Tripp Fuller

I Thought I Was a Doctor: Trump, the Pope & the Most Chaotic Week in Religion News with Diana Butler Bass

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:50:46 +0000

It’s Ruining Dinner with Diana Butler Bass on Tax day! Also, apparently, the day the Vice President told the Pope to stop doing theology. Diana Butler Bass joined me for what was supposed to be a casual religion news roundup and turned into something I didn’t entirely expect — a full-on church history seminar about what happens when empire tries to silence the gospel and why it never actually works. We started where everyone started this week: JD Vance, a newly minted Catholic who received what sounds like the Peter Thiel E-Z Pass lane through RCIA, publicly suggesting that the Pope — the Pope — should think more carefully before opining about theology. The same Pope who then responded to a Pentagon threat referencing the Avignon papacy by giving an even stronger anti-war speech. We talked about Trump’s Easter posts, the Jesus meme, the “I thought I was a doctor” explanation, and the remarkable spectacle of evangelicals — evangelicals — saying the president might be demon-possessed. But Diana being Diana, she kept pulling the historical threads, and we ended up somewhere genuinely useful: the long story of how American Christianity split the sacred from the secular, why that split is breaking down, what it means for a congregation trying to figure out what to do with the 250th anniversary of a nation that’s currently threatening popes and bombing people on Easter Sunday, and why Whitehead’s image of the flickering Galilean vision might be the most honest thing you can say right now about where hope lives. We didn’t ruin anything. The ruining is, as Diana noted, already adequately covered.

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This conversation was originally for our Substack members, but we’re sharing a portion with all of you – join us at The Process This or The Cottage to catch future episodes live!

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrien has been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves. What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

COST: A course like this is typically offered for $250 or more. Your contributions are what make our classes possible. We invite you to contribute whatever amount you feel led to give (including $0).

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Two Eyes, One Reality: Toward Fuller Knowing

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:34:23 +0000

I’ve been wearing glasses since seventh grade, when I discovered mid-car-ride that the rest of my family could actually read a license plate and I had no idea that was something people could do. When the optometrist put corrective lenses in front of my eyes for the first time, I gasped. That’s the image I keep coming back to when I think about what happens when a philosophy filters out whole categories of human experience — not maliciously, just structurally, the way astigmatism works. You adapt so well to what you’re missing that you don’t know you’re missing it.

This essay is about that. It started with a conversation I witnessed between Philip Clayton and Dan Dennett — two brilliant philosophers, one coffee shop moment, and a question that stopped everything: where in a purely physical universe does “mattering” actually live? It moved through two more conversations in an Edinburgh coffee shop a week apart — one with a theologian who could defend every doctrine but couldn’t explain why holding his newborn made him weep, and one with an evolutionary biologist who could describe the neurochemistry of her daughter’s depression but couldn’t answer the question her daughter was actually asking. Both were half-blind in the same direction, just from opposite sides.

What I’m after here is coherence. Whitehead’s test, Griffin’s challenge, Clayton’s emergence framework — the claim that a philosophy failing to account for time, causation, moral urgency, beauty, consciousness, or the felt reality of love isn’t humble or rigorous. It’s just incomplete. And the good news is that correcting for both eyes doesn’t require abandoning science or embracing magic. It requires something harder: sitting with the full weight of human experience and refusing to explain any of it away. You can read this essay and find plenty of others on my Substack, Process This.

You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Theology for Troublemakers: Gary Dorrien & Aaron Stauffer on Social Ethics for This Moment

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:38:11 +0000

This one is a preview of something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time — a class on the history of Christian social ethics that’s actually useful for the moment we’re in. Cornell West calls Gary Dorrien the greatest living Christian social ethicist, and after spending any amount of time with him, you understand why. Gary and Aaron Stoffer joined me to give people a taste of what’s coming in Theology for Troublemakers, and what they gave us was a genuine history lesson that landed like a live wire. We started with Gary’s own formation — a rural Michigan kid who never took a school book home until second semester senior year, who walked into a Catholic church and couldn’t stop staring at the figure on the cross, who read a biography of King in ninth grade three times and went looking for the theologians King mentioned in the public library and found none of them. That kid became one of the most important social ethicists of our time. From there we moved into Norman Thomas’s warning — that American populism always surges toward a dictator who scapegoats the vulnerable — and what the left’s recurring failure to build cross-racial, multi-issue coalitions has to do with where we are now. Gary named the nineties as the most demoralizing decade of his life: TINA, triangulation, NAFTA, three-strikes, welfare gutted, and a Democratic Party that treated its progressive base as something to prove it could overcome. He was not gentle about Clinton, or Obama, or the way purity politics has consistently kneecapped the left’s ability to organize. He was hopeful, carefully, about cooperatives, about DSA’s organizing culture in New York, and about the strange opening the current moment creates for public theology. The class runs the whole history — from the Black Social Gospel and the new abolitionists to the Christian realists to Yoder and Dorothy Day — and Aaron frames it all in terms of what congregations can actually do with it. Go to homebrewclasses.com. This is the class for right now.

Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron

Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. He is also the author of Anglican Identities: Logos Idealism, Imperial Whiteness, Commonweal Ecumenism, Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, American Democratic Socialism and In a Post-Hegelian Spirit: Philosophical Theology as Idealistic Discontent. You won’t want to miss his upcoming theological memoir Over from Union Road My Christian-Left-Intellectual Life.

Aaron Stauffer is the Associate Presbyter for Congregational Vitality at Heartland Presbytery, and is an ordained Teaching Elder in the PC(USA), and was most recently was the associate director of the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Previously, he was the Executive Director and then Special Advisor of Religions for Peace USA, where he helped launch a national anti-Islamophobia program based in the southeast, along with organizing national senior religious leaders on issues of common concern such as mass incarceration, immigration and climate change.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

a Systematic Theology of Love with Thomas Jay Oord

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:41:21 +0000

Okay, I genuinely don’t know how many times Tom Oord has been on this podcast twenty plus times, but this one felt different, because Tom has officially done the thing: he wrote a Systematic Theology of Love, Volume One, which is also his 50th book, which means his wife has had to endure approximately 50 different versions of “another love book.” We dug into what makes this project unusual — a progressive, open relational systematic theology organized around love as its orienting concept, built on abductive reasoning rather than deductive certainty, which turns out to matter a lot when the thing you’re centering is inherently vulnerable, risky, and relational. Tom walked us through his claim that God is a universal spirit who is genuinely material without having a localized body, why he’s done with creatio ex nihilo and what his very Latin replacement actually means, the distinction between animate organisms and inanimate aggregates (rocks, it turns out, are great for explaining panpsychism), and why he’s invented a new word — Gino-Theology — to talk about God as a dynamic becoming rather than a static being. We also covered why he thinks Whitehead solved both the problem of evil and the problem of good, what he’s planning for Volume Two around Christology and divine hiddenness, and ended up somewhere around the enchantment of the universe. The chat had 140 people. Tom’s substack has chapters. And Volume Two starts in the fall — get in early.

Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is an award-winning author, and he has written or edited more than twenty-five books. Oord directs a doctoral program at Northwind Theological Seminary and the Center for Open and Relational Theology. He won the Outstanding Faculty Award twelve times as a full-time professor and now speaks at institutions across the globe. Oord is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, and freedom and relationships for transformation.

Some Previous Tripp & Tom Pods

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Consequences, Not the Mechanism: What the Resurrection Narratives Are Actually About

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:49:47 +0000

It’s Holy Week, which means Bo and I finally stopped talking about chickens, bikes, and CCM songs long enough to do theology — though we did all of those things first. The actual idea Bo had was simple and turned out to be genuinely illuminating: what if we worked our way backwards through the passion week narrative, starting with the post-resurrection appearances on Monday and moving back toward Good Friday? The theory being that if you start at the end and let the consequences of the resurrection interpret everything before it, you read the whole story differently. Turns out, yes, you do. We talked about the fact that no gospel actually describes the resurrection happening — only its effects, only its consequences — and how much Christian energy gets wasted on the mechanism when the texts are entirely uninterested in that question. Tripp’s seven implications for Holy Week came fast and hot: the cross as mirror of what civilization does to nonviolent love, PSA as the theological theory with the least observable consequences in people’s actual lives, and why loving your enemies isn’t a vibe but the specific thing that got Jesus killed. Then Bo discovered Holy Saturday via Balthasar and hasn’t recovered — the silent day as a womb of restrained fullness, Jesus as the one who has gone further into death than any of us will ever go, double dead, so that nothing we face is faced alone. Pete Rollins on the experience of absence versus the absence of experience made an appearance. Bonhoeffer made his inevitable appearance. Elgin Frank Tupper closed it out: the resurrection isn’t verified by the empty tomb, it’s verified by the harvest — when all things are raised into the life of God. We’ll be back next week for Nephilim. Happy Easter.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Adventures in the Spirit: Building a New Architecture for Christian Doctrine w/ Philip Clayton

