The Two Cities

In this episode we discuss the concept of “Biblical Womanhood” from a historical perspective. To do so we are joined by Dr. Beth Allison Barr, who is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of History at Baylor University (Waco, TX), and the author of the forthcoming book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth (with Brazos). In her new book, Dr. Barr contends that “Biblical Womanhood” isn’t biblical at all, but rather is the product of people. She relays to us in our conversation some of the ways that she defends that thesis in her book, some key insights and motivations behind writing the book, and also some of the plans she originally had for certain chapters. Along the way we make reference to Jordan Peterson, whether a concept like “Biblical Womanhood” can be salvaged and reinvested with new meaning, the cultural tensions of patriarchy and feminism, and the implications of Dr. Barr’s new book for recent sexual abuse scandals that have come to light regarding Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, and Dr. Chris Porter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode we discuss various topics related to gender and the Trinity, including: the gendered language about the family of God (i.e. “sons”) and the gendered language for the persons of the Trinity (i.e. Father and Son), the representation of God with maternal imagery in the Bible, and the topic of the Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son (EFS), which is a proxy discussion for a complementarian approach to gender. For this discussion we are joined by Dr. Madison Pierce, who is assistant professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Illinois), and the author of Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoke Quotations of Scripture (Cambridge University Press, 2020). After digging into these topics related to God and gender, we close out our conversation with some reflections on gender representation in theological education and Dr. Pierce's Enneagram type. Team members from The Two Cities podcast on the episode include: Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Chris Porter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode we begin the season of Lent with a discussion on ecological grief with our guest, Hannah Malcolm, who is PhD Candidate in Theology at Durham University studying ecological grief as a form of theological knowledge. She is also the editor of Words for a Dying World: Stories of Grief and Courage from the Global Church (SCM Press, 2020) containing essays, poems, and anecdotes related to our ecological crisis. Over the course of the episode, Hannah helps us understand the nature of ecological grief relative to other forms of trauma. We chat about what prevents evangelicals from participating in this process of grieving, noting some important distinctions on this issue in American and British contexts respectively. Hannah also addresses some of the insufficiencies for how the church resources Scripture and how the church often chooses to address the issue collectively. She informs us about gendered components to this issue re: political leadership in helping to ameliorate the problem, whether men or women are more likely to take ecological action, and who is most culpable and also most vulnerable to climate crisis. Team members from The Two Cities on the episode include Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Grace Emmett, and Dr. Logan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall, Associate Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College (Hamilton, Ontario) and the author of Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle's Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Baker, 2016). Our the course of our conversation we discuss a number of historical and cultural background issues, including, the Artemis cult at Ephesus, Paul's Hellenistic background, whether Paul wrote 1 Timothy (and if that has any bearing on how we should handle 1 Timothy as a whole), and maternal mortality. Textually, we dive into the meaning of a number of exegetical and lexical issues in 1 Timothy 2, including the meaning of "saved through childbearing" (1 Tim. 2.15), how Adam and Eve relate to the exhortations that Paul is giving related to his command that women ought to learn, and whether the passage is directed to husband and wife dynamics in the home or to a worship context. Team members from The Two Cities on the episode include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Dr. Logan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Two Cities podcast we are joined by Dr. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, who is Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University (Waco, TX), and the author of When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul (Baker, 2016). Over the course of our conversation we talk about Dr. Gaventa’s current research on Romans for the New Testament Library series, noting some distinctive features of her reading of Romans, including an emphasis on apocalyptic images in the text. She also tells us what elements of Romans that she imagines would stand out to the original hearers among the Roman congregations as it was read aloud. Furthermore, we discuss with her about the possibility that the letter was originally read aloud by Phoebe, the deacon and benefactor that Paul mentions at the start of Romans 16 and most likely the original letter carrier who brought the letter of Romans to Rome. From here we talk about the other prominent women mentioned at the end of the letter, notably Prisca and Junia. Dr. Gaventa informs us about the roles and titles attributed to these women, and also what we can learn about their leadership in the early church. Team members on the episode include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Grace