for the transcendent as intellectually incompatible with our scientific age. In Philip Clayton and Andrew Davis' new book you get to hear a collection of personal narratives from some of the most brilliant contemporary thinkers about their return to God. In How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere you will see a variety of starting points, twists, turns, and conundrums, but a broad network of conclusions that testify to an emerging picture of a deeper spiritual realit

In this conversation I get to talk to my dear friend and mentor, Philip Clayton, and one of his lucky current students and scholar, Andrew Davis. We tackle a host of topics from mysticism, panentheism, the viability of theism, the relationship between historic religious traditions and philosophical affirmation of the divine, and some other exciting goodies. The book itself includes chapters from Deepak Chopra, Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Rubert Sheldrake, Cynthia Bourgault, Ilia Delio, John Cobb, Loriliai Biernacki, Marjorie Suchocki, and Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson.

This episode is sponsored by the brand new book Keep Christianity Weird by Michael Frost. Check it out and get ready for Michael's visit to the podcast.

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Words we use – or withhold – shape our culture, opinions and identities. From media and Church to the White House, our words are at war to claim attention more than ever before. We examine Trump’s words (and silence) regarding Sen. McCain’s death, the Vatican’s response to recent abuse allegations, what various media outlets chose… Read more about Words at War

It’s been a year since the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville took place. What has happened since then? Amy and Christian Piatt reflect on the impact of last year’s events, consider the recent “Unite the Right 2” rally in DC and consider MSNBC’s recent “Breaking Hate” special featuring former Hammerskin Nation leader and… Read more about Blood and Soil: One Year After Charlottesville