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:59:45 +0000

Philip Clayton has been one of the most important conversation partners in my theological life — we literally worked out some of this stuff together at Claremont — so sitting down with him to trace the whole architecture of his thought from the beginning felt less like an interview and more like a reunion at the whiteboard. We started where Philip started: the secular believer, that figure he described in his Yale dissertation who carries doubt not as a problem to be solved before the real theology begins, but as the very medium through which faith moves. From there we mapped his six-level structure for how beliefs actually work — spoiler: about five percent of what Christians believe falls into the “demonstrably true” category, and the rest is a lot more interesting and honest than most of us admit. Philip walked us through what he learned from Pannenberg about doctrine as hypothesis, the racetrack-and-motorcycle story behind his concept of theological “traction,” and why the shift from reductionism to emergence in contemporary science matters so much for anyone trying to think seriously about God and the world. We got into panentheism — why it’s more compelling than classical theism, what it means for divine action, and how a Korean doctoral student’s research on comfort women completely changed the way Philip thinks about where God shows up in the world. By the end, we were talking about what he calls a new architecture for Christian doctrine: not a final set of answers, but a set of questions a follower of Jesus simply has no choice but to keep returning to. This one is the long game. Pour something good.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Our Recorded Conversations

Phil has been on the podcast a bunch of times in a bunch of different settings.

What God Do They Worship In There? The Black Social Gospel and the Crisis of American Christianity w/ Gary Dorrien

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:15:33 +0000

In this episode, theologian and historian Gary Dorrien opens ?Theology for Troublemakers? by recovering two of the most important — and most forgotten — figures in American Christianity: Ida B. Wells and Reverdy Ransom. Dorrien traces the birth of the Black social gospel out of one excruciating question: what would a new abolition be? From Wells’s explosive anti-lynching journalism and her landmark pamphlet Southern Horrors, to Ransom’s vision of a cooperative commonwealth and his decades of prophetic ministry inside a church that kept trying to expel him, this lecture shows that the roots of liberation theology run far deeper than the 1960s — and that the tradition’s most radical voices were being erased even as they were still speaking. If you want to go deeper, Gary Dorrien is teaching a full six-week course alongside Aaron Staufer and Tripp Fuller — covering Niebuhr, James Cone, the Welfare Rights Movement, and the challenge of Christian nationalism today. It’s donation-based, including $0. Join us at ?HomebrewedClasses.com?.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Spiritual Warfare to Spiritual Welfare: Bo’s Four Stories of Reclaiming Charismatic Practice

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:57:57 +0000

Happy birthday to Haven, who turns nine today! He’s my third kid, which means the Fuller household has been thoroughly outnumbered for a while now, which also means it is absolutely appropriate that Bo and I spent a Friday morning talking about demons. This one started where all the best TNT episodes start — a text from Bo that said essentially: can we talk about reclaiming the good parts of being charismatic? And listen, I grew up Baptist, so I genuinely missed out on the whole casting-out-demons, anointing-doorframes, spiritual-warfare-as-Dungeons-and-Dragons pipeline. Bo did not miss out. And he’s been spending a few years trying to figure out which of those practices were actually onto something, even if the metaphysics were a mess. He brought four stories: prayer walking with your eyes open instead of closed (spiritual warfare ? spiritual welfare), spiritual mapping as a way of seeing your city’s gateways as sites of partnership instead of enemy strongholds, the “My Heart, Christ Home” pre-baptism house-walk prayer practice, and a full theology of exorcism — power encounter versus truth encounter — including my own undefeated record at exorcisms, which I will not spoil except to say: baptismal font, palm branch, and a very successful businessman who was, by any reasonable definition, acting demonic. I brought my old lecture notes on Tillich and David Ray Griffin’s theories of the demonic, which turned out to pair with Bo’s stories better than either of us expected. Tillich’s line — the demonic is the holy with a minus sign — ended up doing a lot of work. So did Griffin’s lecture at Asbury. This one went places. Come for the exorcism, stay for the Nephilim teaser at the end.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves.What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Easter Against the Empire: Faith in a Time of War

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:43:40 +0000

In this final Q&A for our Jesus of Galilee series, I sat down with Dom Crosson to connect the dots between the hills of Galilee and the high-stakes political drama of Passion Week. We dove deep into how Jesus invited us away from the “apocalyptic delusion” of waiting for God to intervene and toward a participatory eschatology where we actually collaborate with the Divine. From unmasking the “asotopic fallacy” of biblical literalism to reimagining the resurrectionas a collective human exit from imperial normalcy rather than a solo miracle, Dom reminds us that the Kingdom isn’t a future escape but a present, distributive justice. We even got real about the “escalatory violence” of our own time, discussing what it looks like for faith communities to embody nonviolent resistance while war rages in Iran. It’s a heavy, holy, and deeply subversive conversation to carry with you into Easter. If you want to hear all four lectures behind these Q&As and send in your own questions for our final session, head over to crossanclass.com — you can join for whatever you can give, including zero.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

