On the Journey

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their series looking into ways to reframe conversations about faith with people who doubt or deny the existence of God. Atheists and Theists alike believe that some moral sense should govern the way we interact with one another. But if humans are no different than any other species on the planet, then who's to say that the needs of humans in any area of life should come ahead of the needs of any other creature? Matt and Ken discuss how an inherent sense of human dignity is necessary in order to have a moral framework for a just society. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley begin a new series looking into ways to reframe conversations about faith with people who doubt or deny the existence of God.  There are plenty of people who hold various philosophical perspectives that deny the supernatural, or the existence of purpose or meaning in the universe, and argue that human beings are merely biological machines living out deterministic evolutionary processes. But as Matt and Ken discuss, even people who make those arguments still tend to live, work, love, and interact with fellow human beings as though there *is* meaning and purpose in the universe. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley conclude their series on the Reformation by looking at how the movements and ideas that took root then have influenced the way the modern world looks today. In many ways, the factors that drove the Reformation -- technology, individualism, a plurality of ideas -- are the same factors that characterize contemporary culture. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

As Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley have been discussing in this series, there were many historical and cultural factors that caused the Reformation to happen when it did. But it is impossible to overstate the impact that the hypocrisy, greed, and arrogance of Catholic leaders at every level had on the revolution that Christianity underwent in the 16th century. The rot in the Church was so bad that even some of the saints who lived at the time discouraged believers from going to Rome, lest they have their faith destroyed. Matt and Ken look at how this corruption in the Catholic Church served to further feed the chaos of the Reformation. For more episodes, visit http:///www.chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their series exploring the causes of and reasons for the Continental Reformation by considering three major elements that played into it: the invention of the printing press, the proliferation of new theological ideas, and the rise of humanism as an educational philosophy. Exploring these three factors helps make sense of why the Reformation happened when it did. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley begin a new series on the Continental Reformation, which is often understood as having started with Martin Luther before expanding rapidly across Europe and beyond. As Evangelical Protestants, Matt and Ken had both done historical studies of the issues at stake in the Reformation. But the deeper they both dove into the theology, the cultural conditions of the time, and the personalities involved, the more they began to realize that there was a lot more for both of them to learn about what the Reformation actually was, and why it happened. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

After several weeks discussing Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley conclude their discussion of how they wrestled with the question of Christian authority on their way into the Catholic Church. Infallibility is one of the most misunderstood concepts in all of Catholic teaching, and to both Matt and Ken as Protestants, it sounded completely insane and unbiblical. They share some of the misconceptions they had about what the Catholic Church actually means by infallibility, and how it's not based on the administrative skills and talents of any particular pope or bishop, but on the very promise of Jesus Himself. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Having spent several weeks looking at how they began to rethink Christian authority as Evangelical Christians, Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley begin to unpack the three-legged stool of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium that function as the guiding authority for the Catholic Church. The three cannot be separated. Sacred Scripture is preserved and interpreted through Sacred Tradition, and then taught actively by the Magisterium. Pull any of those legs off of the stool, and division and chaos ensue. For more episodes, vist chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue their discussion of how they wrestled with the question of Christian authority on their way into the Catholic Church. This time, they take a closer look at the way the papacy developed in the early Church. The Catholic claim is that the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter, is the head of the Church. But how that came to be involves a process of development that helps us understand how the Holy Spirit continued in the promise of Jesus to lead the Church into all truth. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.

Matt Swaim and Ken Hensley continue to discuss how they went from Evangelical Christian understandings of authority to embracing what the Catholic faith teaches about the relationship between Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. In this episode, Matt and Ken dig into some of the early Christian sources that point to Rome as the "headquarters" of the Church, and how it came to be seen that way. As the site of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, the consensus of reliable early Christian sources shows us that Rome became the central seat of Christian leadership within the  lifetimes of the apostles. For more episodes, visit chnetwork.org/onthejourney.