Nomad Podcast

Eve Tushnet is a freelance writer and blogger. And she's gay, Catholic and celibate. So we ask Eve to tell us the story of how she went from atheist lesbian, to Catholic and celibate. And what she learnt about love, friendship and what it means to commit to the Church.  “To the extent that the discussion of sexuality and same-sex relationships draws out what are the kinds of love that are open to you if you are gay, that I think is a really crucially important and fascinating question. If it’s about scriptural interpretation, I flat out admit that I don’t understand the Bible.” - Eve Tushnet Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

With yet another terrorist atrocity in the news, this time leading to the deaths of at least 38 people in Tunisia, people are again asking, 'Is Islam inherently violent?' We ask Carl Medearis, an international expert in Muslim-Christian relations who has lived, worked and travelled in the Middle East for the last 30 years, to help us unpack this question.  “If you say, ‘Is Christianity violent?’ we might say, ‘Well, no. Of course not. Jesus taught love and peace.’ But that’s not the question. We didn’t ask what Jesus taught, we asked: what does Christianity do? Christianity has done lots of horrible things in its name.” - Carl Medearis Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

Tom Wright is unquestionably one of the most influential New Testament scholars of our generation. It's hard to overestimate the influence he has had on the Church's understanding of Jesus and Paul. But what makes this great man tick? We asked you what you'd like to know about the man behond the theology. As a result, we ended up asking him everything from what his favourite childhood book was, to how he manages his work/life balance, through to which three people he'd most like to invite for dinner.  "The primary mode of knowing is love. And love is both deeply subjective and – if it’s love – deeply objective in the sense that the thing or person or whatever it is that I love, I am valuing as they are, but I’m valuing from my point of view.” - Tom Wright  Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

It's quite popular these days to refer to yourself as an activist. But Alastair McIntosh is the real thing. He's taken on major corporations, and won! Why? Because he believes much of the modern world is threatening our sense of place, which he believes is vital for humans to fully flourish. Tune in for a fascinating conversation!  “On the one hand, the sense of belonging to place is hugely important. On the other hand, we need to embed that in a deeper spiritual sense of belonging where the whole cosmos becomes our home and every place where we tread a step becomes a place we should try to treat as home.” - Alastair McIntosh Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

Rachel Held Evans is a hugely successful and influential progressive Christian blogger, author and speaker.  We talk to Rachel about her journey from a conservative evangelical faith characterised by certainty, to wrestling with questions, doubt, cynicism and despair, through to a new kind of faith. And we discuss the trials and tribulations of embarking on this journey under the gaze of social media. It's a fascinating and insightful story. “You’re allowed to ask questions, but only up to a certain point. And there were a lot of predetermined answers. Like, ‘We want you to wrestle, we want you to struggle a little bit…but only if you come back around to believing this, this, this and this.’ So, it felt like the inquiry was very limited and restricted, which didn’t feel like actual inquiry to me.” - Rachel Held Evans Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

Mike McHargue describes himself as a Christian turned atheist turned follower of Jesus. That's right, Mike was a fully-fledged conservative evangelical Christian, but his faith crumbled away and he found himself in the rather awkward position of being a Church deacon who no longer believed in God! Then Mike rediscovered faith, but in a very different way. Now he teaches on science, faith, atheism, doubt and knowing God. It's a great story. Enjoy!  “I know many people who are happy, healthy, well-adjusted atheists or secular humanists and I don’t have any desire to take that away from them. My heart is for the people who – like me – hunger to know God, who desire to know God, who miss feeling God is real. And for those people, I don’t offer Scripture. I offer science.” - Mike McHargue Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

What on earth are we meant to do with those passages in the Bible where God commands genocide, the stoning to death of rebellious children or poems about dashing the heads of babies on rocks?! Well, according to theologian, author and artist, Derek Flood, the answer is pretty straight forward, we just read the Bible like Jesus did. “Jesus represents the way of ‘faithful questioning’ and the Pharisees represent the way of ‘unquestioning obedience’...And the way of ‘faithful questioning’ we see in Jesus is where he says things like, ‘Hey, well what do you mean we can’t heal on the Sabbath?.. he’s questioning a law in the name of compassion and saying, ‘Look, this is the way this law is supposed to be done.” - Derek Flood Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

Another General Election is upon us. Levels of apathy and disillusionment are at an all time high, and popular figures like Russell Brand are urging us to have no part in what he sees as a corrupt system. So the question we're wrestling with is: Why Bother Voting? To help answer this we've turned to Paul Bickley for help. Paul has experience working in parliament and public affairs and is currently Director of Political Program at Theos Think Tank, a Christian think tank working in the area of politics, religion and society.  “A better question than, ‘Should Christians vote?’ would be, ‘What would an authentic Christian politic look like?’ In the same way that politics is more than voting, it must be more than a theoretical endeavour. It’s about real people. It’s about real challenges.” - Paul Bickley Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

The Rapture is a curious doctrine, as it's not in the Bible, anywhere! But let's pretend it's real, and you missed it! How would you survive the collapse of civilisation? Lewis Dartnell's day job is to search for life on Mars, but for fun he wrote 'The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch'. It may sound a tad abstract, but it sheds light on our relationship with the planet and with each other and why Rapture theology is potentially so destructive.  “If society collapses, you’re going to be better off with friends and people you trust and a community around you.” - Lewis Dartnell Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.

Jesus told us to love our enemies. But surely not the monstrous soldiers of Isis?!  Rick Love is President of Peace Catalyst International, and Associate Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Peace and Reconciliation Initiative. He seemed like a pretty good person to ask what a Christian response to Isis would look like.  “Jesus is adamant about his peacemaking priorities. He calls us ‘hypocrites’ in fact if we fail to begin with humble introspection. Peacemaking according to Jesus always starts with our heart.” - Rick Love  Books, quotes, links → The creation of Nomad’s thoughtful, ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful and wonderful listeners. By supporting us, you gain access to Nomad’s online spaces—like the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge, and Book Club—as well as bonus episodes such as Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections, and Nomad Revisited. If you’d like to join our lovely community of supporters, head over to our Patreon page. You might even be rewarded with a Nomad pen or our coveted Beloved Listener mug! If a monthly commitment isn’t possible right now, a one-off donation is always deeply appreciated—you can do that here. Looking to connect with others nearby? Check out the Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook group. And if you're up for sharing your own story, we regularly post reflections from listeners on our blog—all with the hope of fostering deeper understanding, connection and supportive relationships. If you'd like to share your story on the blog, contact us for more information here.