New Creation Conversations

Welcome to episode eighty of New Creation Conversations. In today’s conversation I get to talk to two friends and a unique couple who both are amazingly gifted and thoughtful. I know and have worked with both Dr. Nell Becker Sweeden and Dr. Josh Sweeden individually on various projects the last few years and I know firsthand how gifted they both are. However, I deeply appreciate the ways they continue to embody how to serve the Lord together as a couple and as a family in ways that mutually serve one another and make space for one another’s calling, while also working and ministering together in powerful ways as well.  

They are both Point Loma and NTS graduates and are both ordained elders in the CoN. Nell has a PhD in Practical Theology from Boston University and currently serves as the Director of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries – serving in 163 world areas to support and equip local communities to transform lives by creating holistic solutions to alleviate poverty and suffering. She is the author of a previous book Church on the Way: Hospitality and Migration (2015, Wipf and Stock).

Josh also earned his PhD in Practical Theology from BU. He is currently Professor of Church and Society at Nazarene Theological Seminary. He has also written a previous book, The Church and Work: The Ecclesiological Grounding of Good Work (Pickwick Publications, 2014). Josh and Nell also have two sons – Eli and Asher.

Their most recent project together – and the center of our conversation - is a wonderful new book entitled Holiness in a Restless World, published by The Foundry Press.

It is a rich, thoughtful, and accessible book that wrestles with the on-going journey and process of pursuing the holy life. As they point out in the book, the bible is filled with all kinds of stories of wandering, restlessness, dispersion, and finally coming home. Nell and Josh invite readers to set aside some of our presuppositions about what the holy life looks like – especially in the places where our imaginations have been captured by what they call the “heroic.” Instead, they invite us to discover holiness in the everyday stuff of relationships, work, and neighborly love. This is a great book for mornings of reflection with God or conversations and prayer with a small group of fellow travelers on the road of discipleship. I deeply value Nell and Josh. I love this book. And I’m thankful to get to bring this conversation to you. So, thanks for joining me for these New Creation Conversations. Here’s my conversation with Dr. Nell Becker Sweeden and Dr. Joshua Sweeden.

Welcome to episode seventy-nine of New Creation Conversations. In today’s conversation I got to make another new friend and have an important conversation about an issue that has been a hot topic of conversation for the last five or six years – Christian Nationalism. Dr. Paul D. Miller is a political theorist and political scientist focusing on international affairs, the American experiment, and America’s role in the world. He spent a decade in public service as Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the National Security Council staff, as an intelligence analyst for the CIA, and a military intelligence officer in the US Army. Paul is currently a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University. He is an alum of Georgetown, has a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, and earned a PhD from Georgetown in International Relations. As you can imagine, he has written widely on international affairs, political theory, and religion in public life. His most recent book – and the focus of our conversation – is The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism (published recently by IVP Academic).

It is an excellent book. It is thoughtful, detailed, and balanced. I learned a great deal form the book and felt very delighted and privileged to be able to have a conversation with Dr. Miller about it. No matter your political leanings, there is a great deal to be gleaned from Dr. Miller’s research and experience. 

In today’s conversation I got to make a new friend and have a wonderful conversation about an important cultural the theological issue - immigration. Karen Gonzalez is a writer, speaker, and immigrant advocate who emigrated from Guatemala as a child. She attended Fuller Theological Seminary, where she studied theology and missiology. For the last 15 years, Karen has been a non-profit professional, currently working for an organization that serves asylum seekers. She wrote a book about her own immigration and story and the many immigrants found in the Bible in The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong (Herald Press, 2019). Her new book is Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in our Christian Response to Immigration (scheduled to be released on October 18, 2022, from Brazos Press).

 I was privileged to get to read an advanced copy of the book and found it to be so helpful in clarifying our language related to immigration, understanding the realities of the many populations on the move in the world, reflect biblically on the subject, and think imaginatively about our Christian response. It is a very helpful and readable book, and a thoughtful conversation. 

Welcome to episode seventy-seven of New Creation Conversations. Today’s conversation is with a return guest, my dear friend and a gifted pastor and leader, Dr. David Busic. David has been serving as one a General Superintendents in the Church of the Nazarene for almost a decade now. In addition to his current role, he has pastored three congregations and served as the president of Nazarene Theological Seminary. In our last conversation, David talked about his unique journey into ministry. This time I got him to open up and reflect a bit about his various assignments in ministry and what God taught him in each of those places and positions, and what God is teaching him right now in his current role. He also shares about some of the key mentors in his life and what they contributed to his development as a leader.

Our conversation also centers on his new book The Praying Pastor (published recently by The Foundry). It is a helpful, accessible, encouraging, and practical guide to how, as pastors, we can make the important spiritual discipline of prayer more central in our vocation and leadership. 

