Brad Watson spent years as a Salvation Army officer — humanitarian disaster responder, senior leader, insider. He's also gay. In this conversation, Brad shares what led him to research the lived experience of LGBTQ+ officers within the Salvation Army, and what he found: stories of moral injury, religious trauma, and quiet resilience, gathered from officers who trusted him with their experiences.

We talk about the Salvation Army's unusual dual identity as both beloved welfare organisation and conservative evangelical church, the concept of moral injury, and what genuine allyship actually requires when the cost becomes real. But we also go looking for hope — and find it in authenticity, unexpected ministry, and a theology of grace that refuses to stay within its own boundaries.

Brad's book Queer Blood and Fire is available now:

https://www.queerbloodandfirebook.com/

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Andrew Cox is a Filipino-Australian poet, performer, and the facilitator of Canberra Poetry Slam. In this conversation, we explore how poetry spaces can function as alternative spiritual communities — places of transcendence, vulnerability, and belonging outside traditional religious frameworks.

Andrew shares his journey from earnest young performer to community curator, wrestling with questions of colonial identity, the tension between certainty and conviction, and what it means to create spaces that are genuinely safe while still allowing for healthy challenge and growth.

Connect with Andrew:

https://andrewcoxpoetry.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/andrewcoxpoetry

https://www.instagram.com/canberraslam

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Justine Toh is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX) and a writer whose work appears regularly in The Guardian. In this conversation, Will and Justine explore the crisis of attention in our digital age — what we lose when our attention is fragmented, what it costs to reclaim it, and if the concept of 'a hidden life' might help us. This conversation doesn't offer simple answers, but genuine wrestling with how to live consciously within the systems we're part of.

Articles referenced:

• Justine Toh, "As the year begins, don't look away from the headlines, look better and deeper" — The Guardian
• Justine Toh, "A hidden life in the era of social media can still change history, as the story of Jesus shows" — The Guardian
• Justine Toh, "The world is burning. Who can convince the comfortable classes of the radical sacrifices needed?" — The Guardian

Books referenced:

• Johann Hari, Stolen Focus
• Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks
• Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation
• Justine Toh, Achievement Addiction

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What if the beliefs you were taught don't all have to stand or fall together? James McGrath, a New Testament scholar who went through his own faith reconstruction, joins Will to talk about what comes after deconstruction. Using the metaphor of DIY home renovation, James explores how we can take ownership of rebuilding our worldview without guilt - recognising that even the most conservative Christians are already "picking and choosing," doing it thoughtfully is what matters. We discuss the time machine thought experiment that revealed what's actually load-bearing in James' faith, why certainty and conviction are fundamentally different things, and how early Christian apologists actually sought to integrate the best of secular philosophy rather than argue against it. James makes the case that the most basic question about God — does ultimate reality exist? — is actually less debatable than we think, freeing us to focus on the more important questions about attributes, meaning, and how we live.

Order James's book: Beyond Deconstruction: Building a More Expansive Faith Available February 3, 2026 https://eerdmans.com/9780802884596/beyond-deconstruction/

Connect with James: 

Blog: Religion Prof (patheos.com/blogs/religionprof) 

X/Twitter: @ReligionProf 

Instagram: @jamesfmcgrath 

TikTok: @ReligionProf

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Mitch and Will hang out with a cuppa in Mitch's lounge room and discuss the state of the world. They talk about raising kids in progressive faith communities, Australia's social media ban for under-16s, and why it's so hard to build thick community when everyone wants the benefits of belonging without the commitment. They wrestle with whether their kids are learning to intuit God or just vibing with religious practice, and Mitch shares what 13 years off social media has done to his tolerance for difference. Like all Pub Theology episodes, it's loose, it's free-form and Mitch  brings up universalism at least once. Settle in with your drink of choice and join us in Mitch's lounge room.

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What comes after faith deconstruction? Tiffany Yecke Brooks joins Will to talk about "second-time-around spirituality" — the beautiful, uncertain space of rebuilding after everything falls apart. Drawing on the final image from Dante's Inferno, Tiffany explores what it means to emerge from hell and 'rebehold the stars'. Tiffany and Will discuss why our understanding of God is only as big as our language for God, how to develop a unique spiritual lexicon that fits your experience, and moving from cynicism to wonder without losing discernment. Tiffany shares practical exercises from the book including body-mapping emotions and church words, reimagining spiritual practices and evaluating faith communities by asking "what story is this church telling?" 

