PostEverything

(Episode 83)

DESCRIPTION

Matthew Loftus is a family physician who teaches and practices at a Presbyterian mission hospital in Kenya. He has been treated for depression himself. He is not against therapy. His argument is that therapy is a discipline with boundaries, and that what has escaped those boundaries is something else.

In this conversation we work the distinction. Therapy finds a barrier and helps you get past it. Therapy culture invites you to settle in, and eventually to move in, until the diagnosis stops describing you and starts being you. Loftus names the cost in one word: agency.

We ask how much of this the church built for itself, and whether decades of pragmatic, seeker-sensitive ministry left soil that therapy culture could root in. We press on shame, which Loftus calls a fence around a pit, and on what that fence does once you are already in the pit. We get to concept creep, linguistic inflation, and the fire alarm you pull only when the building is actually burning.

We also ask what you say to someone who cannot pray to a heavenly father because their own father was abusive. His answer is the best four minutes of the episode.

And we end where his book ends, with an old prayer that is the opposite of an affirmation.

Matthew Loftus, Resisting Therapy Culture: The Dangers of Pop Psychology and How the Church Can Respond (IVP, 2026).

KEY QUOTE

"My best form of resistance is self-medication."

Loftus, describing the story people tell themselves once they've concluded the forces arrayed against them are too large to fight. He calls it the end point of a lot of therapy culture.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

KEYWORDS

therapy culture, Matthew Loftus, Resisting Therapy Culture, pop psychology, mental health and the church, diagnosis as identity, loss of agency, shame, Brené Brown, cognitive behavioral therapy, reverse CBT, concept creep, family estrangement, no contact, Fredrik deBoer, Christian counseling, pastoral care, medicalization, self-actualization, the Jesus Prayer

TAGS

therapy culture · Matthew Loftus · mental health · Christian counseling · pastoral care · agency · shame · CBT · diagnosis · estrangement · pop psychology · church leadership · PostEverything

HASHTAGS (promo post)

#PostEverything #TherapyCulture #MatthewLoftus #MentalHealthAndFaith

(Episode 82)

Acts 16 is usually read as a travel log — Paul crossing into Macedonia, planting a church at Philippi. Missiologist Daniel Yang reads it as the record of an impossible coalition: a businesswoman, a trafficked girl, a Roman jailer, held together by nothing the ancient world would recognize as common ground.

John Houmes and Yang trace that same tension into the present: the homogeneous unit principle and its costs, what the pandemic exposed about the American church's capacity to hold disagreement, and Yang's discipline of asking whether his convictions are formed by scripture or borrowed from a movement. The conversation closes on trauma as mission field — the body as a spiritual vehicle, and where the therapeutic and the theological pull apart.

Key Quotes

Resources Mentioned
Becoming a Future-Ready Church — Daniel Yang, Adelle M. Banks, Warren Bird (Zondervan, 2024) · Yang's forthcoming book on the church and displacement (World Relief / InterVarsity Press, expected spring 2027) · Divided by Faith — Michael Emerson & Christian Smith · Understanding Church Growth — Donald McGavran · The Anxious Generation — Jonathan Haidt · Resisting Therapy Culture — Matthew Loftus · Diane Langberg (trauma/mission field) · Tim Keller, Matt Chandler (Acts 16 commentary) · Barry Henning (reconciliation/justice quote) · Greg Perry (previous guest) · Pastor Serve · Spanish River Church counseling center · Pew Research, 2013/2025 Religious Landscape studies (58% of U.S. immigrants are Christian)

Keywords — future-ready church, oikos, homogeneous unit principle, Jerusalem to Antioch, embodied gospel, trauma-informed ministry, World Relief, Churches of Welcome, meaning crisis

Tags: Daniel Yang, Post Everything, John Houmes, Becoming a Future-Ready Church, Acts 16, World Relief, Church Diversity, Christian Nationalism, Immigration and Faith, Tim Keller

Chapters

00:00 🎙️ Cold Open

01:06 📖 Meet Daniel Yang

02:33 ⛪ Acts 16's Unlikely Cast

06:48 🏠 Oikos, Not Synagogue

10:15 🎯 The Homogeneous Unit Principle

14:27 💜 Inside a Purple Church

16:49 🔥 Antioch Was Born From Conflict

18:05 👪 Salvation Isn't Just Individual

20:31 🐺 When the Tribe Eats the Church

23:14 🪞 Am I Proof-Texting My Politics?