Because the Church of the Nazarene is one of just a handful of denominations that is structured globally, David and his colleagues on the Board of General Superintendents get to see a breadth of the Church that many if not most of us rarely get to see. Some of what he experiences is difficult and challenging, but much of he witnesses is also miraculous and full of the new creation life of God’s Spirit. I love any chance to get to talk to my friend about leadership in the Christ’s church. And I’m glad I get to share this conversation with you. 

Welcome to episode seventy-six of New Creation Conversations. My guest today is the incredibly gifted writer and Christian philosopher, Dr. James K.A. Smith. I have really been looking forward to having this conversation for a while. Jamie and I became friends about twenty-five years ago when he was a young professor at Loyola-Marymount University, and I was early in my teaching career at Southern Nazarene University. We both got accepted into a summer study program at Calvin College to study “eschatology and hope” with Dr. Miroslav Volf. It was a very enriching summer intellectually and spiritually. However, part of the benefit of the program was that Calvin invited us to bring our families with us for the six weeks we were there. It just happened that Jamie and his wife Deanna, and Deb and I both had four kids all around the same age and so we got to hang out as families.

The group that summer had several very gifted and bright people in it, but it didn’t take long for us to figure out that Jamie was gifted in unique ways. Eventually Calvin invited him to join their very prestigious philosophy faculty – a faculty that in the past has included names like Richard Mouw, Alvin Plantinga, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Jamie now is Professor of Philosophy and the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. In these last two decades Jamie has written some of the most widely read and greatly influential books of this generation. We will talk about several of them in our conversation, but some of the best known are Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?; How (Not) to Be Secular (CT winner); the award-winning Desiring the Kingdom (CT winner); You are What You Love, and more recently On the Road with St. Augustine (CT winner). He’s also written for the Wall Street Journal, the nY Times, The Washington Post, USA Today… well, you get the point.

Jamie has an amazing story of both coming to faith in Christ and becoming a scholar – which he I got him to tell pieces of in our conversation. He’s a graduate of the University of Waterloo. Did his Master’s in Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, and earned his PhD in Philosophy from Villanova University. 

A lot of our conversation centers on his brand-new book, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (Brazos Press). It is exactly what you would expect from Jamie, a rich, thoughtful, well-written, and transformational text

Jamie makes a very short list of four or five people who have shaped my own journey and my thinking the most, it’s fun that I also get to call him a friend. Thanks for listening in to this New Creation Conversation. Here’s my conversation with Dr. James K.A. Smith.

Hello friends! Welcome to episode seventy-five of New Creation Conversations. This is a very special conversation for me today because I get to talk with one of my very good friends but also with one of my heroes. My friend is Dr. Brent Strawn – whom I have had on the podcast a couple of times before. Brent is the D. Moody Smith Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law at Duke University and Divinity School. He is a longtime friend and an accomplished author. We have talked about a couple of his recent works on past podcasts.

Brent is editing a series for WJK Press called Pivotal Moments in the Old Testament. The most recent volume in the series is entitled Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah by Dr. Walter Brueggemann. When I saw the book was coming out, I asked Brent if he might be able to convince Dr. Brueggemann to come on and have a roundtable conversation between the three of us. He agreed and I am so excited to get to bring that conversation to you.

Walter is without question one of the most influential and prolific biblical interpreters of our time. He has authored over a hundred books and numerous scholarly articles. I have a shelf in my library with close to forty of his books. Perhaps my favorites are three volumes of his sermons. Dr. Brueggemann will tell some of his story growing up in Tilden, Nebraska. He graduated from Elmhurst College and Eden Theological Seminary. He earned a ThD in Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary and later completed a PhD in education at St Louis University. Now “retired” for almost 20 years, he spent his forty-two-year teaching career at both Eden and Columbia Theological Seminaries.

Welcome to episode seventy-four of New Creation Conversations. We are back after about a month hiatus for vacation and to get this school year started. In August my wife and daughter and I took a long-anticipated trip to Spain, France, and Italy. It was my first time in those places, and we had an amazing time. However, I’m excited to be back to working on some New Creation Conversations. And just FYI, you’re going to want to hang in for the announcement of who’s joining me the next few weeks. I’m super excited… but I’m also very excited to introduce my guest for today. Dr. Dean Flemming has just recently retired after lots of years of teaching. Dean is now Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Mission at MidAmerica Nazarene University. Dean taught for over twenty years outside the US – at European Nazarene College and at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. About a decade ago Dean came back to his Alma Matter – MidAmerica Nazarene University – and finished his teacher career there. He also has an MDiv degree from NTS and earned his PhD in New Testament from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. 

