“For those of us who are drawn into church history and church tradition and to reading theology, there is very little as transformative as realizing that history is populated by women and men like us who tried to follow Christ in their own time and place and culture and circumstances, some of whom succeeded. … Looking at the saints, they make me want to be a better Christian. They make me want to be a saint.” (Brad East, from the episode)

In his recent book, Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry, theologian Brad East addresses future generations of the Church, offering a transmission of Christian faith from society today to society tomorrow. Written as a fellow pilgrim and looking into the lives of saints in the past, he’s writing to that post-literate, post-Christian society, where the highest recommendation of faith is in the transformed life.

Today, Drew Collins welcomes Brad East to the show, and together they discuss: the importance of being passed and passing on Christian faith—its transmission; the post-literacy of digital natives (Gen Z and Gen Alpha) and the role of literacy in the acquisition and development of faith; the significance of community in a vibrant Christian faith; the question of apologetics and its effectiveness as a mode of Christian discourse; the need for beauty and love, not just truth, in Christian witness; how to talk about holiness in a world that believes less and less in the reality of sin; the difference between Judas and Peter; and what it means to study the saints and to be a saint.

About Brad East

Brad East (PhD, Yale University) is an associate professor of theology in the College of Biblical Studies at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. In addition to editing Robert Jenson’s The Triune Story: Collected Essays on Scripture (Oxford University Press, 2019), he is the author of four books: The Doctrine of Scripture (Cascade, 2021), The Church’s Book: Theology of Scripture in Ecclesial Context (Eerdmans, 2022), The Church: A Guide to the People of God (Lexham, 2024), and Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry (Eerdmans, 2024).His articles have been published in Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, Scottish Journal of Theology, Journal of Theological Interpretation, Anglican Theological Review, Pro Ecclesia, Political Theology, Religions, Restoration Quarterly, and The Other Journal; his essays and reviews have appeared in The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Comment, Commonweal, First Things, Front Porch Republic, The Hedgehog Review, Living Church, Los Angeles Review of Books, Marginalia Review of Books, Mere Orthodoxy, The New Atlantis, Plough, and The Point. You can found out more, including links to his writing, podcast appearances, and blog, on his personal website: https://www.bradeast.org/.

Show Notes

Letters to a Future Saint: Foundations of Faith for the Spiritually Hungry by Brad East
The importance of being passed and passing on Christian faith—its transmission
Spencer Bogle, the reason Brad East is a theologian
The post-literacy of Gen Z and Gen Alpha and the role of literacy in the acquisition and development of faith
The question of apologetics and its effectiveness as a mode of Christian discourse
The need for beauty and love, not just truth, in Christian witness
Christianity pre-exists you, and pre-existed literate society. So it can survive post-literacy
Tik-Tok and getting off it
“We have to have a much broader vision of the Christian life.”
The Doctrine of Scripture, by Brad East, Foreword by Katherine Sonderegger
Cartesian Christianity: me alone in a room, maybe with a flashlight and a bible
Spiritual but not religious (H/T Tara Isabella Burton)
We’re not saved individually
Alice in Wonderland and “believing 17 absurd things every day”
Is Christian apologetics sub-intellectual and effective?
Gavin Ortlund, taking seriously spiritual and moral questions with pastoral warmth and intellectual integrity—”a ministry of Q&A”
Bishop Robert Barron and William Lane Craig
“People are not going to be won to the faith through argument. They're going to be won by beauty.”
Beauty of lives well-lived, integrity, virtue, and martyrdom
“What lies beyond this world is available in part in this world and so good it's worth dying for.”
Is Christian apologetics actually for Christians, rather than evangelism?
“A person’s life can be an apologetic argument.”
James K.A. Smith: “We don’t want to be brains on sticks.”
“You’re just going to look bizarre.”
“Come and see. … If you see something unique or uniquely powerful here, then stick around.”
Saintliness and a cloud of witnesses
Why do the saints matter?
The protagonist of Augustine’s Confessions is actually St. Monica.
“I want to be like Monica…”
“For those of us who are drawn into church history and church tradition and to reading theology, there is very little as transformative as realizing that history is populated by women and men like us who tried to follow Christ in their own time and place and culture and circumstances, some of whom succeeded. … Looking at the saints, they make me want to be a better Christian. They make me want to be a saint.”
How to talk about holiness in a world that believes less and less in the reality of sin.
Is holiness just connected to purity culture?
Holiness is very difficult to describe.
Hauerwas: “Humans aren’t holy. Only God is holy.”
Holiness as being like God and being set apart and conformed to his likeness
Holiness is, by rights, God’s alone.
Appreciating the “everyday saints” among us
Sanctification as an utterly passive act
The final words of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict), “Jesus, ich liebe dich!” (”Jesus, I love you.”)
Peter and Judas
Lucy Shaw poem, “Judas, Peter” (see below)
“There is a way to fail as a Christian. It’s to despair of the possibility of Christ forgiving you.”
What it means to journey as a pilgrim towards holiness is, is not to get everything right.
Shusaku Endo, Silence
“What I say is we're all Kichichiro. We're all Peter and Judas. We're all bad Christians. There are no good Christians.”
Kester Smith and returning to baptism
“Sometimes it might be difficult for me to believe that God loves me.”

“Judas, Peter”

by Lucy Shaw

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out and hang ourselves

but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break out hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me?

Production Notes

This podcast featured Brad East & Drew Collins
Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
Hosted by Evan Rosa
Production Assistance by Zoë Halaban, Alexa Rollow, Emily Brookfield, and Kacie Barrett
A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

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