26:34 🛂 Immigration Justice Under ICE

29:16 🌍 A Vision for the Nations

34:17 🍇 Communion in a Divided City

35:52 🧭 Jerusalem to Antioch

38:54 🤝 Partnering With Minority Churches

46:50 ⚖️ Reconciliation Without Justice

49:10 🌾 McGavran and the Masses

51:48 🧠 Trauma as Mission Field

58:26 💎 Glory Outweighs the Trauma

1:02:03 📜 Psalms and a Breaking Point

1:07:14 📗 A Borderless Church, Coming 2027

1:08:14 🎬 Solo Reflection Begins

1:10:40 🕊️ Mothered in Jerusalem, Modeled in Antioch

1:15:28 🫂 A Word for Burned-Out Pastors

1:17:54 👋 Outro

(Episode 81)

Description

Brad Edwards cross-posts a conversation recorded for his church after a sermon on Romans 13:1–7 — the passage where Paul tells believers to "be subject to the governing authorities," and one that gets used and misused every political season.

Joining him is returning guest Brad Vaughn — author of Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes, specialist in the Bible's theology of honor and shame, and a former underground-seminary teacher who spent 15 years training pastors in China. Working through real questions texted in by the congregation, they explore church, state, and Christian allegiance with honesty and unusual practicality.

The conversation covers why Romans 13 legitimizes and relativizes the state in a single move; the difference between the church's responsibility for the oppressed and its grasp for power; whether the American Revolution was justified or sinful; how to move from national outrage to human-scale, local love; and why submission to authority is never the same as endorsing it.

A thoughtful, grounded conversation for anyone trying to follow King Jesus faithfully without being absorbed into a political team.

Brad Vaughn's book: Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes. It helps to reread Romans 13:1–7 before listening.

"Faithfulness holds loosely when and how things will be accomplished. Control dictates them." — Brad Vaughn

Resources:

Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes (Brad Vaughn) • Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes (Richards & O'Brien) • Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex / the lesser-magistrate principle • N.T. Wright • Ken Burns, The American Revolution • Billy Graham Center (Wheaton) study on Gen Z and politics • Preston Sprinkle • Romans 12–14; Daniel 1–8; Acts 4:19–20; Luke 20; Colossians 2:15

Keywords:

Romans 13, church and state, Brad Vaughn, honor and shame, submission to authority, Christian politics, political theology, American Revolution, lesser magistrate, responsibility and power, allegiance, render unto Caesar, underground church, Post Everything, Brad Edwards

#PostEverything #Romans13 #ChurchAndState #BradVaughn #HonorAndShame #PoliticalTheology #Bible #ChristianPodcast #Allegiance #FaithAndPolitics #Discipleship

Chapters:

00:00 ⚖️ Responsibility Is Not Power

The Ahistoric Age Meets AI: Time, Memory, and Being Human

(Episode 80)

Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker — historian and author of Priests of History — returns to PostEverything to explore what happens when artificial intelligence meets a culture that has already lost its grip on the past.

In her first appearance, she diagnosed "the ahistoric age": a moment that treats history as irrelevant, grows ignorant of it, and reduces it to an ideological weapon. Here, John Houmes and Brad Edwards push the conversation forward into the age of AI. Does AI help us make sense of the past or sever us from it? Does it hand us mastery over knowledge while letting wisdom slip away?

The conversation moves through how AI is quietly reshaping our very experience of time; the day Sarah asked AI to retrieve real manuscript photographs and it fabricated them instead; how the eighteenth-century idea of "useful knowledge" once ranked whole civilizations and returns now in the age of algorithms; the connection between the drive to master knowledge and the oldest temptation in Genesis; why a large language model can never produce the idiosyncratic spark of genuine beauty; and how the church's ancient, embodied practices offer a hopeful counter-formation — anchoring us in a larger story in an anxious age.