Dean has written six books and contributed to several others. Our conversation focuses on his most recent book, Foretaste of the Future: Reading Revelation in the Light of God’s Mission (published by IVP Academic). As you will hear, Dean not only has important insights into Revelation, but his unique gift is helping us to read the Scripture – and in this case Revelation – missionally. It’s a great book and a rich conversation.

Welcome to episode seventy-three of New Creation Conversations. It’s a joy for me today to get to have a conversation with one of my favorite young scholars and ministers, Dr. Henry Spaulding III – better known to his family and friends as “Hank.” Hank is the Associate Campus Pastor and Assistant Professor of Theology at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. He’s an alum of Trevecca Nazarene University, has Master’s Degree in Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School, and has a PhD in Christian Ethics from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. 

Hank and I talk about the unique challenges of campus ministry, but we also talk about his two writing projects – one out and one in process. The project that is out is The Just and Loving Gaze of God with Us: Paul’s Apocalyptic Political Theology (published by Wipf and Stock). This book is an edited version of Hank’s dissertation work and is an interesting look at the recent interest in the Apostle Paul by non-Christian political scholars and reflects on what they get right but also what they often misunderstand about Paul’s political theology. The project that is forthcoming is Iconoclastic Sex – it is a quantitative and theological study of the problem of sex trafficking and Christian sexual ethics. Both are interesting works, and both are deeply connected to the vision of a new creation.

It is always encouraging to me to get to connect with young scholars. I’m deeply thankful for those like Hank who have a passion for deep theological reflection and for church ministry. I’m thankful that people like him are picking up the baton and carrying it forward. 

Welcome to episode seventy-two of New Creation Conversations. One of the joys for me in starting this podcast has been the chance to make several new friends along the way. However, it has also been a joy to help others get to know some of my great long-term friends. Today I get to share a conversation with a treasured friend and a true kindred spirit in pastoral ministry. For about a decade Dave Roberts and I pastored about twelve miles from each other – down the 201 Freeway – in Southern California. Dave and his wife Cindy have spent their entire post-seminary ministry (34 years!) serving the Church of the Nazarene in Montrose, California. A congregation simply known as The Montrose Church.

I recently was asked to introduce Dave when he spoke at our Northwest field gathering. I went into detail about all the things that were different in 1988 – when Dave first went to Montrose – to how they are now. For example, it was the year I graduated from college. The year George HW Bush (the older one) was elected president. And only 15% of American households had any kind of computer. It takes a lot of persistence and patience to stay with one group of people that long. It takes a lot of creativity and leadership to grow a church of less than 50 to a church running over 900. But most of all it takes a lot of integrity and character to live openly and lovingly with a people for that long. As I told that gathering, no one can fake faithfulness for 34 years.

Dave is an alum of both Southern Nazarene University and Nazarene Theological Seminary. We talk quite a bit about longevity in ministry. But we also talk about his recent and very helpful book, Healing Conversations: Taking Yourself Out of Conflict and Loneliness – published by Morgan James Press. It is such an important book for such a divided time. I think The Montrose Church is one of the best-kept secrets in my denomination, and a lot of that is due to Dave’s great pastoral heart and leadership. I hope many of you know him already, but if not I’m excited to get to introduce him to you. Here is my New Creation Conversation with Pastor Dave Roberts.

Welcome to episode seventy-one of New Creation Conversations. I apologize that we missed an episode last week, we were hosting a denominational conference at our church last week, and it took up all my extra space last week. The good news is that it gave me the opportunity to sit down with a couple of the guests at the conference and have face-to-face conversations with them about their writing and work. I get to share one of those conversations with you today. 

Rev. Caleb Cray Haynes is church planter and co-pastor with his wife, Emily, at Kalaeo Church in Nashville. He is also the co-founder of Nazarenes for Creation Care. Caleb grew up in the hills of rural Tennessee where the love of God’s creation grew deep roots in his early life and experience. Tending to gardens and wandering in the woods are still part of Caleb’s story. Following a call to ministry, he attended Trevecca Nazarene University and received a degree in Religion and Philosophy. Afterward, Caleb served as a volunteer Nazarene missionary through Mission Corp in Mainz, Germany, aiding in church planting with (one of our previous guests Philip Zimmerman) Church in Action. He is currently working on a Master’s Degree in Theology and Ecology from Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, UK.

We focus our conversation not only on his work with Nazarenes for Creation Care but also on his recently published book, Garbage Theology: The Unseen World of Waste and What It Means for the Salvation of Every Person, Every Place, and Every Thing. It’s not only a thoughtful book but an important conversation that – as those created to be reflections of God’s care and dominion of creation – the church desperately needs to have. I’m really thankful for young leaders like Caleb helping us have that conversation, and I’m glad you’ve joined us for this great conversation. Here is my New Creation Conversation with Pastor Caleb Cray Haynes.