John Dominic Crossan, professor emeritus at DePaul University, is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. He is the author of several bestselling books, including The Historical Jesus, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, God and Empire, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, The Greatest Prayer, The Last Week, and The Power of Parable. He lives in Minneola, Florida.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Giving the Beast a Stomach Ache: A Peacemaker’s Starter Kit for a Time of War

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 09:55:36 +0000

Okay, so confession: my kids had just gone to bed when we started this one, and honestly, the timing felt about right — because this conversation with Jarrod McKenna is the kind of thing you need to sit with after the noise dies down. Jarrod is an Australian activist, peacemaker, and theologian who’s been doing this work since he got arrested at a US military base in the middle of the Australian desert back in 2002 — and the wild thing is, the world looks eerily similar now. We talked about what it actually means to follow a nonviolent Messiah when your government just joined a war you didn’t vote for, how prayer isn’t an escape hatch but a way of composting all the grief and rage so you can actually be useful, and why the just war tradition — which most Christians cheerfully ignore — would rule out basically everything happening right now. We got into the Black church’s tradition of Christian socialism, why the megachurch model accidentally trained people to accept autocracy, and how base communities might be the most subversive thing you can plant in the shell of the old world. We also wandered into eschatology, Harry Potter, the Counting Crows, and whether God has been patient enough with this whole experiment for 13 billion years, that maybe we should take a deep breath. It’s a lot — in the best way.

Australian peace award-winning pastor Jarrod McKenna has been described by Civil Rights legend Rev. Jim Lawson as ‘an expert in nonviolent social change’. With over 20 years of experience in pastoral ministry and at the leading edge of climate justice, refugee rights, and nonviolent social change, Jarrod has seen his work featured internationally on the BBC, Al Jazeera, ABC, and The Guardian. Co-host of the InVerse and ‘Good on Wood‘ podcasts, Jarrod pastors at Steeple Church (Melbourne) and Table in the Trees (Perth). He lives in the Perth hills on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja with his beloved, Kat, and their four sons.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrienhas been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Two Foundation Stones Holding Up Everything You Hate About American Politics

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:00:05 +0000

It’s TNT, it’s a Friday, and Bo came in hot — with a week’s worth of text messages about natural law, JD Vance, and the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary conservatism that started innocently enough and ended somewhere near Bruno Latour and the cloaking of power. Before we get there, I shared a bit about my time at the Futures of Liberation Theology event at Wake Divinity — liberation theology royalty, great hair, genuine questions about what happens to a tradition when it loses its roots in church community and gets handed off to the academy — and whether the baton can be passed when the next generation doesn’t know the story they’re supposed to be running with. Then Bo lays out what he’s been piecing together: that the entire edifice of contemporary American conservatism rests on two foundation stones — natural law and divine revelation — and that when you pair those two things, the same five arguments show up every single time. What follows is an hour of political theology, TNT-style: why natural law is philosophically sloppy in ways that Bruno Latour, Nancy Cartwright, and Denis Noble can all explain, how it functions as a power-cloaking mechanism that launders ideological preferences as biological facts, the historical arc from New Deal liberalism through neoliberalism to the postliberal eruption we’re currently living through, MacIntyre and Hauerwas as compelling diagnosticians whose followers scare Bo, the cut flower problem of progressive churches that have all the openness and none of the roots, and why no one at the truck stop cares.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Sin Is White Supremacy: a Theological Encounter with the Film “Sinners”

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 09:05:39 +0000

What is the sin in Sinners? — and then four of the most brilliant theologians working today spent an hour doing what great theologians do: they cracked the whole thing open. Set in 1932 Mississippi and layered with blues, hoodoo, vampires, and Black survival, Ryan Coogler’s film turns out to be a theological event, and this conversation treats it like one. Adam Clark names white supremacy as the film’s central sin — parasitic, predatory, embodied in white vampires who can only survive by consuming Black vitality. Kelly Brown Douglas traces the deep dialectic between the blues and the Black church, and how the juke joint functions as a kind of invisible institution keeping Black faith alive from the underside. Juan Floyd-Thomas goes deep on conjure, Papa Legba, and why Sammy at the crossroads isn’t just a blues musician but a gateway between the living and the dead. And Stacey Floyd-Thomas brings the womanist lens that names what the film itself only partially names: the women are the most spiritually powerful figures in the story, and they pay the highest price. By the end, someone looks around the room and says what a lot of us were thinking — Theology Beer Camp is a hush harbor. This is one of the most popular sessions from camp this year, and after you listen, you’ll understand why.

Kelly Brown Douglas is Visiting Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School and Canon Theologian at Washington National Cathedral. She is the author of Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God and Sexuality and the Black Church, and one of the foremost voices in womanist theology and the Black church tradition.

Juan Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of African American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School, where he teaches Black religion, race, religion, and film. He is a leading scholar of Black religious history and the moral philosophy of Black popular culture.

