The Deep Thoughts Podcast with Matt Shantz

Conversations around human sexuality are some of the most sensitive and complex in our culture today and around the church more specifically. Sam Allberry is a celibate, same-sex-attracted pastor/theologian who has written extensively and spoken all over the world on these topics. In this conversation, Matt chats with Sam Allberry about the tenth anniversary edition of Is God-Anti Gay? and 7 Myths About Singleness.

Is God Anti-Gay? is a sensitive exploration of the Bible’s teaching on sexuality that's been written to help both Christians and non-Christians struggling with the Bible's teaching on this issue, and how the gospel is good news for everyone, whatever their sexual orientation.

In  7 Myths About Singleness, Sam seeks to help Christians—married and unmarried alike—value singleness as a gift from God so that we can all encourage singles to take hold of the unique opportunities their singleness affords and see their role in the flourishing of the church as a whole.

ABOUT

Sam Allberry is a pastor, apologist, author and speaker. He speaks throughout the world at conferences, has recently transitioned from pastoring in the UK to a church in Nashville, TN, co-hosts a podcast with Ray Ortlund called, You’re Not Crazy: Gospel Sanity for Young Pastors, is a Canon Theologian for the Anglican Church in North America, is a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, and was named a Fellow at the recently launched Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is the author of a number of books, including Is God Anti-Gay?; What God Has to Say About Our Bodies; Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?; 7 Myths about Singleness; a commentary on the Book of James; and Why Bother With Church?

Here we go! We’re fascinated by the supernatural. Ghost stories, shows like Stranger Things, super hero movies with villains of cosmic proportions all intrigue us. But when it comes to the spiritual realm that the Bible describes we tend to either ignore that reality completely or have an unhealthy obsession with it. While we need not spend much time thinking about Satan and the demonic (far better to fixate on Jesus than the devil), it is important to have a biblical understanding of Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. So Matt gets Dr. Gerry Breshears on the line to fill us in.

In any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental illness. By the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have – or have had – a mental illness (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 2022). What does God and the Bible say about mental illness and how can we make churches places where those who struggle with mental health conditions are welcomed, understood, nurtured, and supported: a foretaste of the new creation. Matt interviews Helen Thorne, Director of Training and Resources at Biblical Counselling UK and co-author of the new book, Mental Health and Your Church.

A Deep Thought is a concise episode on a particular aspect of the Christian faith that we sprinkle in between full-length episodes. This one's on Faith & Politics and is a sermon Matt did at Central Community Church in the summer of 2021, entitled “Shaped By The Gospel: Politics". It serves as a helpful follow up and compliment to episode 72 and is something of "a theology of politics". It is not a partisan pitch but a vision for engaging politics Christianly.

Matt gets Russ Ramsey on the line to talk about art and faith. What is the role of art in the world? In other words, what’s the point of being creative and why is beauty itself important? Russ’s new book, Rembrandt Is In The Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith, helps us explore all of this while focusing on some of the most famous artists and pieces of art throughout history. Not only does Russ describe the work of Rembrandt, for example, but the faith of Rembrandt as well. Christians, especially in the Protestant (and more specifically, the evangelical tradition) would do well to wrap our minds and hearts around the place of art in life and faith.