Crackers and Grape Juice

Pastor Alice Connor and her book 'Fierce: Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Violence, Mercy, Bravery, Wisdom, Sex, and Salvation'.

Author & professor John Nugent speaks to Donald Trump's Executive Order regarding immigrants and refugees from the perspective of his terrific new book Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World is Killing the Church.

Our guest, Mona, discusses the consequences President Trump's Muslim travel ban has had and will have on her and our fellow Muslim American brothers and sisters. With all the talk of travel and immigration bans there have been real consequences. American citizens who are Muslim have been forced to have tough conversations with their neighbors and children. Xenophobia is creating fear throughout our nation rather than embracing the diversity we have in our country.

Jeffrey Pugh, Professor of Religion at Elon University, is a vulgar, profane, urgent son of a bitch. In other words, he’s quickly becoming a friend of the podcast. In addition to his recent book, the Home-Brewed Christianity Guide to the End Times, Jeffery is the author of Religionless Christianity: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Troubled Times. For these troubled times when our culture is torn into polarities and our politics are in chaos, Bonhoeffer is a helpful guide for Christians to discern how to survey the landscape of their nation, determine what is nonnegotiable, and stand up as a confessing community.

James Younger, executive producer of National Geographic’s The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, joins the show to discuss faith, religion, and all things Story of God.You can watch The Story of God with Morgan Freeman on Monday evenings at 9 PM EST on the National Geographic Channel.

At the Theology Beer Camp hosted by Tripp Fuller and Homebrewed Christianity Teer and Jason caught up with pastor, professor, and former AC/DC sound roadie Barry Taylor. Barry is currently an Adjunct Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and a co-host on 'The Story of God-Cast' which is the official after show of the hit NatGeo series 'The Story of God'.

Morgan and Teer had a chance to catch up with Pastor Amy Butler the week prior to President Trump's inauguration. Amy explains why she is seeking to use the pulpit as a place for a faithful response to what so far has been a tremulous first few days of the Trump presidency.

Taylor and Teer caught up with Duke Divinity professor and retired UMC Bishop Will Willimon to talk about racism, the Donald, and how we can look forward as America's dirty little secret surfaces again. "Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Preaching to Confront Racism" is available February 2017.

Taylor and Jason sat down for a conversation with Rev. Alex Joyner, author and a District Superintendent in the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.Joyner was ordained a deacon in 1989 and elder in 1993. He has served appointments in Dallas, Texas; York, England; Unionville and Charlottesville. Joyner served as campus minister at the Wesley Foundation at the University of Virginia. He was appointed to Franktown UMC in 2005.Prior to entering the ordained ministry, Joyner was a radio news director and on-air personality in the Charlottesville area.Joyner holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, a Master of Divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Texas, and an additional Masters in Religious Studies while at UVA.He’s the author of several publications including Where Do I Go Now, God?, a vocational discernment curriculum and DVD for young adults published by Abingdon Press. He is a regular contributor to the FaithLink adult curriculum from the United Methodist Publishing House, and teaches in the Course of Study program at Perkins.

A recent study released by the Review of Religious Research titled "Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy", argues that across Canada theologically conservative churches are growing while their liberal counterparts are experiencing decline. This study was brought to our attention by way of a Washington Post article.In the latest episode of Crackers & Grape Juice we tackle this topic from the context of local UMC congregations and campus ministry. At one point we are even able to correlate the decline of liberal churches with the decline of Duke basketball.