Stacey Floyd-Thomas is the Carpenter Professor of Ethics and Society and Chair of African American Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. A pioneering womanist ethicist, she is the author of Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics and co-author of Liberation Theologies in the United States.

Adam Clark is Professor of Theology and Director of Civic Engagement at Xavier University. A veteran of Theology Beer Camp and a passionate advocate for making progressive theological frameworks available outside the academy, he brings Black theology and ethics into direct conversation with culture, community, and justice.

Will Rose is the co-host of Systematic Geekology, a podcast exploring theology and pop culture for people who geek out on the deeper things. He hosted the Pop Gods Stage at Theology Beer Camp 2025.

Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class – Theology for Troublemakers!

The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?

Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.

ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Medium Is the Message — Crossan on Parables, Provocation, and the Pedagogy of Jesus

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:11:36 +0000

This is the fourth live Q&A from the Jesus and Galilee class with John Dominic Crossan — recorded, appropriately, on St. Patrick’s Day, which means Dom is operating with a slight green halo and absolutely zero intention of slowing down. The questions this week go deep into parable theory: what it actually means for a parable to “point elsewhere,” why the Parable of the Sower is not about sowing, what the Parable of the Vineyard Workers is doing to anyone in the crowd who has ever stood all day looking for work and been blamed for standing there, and why Luke’s version of the Good Samaritan is both right and a domestication of something far more dangerous. Dom takes apart the three sub-genres — riddle, example, and challenge parables — shows how the tradition keeps sliding one into another, and makes the case that Job, Ruth, and Jonah are all challenge parables of the Hebrew Bible aimed at blowing up the certainties of post-exilic restoration theology. There’s a devastating reading of the Eucharist as a public political declaration that you are willing to die for what Jesus died for, a meditation on why comic eschatology is the first great act of resistance against autocracy, and a moment where Dom explains why he became an American citizen in 2000 — and it will not surprise you. If you want to hear all four lectures behind these Q&As and send in your own questions for our final session, head over to crossanclass.com — you can join for whatever you can give, including zero.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossanhas been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

This Lenten class begins where all of Dom’s work begins: with history. What was actually happening in Galilee in the 20s CE? What did Herod Antipas’ transformation of the “Sea of Galilee” into the commercial “Sea of Tiberias” mean for peasant fishing communities? Why did Jesus emerge from John’s baptism movement proclaiming God’s Rule through parables—and what made that medium so perfectly suited to that message? Only by understanding what Jesus’ parables meant then can we wrestle with what they might demand of us now.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Person, Not the Principle: How Bonhoeffer’s Christology Became Treason — and What Eric Metaxas Did With It

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:04:59 +0000

This is an audio essay from Process This, my Substack — head over there if you want more essays like this one, and subscribe if you want them delivered to you. In this one, I’m going deep on a question that sounds biographical but is actually theological: how did Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the man who stood at a lectern in 1933, surrounded by Nazi-pin-wearing theology students, and told them that the historical Jewish particularity of Jesus Christ was “the last truth separating the churches from barbarism” — how did that man become the patron saint of Christian nationalism? The short answer is Eric Metaxas, a bestselling biography, and a fabricated quote. But the real answer is older and more dangerous than any of that, because what Metaxas did to Bonhoeffer is exactly what the German Christians did to Jesus — they turned a Person into a Principle, kept the symbol, and evicted the flesh. Bonhoeffer had a word for it in 1933. He called it Docetism. And here’s the thing that should take your breath away: his Christology is not just the subject of the abuse — it is its diagnosis. I’ll also tell you about the five-minute rant I recorded and deleted, what Bonhoeffer’s Christmas 1942 letter to the resistance said about contempt, and why I think the most important question he leaves us with is not primarily about Eric Metaxas — it’s the one he put to those sweat-soaked students, and puts to us now: which are you following — the Person or the Principle?

You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Podcast That Wasn’t Supposed to Last 18 Years & Vintage Theo-Blog War Stories

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:14:30 +0000

Eighteen years. That’s how long Homebrew Christianity has been doing this thing — and to celebrate, Bo pulls out trivia, giveaways, and a surprise birthday guest in Brian McLaren, who drops in to talk about hope with longer timeframes, process theology as medicine for hardened neo-Platonism, and what worship might look like if we started from a process worldview instead of trying to fix a broken one. After Brian heads out to work out like the legend he is, we go full memory lane: the theology blog wars, the Hauwersian mafia, Rachel Held Evans and the post that broke the internet (and probably Tripp’s evangelical ordination credentials), Rob Bell trying to keep a straight face while Tripp improved a sermon to “No Woman No Cry” at Monkish, getting subtweeted by evangelicals who wouldn’t tag them, Chad Crawford — the OG CrawDaddy who saw all of this before anyone else did — and the MP3 recorder between two guys sitting three feet apart in a Westwood office that somehow became TNT. It’s a birthday party, it’s a wake, it’s a theological pub quiz, and it’s one of the most genuinely fun hours this podcast has ever produced. Eighteen years. Come on.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Protected: CLASS RESOURCE PAGE: Theology for Troublemakers