A rich, wide-ranging conversation for anyone trying to stay human, and hopeful, in the age of AI.

Sarah's book: Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age. Her next book — an invitation to the Christian story — is in progress.

"When there is no larger story, you have no meaning and no purpose. These are counterfeit stories, because they don't have an end."

— Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker

Resources:

Priests of History (Sarah Irving-Stonebraker) • Sarah's forthcoming book, an invitation to the Christian story • The Reason for Church (Brad Edwards) • The Drama of Discipleship with Dr. Greg Perry (previous episode) • Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, Lord Kames — Scottish Enlightenment "useful knowledge" • Francis Bacon — "the improvement of mankind's estate" • Robert Boyle — "priests of nature" • Max Weber • George Santayana • Antonín Dvořák — New World Symphony • James K. A. Smith, How to Inhabit Time • Tristan Harris / Center for Humane Technology, Your Undivided Attention • Pope Leo's encyclical on AI • Dallas Willard / Eugene Peterson — "a long obedience in the same direction" • transhumanism; metamodernism

AI, artificial intelligence, ahistoric age, Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Priests of History, history, useful knowledge, epistemology, time, spiritual formation, counterformation, church, liturgy, wisdom, beauty, technology and faith, Christianity and AI, discipleship, Post Everything

#PostEverything #AI #AhistoricAge #SarahIrvingStonebraker #PriestsOfHistory #History #Faith #SpiritualFormation #Church #Wisdom #ChristianPodcast #Technology #Discipleship

CHAPTERS

00:00 ⏳ Time as Meaningless Moments

1:07:28 ⏱️ Stewarding Time and Attention

1:12:51 🧍 What Will Humans Become?

The Drama of Discipleship: Re-Narrating Our Lives in God's Story

Episode 79

Dr. Greg Perry—New Testament scholar, President of Thirdmill Seminary, and author of The Drama of Discipleship—joins John Houmes fresh off a teaching tour across Asia. Their conversation moves from what the global church is actually asking (and how different it is from the West) to a fresh vision of discipleship: not a curriculum to master, but a drama to perform together inside God's story.

Greg unpacks the six "episodes" of the biblical story—Creation, Rebellion, Israel, Jesus, Church, New Creation—and the practices that flow from them. The conversation covers integral mission and the holding together of word and deed, the church as an embassy of Christ's kingdom in a host culture, the improv principle of "no blocking" as a posture toward our neighbors, the difference between fieldwork and heartwork, and why the small stories on offer from consumerism and politics can't bear the weight of a human life.

A rich, hopeful conversation for pastors, ministry leaders, and anyone longing to live inside a bigger story.

Greg's book: The Drama of Discipleship. His next book, Grace with Skin On: What Deacons Do (with Chris Sicks), releases Fall 2026.

"All the little stories on offer—consumerist, political, about physical beauty—they cannot bear the weight of being an image-bearer of God." — Dr. Greg Perry

The Drama of Discipleship (Greg Perry) • Grace with Skin On: What Deacons Do (Perry & Sicks, Fall 2026) • Third Millennium Ministries / Thirdmill Seminary • Adoniram Judson • The Lausanne Movement / integral mission • Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be • Dorothy Sayers • Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God • Trevin Wax, The Thrill of Orthodoxy & Eschatological Discipleship • René Girard • Aaron Renn ("negative world") • Covenant Theological Seminary • New City Fellowship, St. Louis

discipleship, Greg Perry, The Drama of Discipleship, spiritual formation, evangelism, integral mission, global church, missions, Thirdmill, gospel, re-narration, meaning crisis, church as embassy, reconciliation, worship, witness, shalom, Christian discipleship, Post Everything

#PostEverything #Discipleship #GregPerry #DramaOfDiscipleship #SpiritualFormation #IntegralMission #GlobalChurch #Evangelism #Thirdmill #ChristianPodcast #Missions #Discipleship #Worship #Reconciliation

CHAPTERS

00:00 🎭 Witnesses, Not Mere Messengers

New Atheism & the Returning Ride w/ Justin Brierley:

Summary:

Justin Brierley spent nearly two decades hosting debates between the world's leading atheists and Christians on his show Unbelievable?. In that time he watched New Atheism rise, peak, and collapse—and then witnessed something he calls "the surprising rebirth of belief in God."