Pre-order Tiffany's book: To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith and Formation After Deconstruction Available March 30, 2026 https://eerdmans.com/9780802884367/to-rebehold-the-stars/

Tiffany's Website: https://www.tiffanyyeckebrooks.com/

Tiffany's Substack: The Leros Project

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Amar D. Peterman joins Will to discuss his forthcoming book Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local — a constructive vision for how Christians might practice radical neighbour love in a world that often rewards self-sufficiency and tribalism.

Born in India and raised between a Polish Catholic neighborhood and a white evangelical megachurch in Wisconsin, Amar knows what it's like to be a spiritual misfit. Now a PhD student at the University of Chicago and former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America, he's asking Christians a simple but radical question: What if we actually came to the table and loved our neighbours?

"What will we be to each other if the world doesn't end? When we believe our entire future depends on the outcome of an election or policy, we'll justify almost anything. But if we live knowing we'll still be neighbors tomorrow, it changes how we show up today."

Resources:
- Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local by Amar D. Peterman (Eerdmans, March 2026)
Amar's Substack: This Common Life
https://www.instagram.com/amarpeterman

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Simon Buckingham-Shum is Professor of Learning Informatics and Director of the Connected Intelligence Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. Learn more: https://Simon.BuckinghamShum.net

Abundant Intelligences (Abundant-Intelligences.net): Indigenous knowledge systems provide a way to rebuild AI's epistemological foundations - transforming tools that currently reinforce colonial practices of extraction and exclusion into engines of abundance that enable us to care better for ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti Brazilian/Canadian educator and researcher whose work invites a reckoning with the ontological assumptions driving systemic harm and extinction-level thinking. Author of the widely acclaimed "Hospicing Modernity" (2021) and more recent "Outgrowing Modernity" (2025). She has turned this scholarship to reframe AI within an ecological, relational ontology, aligned with many Indigenous knowledge systems. See Burnout From Humans (2024) and MetaRelational.AI.

In the podcast, Simon drew the parallel between the disposition that many of us in the Spiritual Misfits community bring to life’s questions and faith dilemmas, and the “meta-relational” disposition that Andreotti’s work calls us to bring to our planetary predicament, and AI specifically: "Meta-relationality is not a theory, but a practice of becoming-with. Of attuning to the fields we nest and are nested in. Of noticing the codes and the stories we carry, the systems we uphold, and the possibilities we’ve exiled. Of learning to hold space for complexity, plurality, tension, paradoxes and indeterminacy without turning away, throwing up, throwing a tantrum or throwing in the towel." https://metarelationaltech.ca/ 

Chatbots to Try:

Qreframer: Surfaces hidden assumptions behind your question and invites you to explore these, which may lead you to reframe your question

CoLearn: Walks you through guided conversation about anything you're learning, plus reflection on the quality of the conversation

ACI Designer: For challenges or ideas your group/organization is wrestling with - walks you through structured problem framing and solution exploration with emphasis on collective intelligence

Aiden

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Carolyn Meers offers a contemplative journey through the mystery of light across traditions, through time, into prayer. This episode includes a guided practice of holding yourself and others in the light of dawn, midday, and twilight.

At the end Caro reads Jan Richardson's blessing 'How the light comes'.

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Christmas can be wonderful...and complicated. Especially when your beliefs have shifted and you're heading into family gatherings or other contexts where not everyone understands or agrees with where you're at now. 

In this conversation, Will sits down with pastor and spiritual director Carolyn Meers and therapist Linda Pesavento to explore why Christmas amplifies these tensions, how to navigate relational minefields with integrity, and what it looks like to create new meaning while honouring what remains beautiful from your past.

Whether you're facing judgment from family, translating yourself to preserve relationships, or trying to figure out what Christmas means when the old story doesn't fit anymore, this episode offers practical wisdom, honest stories, and permission to keep yourself safe at this time of year.

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