david trotter — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:35:52 +0000

The Reason Prayer Feels Impossible (And It’s Not Your Fault) w/ Wes Ellis

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:55:57 +0000

Okay, so here’s a question that sounds simple until it isn’t: why is prayer so hard? Not hard like “I need a better technique” hard — hard like something has gone structurally wrong with the way we even think about it. Wes Ellis, practical theologian, pastor, and author of Abiding in Amen: Prayer in a Secular Age, joins Tripp to diagnose what’s actually going on — and it turns out the problem isn’t your prayer life, it’s the framework you’ve been handed. In a world shaped by achievement culture, algorithmic distraction, and the modern obsession with controlling outcomes, prayer has been quietly turned into a self-optimization project, something you master, measure, and feel guilty about not doing enough of — and Wes wants to blow that whole thing up. Drawing on Charles Taylor, Hartmut Rosa, Henri Nouwen, and yes, the Big Lebowski, Wes makes the case that prayer is not something you do toward God but something God initiates toward you — and our job is less about clamoring upward and more about learning to abide, to wait, to say amen and actually mean it: let it be so. If the inner room Jesus talked about is being colonized by data extraction and constant evaluation, this conversation is a genuinely counter-cultural act. Come sit in the wasted space for a while.

Dr. Wes Ellis is a practical theologian who actually practices — meaning he doesn’t just write about congregational ministry from a distance, he does it, currently serving as a pastor while holding down serious academic theological work at the same time. He’s the author of Abiding in Amen: Prayer in a Secular Age and a previous book on youth ministry that develops a theological anthropology beyond the developmental lens — the idea that what makes us human isn’t our capacities or achievements, but the fact that we are addressed, held, and seen by the living God. Wes has been shaped deeply by Moltmann’s relational theology, the apophatic tradition, and the kind of pastoral honesty that comes from years of asking people how their prayer life is going and watching them respond exactly like they do at the dentist when asked about flossing. He’s one of those rare theologians who has let his scholarship change how he actually prays — and that, it turns out, is the whole point.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Tradition Without Traction Is Lame: An enclosed lake and a constitutional crisis w/ John Dominic Crossan

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:56:48 +0000

In this week’s live Q&A, John Dominic Crossan takes questions from over 2,000 students in the Lenten class — and the questions are so good that even Dom says so (which, if you know Dom, is not nothing). The conversation moves fast: from the commons and enclosure as the operating logic of empire, to why Antipas moved his capital to a mosquito-infested lakeside city, to the first-century fishing boat built from twelve types of recycled wood as a symbol of economic squeeze, to why the multiplication of the loaves and fish is not just a miracle story but an act of interference in Antipas’s export economy, to the difference between traction and distraction in political movements, to whether Christian theology has any business celebrating GDP growth when the boom doesn’t boom for the people at the bottom. Crossan also takes on demons as imperial oppression embodied, Jesus as a healer who makes house calls and never sets up a shrine, and the Hagia Sophia mosaic where John says I am the light of the world and Matthew says you are — and why that single-word difference is the whole theology of participation in one sentence. If you haven’t watched the lecture yet, do that first. If you have, this is where it gets applied. To join the class and get access to all four visual lectures, head to CrossanClass.com.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Beer in the Temple? & What the Bible Actually Says About Alcohol w/ John Anthony Dunne

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:29:40 +0000

Okay, so most Christians have been handed exactly one question about alcohol — is it okay? — and look, I get it, but what if that question is not just too small, it’s actually the wrong one? Because when you sit down with John Anthony Dunne, New Testament scholar, beer nerd, and author of The Mountain Shall Drip Sweet Wine, and you actually let the Bible speak on its own terms, what you find is a text that is soaking in fermented beverages — daily beer libations poured out in the temple, prophets describing God’s restoration of all things as mountains literally dripping with sweet wine, and Jesus showing up to a wedding and turning water into not just wine, but the best wine the sommelier had ever tasted — and John’s Gospel puts that right next to the temple cleansing, on purpose, because of course it does. John brings this brilliant “varietal” framework to the whole conversation: just like wine comes in Cabernet, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, the Bible’s wine symbolism comes in distinct varieties — blessing, judgment, abundance, sacrifice, joy, wrath — and here’s the thing, all of them blend together in the Eucharistic cup, which means the Lord’s table isn’t a symbol of one thing, it’s the thematic climax of the entire biblical story. Bible nerds, craft beer lovers, people who’ve ever wondered if there’s more going on at communion than grape juice in a tiny plastic cup — come on. This one’s for you.