In this episode of Post Everything, Brad Edwards and John Houmes talk with Justin about the renewed openness to Christianity across the West, why young men in particular are exploring faith, and what the withdrawn Quiet Revival Report does (and doesn't) tell us. Justin unpacks the difference between revival and rebirth, the limits of cultural Christianity, the rise of "lapsed atheists," the gamification of faith through apps, and why the dehumanizing effects of AI make embodied Christian community more vital than ever.

A thoughtful, hopeful conversation for pastors, church leaders, and anyone trying to read the cultural moment we're living in.

Quotes:

"If all you're aiming for is Christian culture, sadly you won't even get that. You'll get a sub-biblical, idolatrous version of it… you can't have the effects without the source."

"Cultures only get changed when human hearts get changed—and that happens through Christ, ultimately."

Resources Mentioned:

Unbelievable?; The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God (book & podcast); Uncommon Ground — all by Justin Brierley • Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion • the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett) • Tom Holland, Dominion • Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach" • Douglas Murray • N.T. Wright • Rowan Williams • Jordan & Tammy Peterson • Bible Society's Quiet Revival Report; YouGov • Freya India, "The Commodification of Christianity" (GIRLS Substack) • Hallow, Glorify, YouVersion • Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Niall Ferguson • James Davison Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity • John Vervaeke • Mark Sayers, Rebuilders ("When the Fringe Becomes the Center") • Chris Martin, Terms of Service • The Gospel Coalition, Making Sense of Us • Brad Edwards, The Reason for Church

Key words:

New Atheism, surprising rebirth of belief in God, Justin Brierley, Unbelievable podcast, Christianity, apologetics, cultural apologetics, Gen Z faith, young men Christianity, Quiet Revival, cultural Christianity, meaning crisis, secularism, Tom Holland, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, post-Christian culture, AI and faith, embodied community, church leadership, discipleship, revival, Post Everything

#PostEverything #JustinBrierley #NewAtheism #SurprisingRebirth #Christianity #Apologetics #CulturalApologetics #GenZ #MeaningCrisis #Faith #Church #Discipleship #ChristianPodcast #PostChristian

Chapters:

00:00 🪤 The Cultural Christianity Trap

Brad Edwards sits down with Jay Kim, pastor of Westgate Church in Silicon Valley and author of Analog Church, to discuss the spiritual implications of artificial intelligence—and why church leaders urgently need a response.

Key points:

• The difference between attention economy (social media) and attachment economy (AI)

• Why AI companions create relational attachment in ways social media never could

• How tech workers in Silicon Valley are experiencing spiritual crisis over AI displacement

• Marshall McLuhan's theory: When pushed to extremes, technology inverts on itself

• The spiritual discipline of sober-mindedness in an age of endless stimulation

• Why the church must become "weird" again to counter digital culture

• Practical formation practices to help your congregation think deeply (not just consume)

• How pastors can help disciples navigate vocational uncertainty in tech fields

• The role of curiosity and meandering as countercultural spiritual practices

Themes:

•      Spiritual formation in digital age

•      AI and human relationships

•      Church in Silicon Valley

•      Pastoral leadership in tech cities

•      Technology ethics and faith

Key words:

AI companion, Spiritual formation, Church leadership, Discipleship, Silicon Valley, Artificial intelligence, Technology ethics, Sober-mindedness, Pastoral care, Formation practices, Jay Kim, PostEverything, Digital culture, Embodied community, Tech workers

CHAPTERS:

Making Meaning by Making Enemies: 

Tribes, Mimetic Rivals, & Gospel Peace

With John Houmes and Brad Edwards

Why do we need enemies to feel like we belong? 