Emmett, and Dr. Logan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Two Cities podcast we talk with Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University, about her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith and Fractured A Nation (Liveright, 2020). Over the course of the conversation Dr. Du Mez tells us about some of the most shocking findings from her book, how Jesus and John Wayne fits within her longstanding research interests in militant Christian masculinity in the US, and how those themes can be traced through the teachings of key Christian leaders like James Dobson, John Eldridge, Douglas Wilson, Doug Phillips, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Jerry Falwell Sr., and Jerry Falwell Jr., among others. We also go beyond the book in connecting the insights from it to the events of January 6, the insurrection at the Capitol building, and the recent attempts to overthrow American democracy. The Two Cities team members on the episode include Amber Bowen, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, Rev. Daniel Parham, Chris Porter, and Dr. Logan Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Rev. Daniel Parham are joined by Dr. Lisa Bowens, associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the author of African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation, which was published by Eerdmans in 2020. In this episode Dr. Bowens talks to us about her research on the primary sources from the 18th century on through the Civil Rights movement, chronicling some key insights in the interpretation of Paul in slave petitions, essays, speeches, sermons, conversion narratives, etc. In particular, she describes the diversity of African-American pauline hermeneutics, the way that white slaveholders used Scripture to impose slavery, how African Americans read Scripture through the lens of liberty, how that liberative reading of Paul in regards to slavery led to additional liberation for women as well, and how reading Paul in a liberative manner led enslaved African Americans to reinterpret the significance and value of their own bodies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As part of our broader series on gender in biblical scholarship, Christian tradition, and the contemporary church, we turn to discuss Women in the Patristic Era. In this episode, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Dr. Chris Porter are joined by Dr. Lynn Cohick, who is Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs, and Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. We begin by hearing how Dr. Cohick first became interested in the broader topic by studying the visions and spirituality of Julian of Norwich. As the conversation progresses, Dr. Cohick informs us about several prominent women in the early church, such as the martyr Perpetua, and St. Thecla and the cult that emerged in her remembrance. Dr. Cohick also responds to our questions regarding the way asceticism may have shaped the relative roles of women in the early church, how early Christians were reading the New Testament in regard to what it says about women, whether women in the early church held the same ministerial titles that we see in the New Testament, and whether the early church continues a liberative trajectory, such as the one Robert Webb sees in the development from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Continuing our conversation on gender dynamics in Scripture and the Church, in this podcast episode we talk about the binary of Complementarianism and Egalitarianism regarding how to conceive of the relationship of men and women in marriage and in the church. Has the entrenchment of the binary led us to miss aspects of the text? For this conversation, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Emmett, and Grace Sangalang Ng are joined by Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewall, Associate Professor of New Testament at Biola University in La Mirada, CA and author of Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective To The Evangelical Gender Debate (with Baker in 2016). Over the course of the conversation Dr. Lee-Barnewall tells us what she finds to be deficient in both Complementarianism and Egalitarianism, what is often missing from and overemphasized in the debate, how her unique approach fits in church contexts, how Complementarians and Egalitarians alike have responded to her book, how her books fits into contemporary gender identity and gender discourse, and how to think of her ideas in the light of broader cultural interests in diversity of all sorts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we talk about the significance of the women mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. For this conversation, Dr. John Anthony Dunne and Brandon Hurlbert are joined by Dr. Jeannine Brown, Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN), member of the NIV Translation Committee, and author of a few commentaries on Matthew. We talk about why genealogies are worth digging into rather than skipping, why it's significant that women are mentioned at all in a genealogy in the Bible, and what's significant about the four named women in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and "the wife of Uriah"). Some read these four women in terms of the sexual scandals associated with their stories, but Dr. Brown calls our attention to their whole stories and how they are seen as paragons of faithfulness in the contexts of their stories. Additionally, Dr. Brown notes the ethnic commonalities between the four women as Gentiles.  We also discuss the similarities and differences between Luke and Matthew's genealogies, as well as the differences between their respect infancy narratives and whether Matthew's Magi should be included in Nativity sets for Christmas. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.