Dr. John Anthony Dunne is Associate Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he also teaches courses on wine in the Bible (yes, that is a real class, and yes, it is as great as it sounds). He completed his PhD at the University of St. Andrews under the supervision of N.T. Wright, which means he has the theological pedigree to back up every bold exegetical claim he makes over a pint. John is a co-host of the Two Cities podcast—a collaborative project featuring 15+ scholars and theologians—and volunteers at St. Croix Vineyard in Stillwater, Minnesota, because of course he does.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Flying Saucers, Deep Incarnation, and the Covered Dish Dinner: Astro Theology with Ted Peters

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:19:28 +0000

What happens when a Lutheran theologian who grew up reading UFO books and whose parents followed a Venusian contactee cult becomes one of the most rigorous thinkers at the intersection of space science and Christian theology? You get Ted Peters — and one of the most genuinely fun conversations I’ve had on the podcast. Ted coined the term astro theology and has spent decades asking what the discovery of extraterrestrial life would mean for our doctrines of creation, incarnation, and the common good. We get into why astrobiology is almost a religious science, the ethics of protecting microbial life on Europa, whether Jesus’s incarnation is sufficient for the whole cosmos or if God might show up on other planets too, the Copernican fallacy hiding inside a lot of anti-anthropocentric arguments, what Christians should do if a UFO lands at the church potluck (hospitality, obviously), and why both ufologists and astrobiologists need to be at the same barbecue. If the government finally releases the files tomorrow, Ted is the person you want to call — and after this conversation, you’ll understand why.

Ted Peters is a Lutheran theologian, professor emeritus at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and a senior fellow at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). He coined the term astro theology to describe theological reflection on the implications of off-earth, non-human intelligence, and has spent decades at the frontier where Christian doctrine meets space science, artificial intelligence, and public ethics. His systematic theology, God — The World’s Future, remains one of the most widely used constructive theology texts in graduate education. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including a volume on Astrotheology, and writes the Substack newsletter The Voice of Public Theology, where he engages with science, religion, global politics, and the impact of advancing technology for a broad public audience.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Are We Waiting for God, or Is God Waiting for Us? with John Dominic Crossan

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:44:28 +0000

In this second live Q&A of our Lent 2025 series Jesus in Galilee, Dom and Tripp work through nearly 40 questions from the more than 2,000 people in the class — and Dom is, as promised, brief. The conversation moves from Cyrus and the economic disruption of Roman Galilee, to the misplaced colon in Isaiah 40 that quietly rewrote John the Baptist’s identity, to why Mark borrowed a Roman horror story about a prostitute at a banquet to tell the story of John’s execution. Dom defends his claim that Jesus underwent a genuine conversion after John’s death — bigger than Paul’s, he says, because it involved a different vision of God entirely — and insists that the apocalyptic tradition of waiting for God to intervene is not just a theological mistake but, after 2,000 years, edges toward something harsher than delusion. He closes with a question Brendan’s question wouldn’t let him escape: if some people are avoiding responsibility by waiting for God, and others are claiming to act as God, are we even talking about the same God anymore? As always, Dom leaves you with more to think about than when you started. To join the class and get access to all four visual lectures, head to CrossanClass.com.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

MAGA and the Post-Christian America: A Meditation on Power, the Cross, and the World We’re Choosing

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 11:01:47 +0000

In this audio essay, I take Stephen Miller’s claim that the “real world” is governed by strength and force and use it as a window into something much bigger than one political figure—a diagnosis of the soul of America. Drawing on the thesis Tom Holland developed in Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, and the Black prophetic tradition of King and West, traced by Gary Dorrien in his 3 volume history of the Black Social Gospel movement, I argue that what we’re witnessing isn’t actually Christian nationalism triumphing—it’s post-Christian nationalism wearing Christian clothes. The cross is still everywhere, but the crucified one has been removed, and what’s left is just Rome again: empire, domination, and the ancient lie that might makes right. But here’s where it gets really interesting—Niebuhr doesn’t let progressives off the hook either, naming them as “children of light” who kept the Christian ethics of justice and victim-focus but severed them from grace, forgiveness, and the theological roots that make them sustainable. It’s a prophetic call that refuses easy partisanship, traces the American rhetoric of force back through white supremacy to its Roman origins, and ultimately invites us back to the “sublime madness” of King’s Beloved Community—where power is redefined not as domination but as the capacity to achieve a shared, constructive purpose.

