Faith Improvised

In this episode I share some random observations, I recommend Jason Hickel's brilliant book, The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets, and I talk about the politics of abortion and how this issue has shaped the culture of white evangelicalism in America.

In this brief episode, I share some thoughts from the past week and I recommend Jason Stanley's fascinating book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. 

I offer some reflections on music, sports, and the challenge of self-awareness among athletes, I recommend Daniel Radosh's fun and enlightening book, Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture, and I respond to some questions about what I've been saying about God's sovereignty and what that looks like in our world.

I respond to a bunch of questions I received based on the previous episode, and I recommend Kate Bowler's wonderful memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, which is a personal and theological reflection on so many of the poor ways Christians have come to think about God in relation to human suffering.

I reflect on the character of antagonism and how patterns in evangelical culture make evangelicals susceptible to being drawn easily into antagonistic postures and patterns in the larger culture. I also recommend Manoush Zomorodi's fascinating book, Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, and I talk about how the Bible depicts God's sovereignty and how that relates to human suffering, among other dynamics in our experience.

I have a conversation with my friend Steve Watkins about a variety of topics: how our thinking has developed over the years, what to do about misinformation and conspiracy theories, and we drop some Coen references along the way. I also recommend Anne Applebaum's important new book, Twilight of Democracy.

I offer some ruminations from the past week, I talk about Bruce Longenecker's wonderful book, The Lost Letters of Pergamum, which is one of the best resources for getting into the world of the New Testament, and I reflect on the strategic importance of listening to those our culture *others*, especially when it comes to realities like cruciformity.

In this first episode of season 2, I answer a question about evangelical engagement with the Bible, I talk about my new book, Power in Weakness, which is about Paul as a pastor, and I reflect a bit on current events, especially the attempted putsch on January 6 and what that portends for America in coming days.

I offer a few observations and reflections from the past week, I recommend Seth Dowland's fascinating book, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right, and I talk about the Household Code in Ephesians 5-6 as an instance of how modern Bible readers can misread an apparently clear passage when they don't understand ancient and modern historical contexts.

I reflect a bit on evangelical faulty logic that keeps us from loving our neighbors, I talk about a wonderful resource for understanding Mark in its Jewish context, and I conclude my series on Mark's Gospel.