Bill Kierce has served ten years as an itinerant evangelist, 22 years as pastor of a local church, 5 years as a congregational consultant, and is now serving as the President of the Francis Asbury Society. He has a whole lot of education in organizational leadership, including a PhD in that area of study from Eastern University. Bill’s heart now is promoting the gift of evangelism and the message of scriptural holiness … and today, that’s the heart of our conversation. Got a passion for evangelism? Connect with The Francis Asbury Society: https://francisasburysociety.com/

Beth Felker Jones (PhD, Duke University) teaches theology at Northern Seminary, and loves to write for the church and the academy. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband Brian, four kids, two dogs, and Dwight, her theology cat. She was on The Art of Holiness a couple of years ago to talk about her really great work, Practicing Christian Doctrine. She has also published a book called “God the Spirit. Today we are talking with her about her latest work, “Why I am Protestant.” What does it mean to be Protestant? How can its strengths shape faith in the modern world, and how should its challenges be addressed?

Dr. Jason Vickers serves as professor of Christian theology and the Wesley Endowed Chair of Christian Theology at Truett Seminary, on the campus of Baylor University in Texas. He serves as a member of the Discipleship, Doctrine, and Just Ministry Commission of the Global Methodist Church. Ryan Barnett is an ordained elder in the GMC. Today, he serves on staff at Truett and as the Connectional Operational Officer (COO) of the MidTexas Conference of the Global Methodist Church. Together, Ryan and Jason have created a fabulous resource for the church -- Profoundly Christian, Distinctly Methodist. Their work gives us a great opportunity to talk about what it means to be Methodist, and what we can celebrate as we teach our people the joys of this tradition. 

Dr. Ken Collins has been a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary since 1995 (which means he got there the same year I did). He has written and taught extensively on all facets of Wesleyan theology. His The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace was ground-breaking and established Collins as a preeminent theologian in the field. His work on holiness as "holy love” and grace as both "free and co-operant" is fascinating and that's where we'll be in this podcast, as we talk about his latest publication, Generous Divine Love. 

Dr. Arnold is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. He joined the faculty of Asbury my freshman year, so we have grown up at Asbury together. He has written extensively on the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern Culture. Look for his excellent book, Introduction to the Old Testament, if you want to get a start on his scholarship. He is currently writing a two-volume commentary on Deuteronomy, the first half of which was released in 2022. He served on the Old Testament translation team for the New Living Translation, and was responsible for translating the books of 1 and 2 Kings. And that’s why we want to talk to him today … because we love Bible translators! Let’s jump in. 

Carmen Imes is one of my favorite people, and such a marvelous resourcer of the Church. With her latest book, Becoming God’s Family, she completes a trilogy of teachings on what it means to belong to the Body of Christ. Its an excellent read and this is a great conversation! 

Dr. Carmen Imes is the Associate Professor of Old Testament at Biola University in La Mirada, California. Dr. Imes earned a PhD in Biblical Theology from Wheaton College, an MA in Biblical Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and a BA in Bible and Theology from Multnomah University. She and her husband, Daniel, served as missionaries with SIM for 15 years. 

We loved this conversation with Dee Baty. Dee was a charter member of the Wesleyan Coveanant Association Global Council, where she served on both the Accountable Discipleship Task Force and the Sexuality Task Force. Her call is to equip the church to live into sexual holiness. She authors the weekly 
Resources4Redemption newsletter (available on Substack). which serves to  equip followers of Jesus to speak the gospel fluently, truthfully, and kindly on issues related to sexuality. Along with Mark Ongley and Garry Ingraham, she is a speaker for the 3 C Seminars on Sexuality and Gender.

David Wilkinson is a Christian theologian and Methodist minister who has earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics and another in systematic theology. His expertise as a scientist is in star formation and galaxy evolution. As a theologian he works to build bridges between science and Christianity. He leads the "Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science" project and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day. His latest book, just released in August is How Does God Work in the World?: Science, Miracle and Mission. To describe the book, I want to quote from his website: “From The Simpsons to a wedding in Cana, from grace to quantum theory, and from the problem of evil to eschatology, David argues that the biblical picture of a God who acts in the world makes sense in the light of modern science, but how God acts cannot be reduced to simple models.” We are honored to have Dr. Wilkinson with us for a conversation about all these things.

This episode is part of an emphasis we're making this fall on the Bible. Dr. Jennifer Holloran is president and CEO of The American Bible Society (the first woman to hold the this lead role in its 209 year history). Dr. Holloran has a long history in bible advocacy, having spent 22 years at Wycliffe Bible Translators USA and served on all kinds of boards and with nonprofit organizations that champion Jesus and his Word. I’m honored that she’s taken time to be with us at AoH to talk about a growing theme in this fall’s Art of Holiness library … the Word of God for the people of God. 

Dr. Instone-Brewer received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he specialized in early rabbinic literature. Today he is a Baptist minister in the UK who served for twenty years as a research fellow at Tyndale House in Cambridge, He is the author of lots of books and articles, including Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible (which my friend Gordon Spivey recommends) and also The Jesus Scandals, Moral Questions of the Bible, and Science and the Bible. He has helped develop a solid Bible app called STEPBible -- one more way the academy is shaping the practice of ordinary Christians, especially as they engage scripture. Oh, and Dr. Instone-Bridges is on the NIV translation team … which totally fascinates me and is the reason I asked him to join us on AoH.