In this conversation, John and Brad unpack Trevin Wax's article "When the Tribe Eats the Church" through the lens of René Girard's scapegoat mechanism—revealing why communities (left and right) use the same tribal pattern to maintain unity.

From mimetic desire to mythological justification, from McCarthyism to cancel culture, we're watching the same mechanism play out in real-time: communities make meaning by making enemies.

But the Resurrection changes everything.

🎯 What You'll Hear

• How expressive individualism evolved into tribalism

• Girard's mimetic desire: we learn what to want by imitating others

• The scapegoat mechanism: communities uniting through accusation and expulsion

• McCarthyism vs. cancel culture—same pattern, different tribes

• Why mythology hides the violence of persecution

• How Christ's resurrection vindicated the innocent victim

• Why double imputation means Christians don't need another scapegoat

• What the church must offer: belonging rooted in worship, not enemies

• How gathered worship reorders our tribal identity

💡 KEY QUOTES

BRAD EDWARDS:

"We don't know how to exist, how to make sense of the world and make meaning without an enemy. That is an incredible enslavement that we have willingly walked into."

JOHN HOUMES:

"We're living in a story that's way too small. Jesus is victorious over our  deepest enemy—sin, death, and the devil. He rises from the dead in victory."

📚 RESOURCES

Trevin Wax, "When the Tribe Eats the Church" (Gospel Coalition, April 9, 2026)

René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life

Eugene Peterson, The Pastor

Michelle Margolis, From Politics to the Pews

#Tribalism #Polarization #ScapegoatMechanism #RenéGirard #TrevinWax #Gospel #Church #Belonging #Identity #Discipleship #PostEverything

Chapters

00:00 🎯INTRO

01:17 🏘️Trevin Wax: When Tribe Eats Church

01:44 👤What Are Tribes? Examples Everywhere

03:32 🎭Tribalism's New Function: Making Meaning

05:47 📱Eugene Peterson: Digital Ecstasy

07:30 🚫Escape Isn't Transcendence

08:51 👎Making Meaning by Making Enemies

09:15 🤖Algorithms Designed to Deliver Enemies

10:17 🏛️Digital Disembodies Everything

11:41 🐴Horseshoe Theory: Same Battlefield

14:16 💔Church Planting on Enemy Opposition

16:36 🔄Echo Chambers Refuse New Ideas

19:45 ❌Tribal Concerns Become Gospel Tests

24:24 🗳️Politics Replaced Religion as Primary

27:34 🔍Introducing René Girard

29:41 🧠Mimetic Desire: We Learn Wanting

30:52 🏆Mimetic Rivalry: Victory Over Object

34:13 🎪Scapegoat Mechanism Brings Peace

37:11 📖Mythology Justifies the Perpetrators

38:20 ☮️McCarthyism and Cancel Culture Parallel

42:30 ✝️Gospel Uniquely Sides With Victim

43:10 🙏Resurrection Breaks the Mechanism

43:55 💫Double Imputation Means No Scapegoats

45:52 📜Stories Too Small, Jeremiah Example

57:25 🤝Church: Thick Belonging, Gospel Posture

Paideia Not Perfection: Kingdom Family Formation

With Pastor David Cassidy

What does it mean to disciple your children? It's not just rules and Bible verses. It's paideia—the ancient Greek word for formation, enculturation, shaping a person's reflexes, habits, and loves.

In this conversation with Pastor David Cassidy from Spanish River Church, we explore:

• Why behavior management isn't the goal (we don't want "chocolate soldiers")

• The role of beauty, literature, and nature in forming kingdom citizens

• How to start: Who's discipling YOU?

• Why the dinner table is a sacred space

• The difference between a family with Christian elements vs. a family enculturated in the kingdom

• How to build resilient faith in your kids—faith that doesn't crumble when life disappoints

David offers hope: this isn't about perfection. It's about direction. It's a slow drip over 18 years, not a weekend seminar.

⏱ CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro

00:17 Welcome & Paideia overview

01:44 What is paideia? (Greek word unpacked)

04:52 Kingdom paideia vs. family with Christian elements

06:08 Theology comes at your fingertips

08:01 The centrality of love in formation

09:20 Christian worldview isn't enough

13:15 What does a resilient disciple look like?

15:40 Remember whose you are

17:11 Gospel astonishment and enjoyment of Christ

19:07 What shatters faith?

21:28 Chocolate soldiers vs. hearts of repentance

23:34 Fear of the Lord can be taught

25:12 Anti-discipleship forces

28:16 The church's role in kingdom paideia

32:34 Christian schools as an extension of discipleship

34:19 Partnership between parents, church, and school

35:05 How do we practically bring kingdom paideia home?

36:54 Who's discipling YOU?

39:11 Great classics to read

42:11 Taking trips

44:41 Slow drip, not a week-long retreat

44:53 Why the dinner table matters

47:38 Food as connector and sacred space

49:36 Three takeaways from John

📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED

Ephesians 6:4 (paideia language)

Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology

Augustine's Confessions

Shakespearean Sonnets

John Milton

C.S. Lewis (The Kilns, his home)

Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Chronicles of Narnia

Psalm 25 ("Remember whose you are")

Westminster Shorter Catechism

Heidelberg Catechism

💡 KEY QUOTES

"We don't want chocolate soldiers. We want kids who have resilient faith."

"Paideia is about forming reflexes, habits, loyalties, and loves. What kind of human being are we trying to produce?"

"Theology comes at your fingertips—not just a statement of faith you sign your name to, but how you live."

"Who's discipling YOU? That's where we start as parents."

"The dinner table is not a sacrament, but it's a sacred moment."

"This is about direction, not perfection. It's a slow drip over 18 years."

🎙️ ABOUT THIS CONVERSATION

This is a crossover episode between PostEverything (a podcast on culture and formation) and Rooted by the River (a parenting podcast). While Rooted focuses on family discipleship, David's theology of formation through culture, beauty, literature, and everyday rhythms connects deeply to how the Church forms people in a post-Christian age.

Rooted by the River is a Spanish River Church parenting podcast dedicated to equipping families to root deep in Jesus and His love.

spanishriver.com | rootedbytheriver.com

Neil Shenvi on Wokeness, Truth, and the Church

What does it mean to respond to wokeness without panic, caricature, or reactionary tribalism?

In this episode of Post Everything, Brad Edwards and John Houmes sit down with Neil Shenvi, co-author of Post-Woke, to talk about the cultural position of Christianity in 2026, the power of contemporary critical theory, and how churches can form people who are neither ideologically captured nor politically naive.

The conversation explores the complexity of our current moment: Are we in a “negative world,” an apathetic world, or something even more fragmented? How should Christians think about “woke natives,” younger generations shaped by DEI frameworks, oppressor/oppressed binaries, and moral urgency? And how do pastors offer both compassion and clarity when so much of the culture is driven by polarization, fear, and identity conflict?

Shenvi argues that critical theory is not merely a tool or political lens, but a worldview with its own account of identity, justice, truth, and righteousness. But he also warns Christians against responding with simplistic anti-woke rhetoric or drifting toward equally unbiblical reactionary movements on the right.

Together they discuss:

This is a conversation about formation, truth, and the future of the Church in a deeply contested cultural moment.

Key Themes

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:37 Christianity’s Cultural Position

07:03 Clarity Without Dismissal

13:36 Dialogue, Sources, Truth

18:45 Theory Becomes Religion

25:29 Four Pillars Explained

30:48 When Theory Corrupts

33:41 Poison, Not Meat

35:34 The Woke Right

40:20 Gen Z's Tension

43:39 Can't Split Jesus

47:51 Formation Without God

52:10 Trust Replaces Power

57:23 Love and Truth

01:00:40 Worship Reorients Everything

01:05:33 Pillars as Religion

01:12:44 Justice Without King

01:19:23 God First Vertically

01:28:29 Get to Church