You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Seduced into Self-Exploitation: Liberation Theology for the Algorithmic Age

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:25:31 +0000

Bo and I came in hot this week. We kicked off with some important life updates — Five Iron Frenzy is playing in Greensboro tonight and I’m bringing my brother and our high school theology reading group buddies, so if you hear a grown man scream-crying “Every New Day” later, that’s me. We also got into a surprisingly heated Chick-fil-A debate (Bo is wrong, for the record), traded In-N-Out orders (three by three, triple pickles, and yes, a youth group kid once taught me you can roll up with your own nacho cheese), and Bo catalogued the things southern Idaho doesn’t have, which apparently includes comic book shops, cigar lounges, and bottle shops. Priorities.

Then we got into it. I’m working on a book about the digital colonization of the self — a liberation theology for the algorithmic age — and I’ve been putting together ten thesis statements for a talk I’m giving to an undergrad religion department. I threw the whole document into an AI slide maker without any direction and we’re looking at the results for the first time live. The slides are out of order and the AI apparently thinks it knows my argument better than I do, but we got through the first five theses and it turned into one of the most electric episodes we’ve done.

Thesis One: The algorithm has invaded the last colony — the human mind. Previous empires colonized land, labor, and resources. This one colonizes attention, desire, and our capacity for self-direction. Nick Couldry calls it data colonialism — the appropriation of human life so value can be continuously extracted from it. The territory being mined is no longer land but mind. Jesus said go into your inner room to pray. That assumes there’s a door. The algorithm has picked the lock. Decolonizing the mind when the colonizer has been internalized — that’s the spiritual challenge of our age.

Thesis Two: We have been seduced into becoming entrepreneurs of our own exploitation. Old empire ruled through coercion. This empire rules through seduction — and that’s why we don’t recognize it as empire. No one forces us to check our phones 150 times a day. We craft our Instagram personas freely. The platforms don’t need overseers and whips when they have mirrors. We surveil ourselves, discipline ourselves, optimize ourselves for the algorithm’s benefit, and call it self-improvement. Byung-Chul Han’s point: we moved from a disciplinary society to an achievement society, but the achievement is always for someone else’s profit.

Thesis Three: The face of the other is disappearing, and with it the possibility of both ethics and love. Levinas argued the face of the other is where ethics begins — vulnerable, demanding, irreducible. But the face is also where love becomes possible. Screens shield us from both. Others become pixels, usernames, content we scroll past. Tara Isabella Burton calls it the NPC phenomenon — we treat others as non-player characters in our own personal game. It’s not just a moral failure; it’s a structural inevitability when the faces we encounter no longer truly meet us.

Thesis Four: Our brains are being physically restructured for capture rather than contemplation. Evolution spent billions of years developing top-down attention — the capacity for deliberate focus, contemplation, moral reasoning, prayer. The algorithm hijacks the older bottom-up system: threat detection, survival instinct. Red notification badges exploit our evolutionary coding for urgency. Autoplay exploits reflexive attention. Neuroimaging studies show gray matter reduction in the prefrontal cortex of high social media users — the regions responsible for impulse control are physically shrinking. But neuroplasticity cuts both ways: eight weeks of mindfulness practice increases gray matter in the affected regions. We can change it, but there are limits on what we can do as isolated individuals.

Thesis Five: We are starving in the midst of infinite abundance. The infinite scroll is engineered to trigger wanting that never arrives at having. Robin Dunbar’s research shows genuine social bonding requires endorphins released through physical touch, synchronized movement, shared laughter, eating and singing together. Screens don’t transmit endorphins. Every hour on screens is an hour not spent in embodied presence — the day doesn’t get longer. James Coan’s social baseline theory: the brain evolved to assume physical proximity to others, and isolation triggers emergency responses. We’re surrounded by simulated connection while our nervous system keeps registering that we’re alone. As Norman Wirzba put it: imagine scrolling through pictures of food while your stomach remains empty. That’s what we’re doing to our souls.

Bo got under conviction live on air and committed to stop calling in pickup orders so he can stand in line, be around humans, and maybe strike up a conversation. We also had a genuinely moving exchange about spirituality versus religion — Bo says he’s not spiritual but deeply religious, and I pushed back that his entire week of sermon preparation, manual labor, bike repair, and communal life IS the contemplative practice he thinks he doesn’t have. The origin story of the “inner room” framing for the book came out of a conversation with a progressive Christian influencer friend who’d stopped doing quiet times because he felt he needed a divinity degree to read the Bible. I told him that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard — Jesus didn’t debate whether you should have a contemplative life, he just said when you pray, go into your inner room. Every wisdom tradition says this. If you opt out of that, you’re opting out of everything that gives everything else value.

We also went on a significant detour about dating apps, evolutionary psychology, the disappearance of in-person flirting, the rise of ED prescriptions among people under 40, and how the conditions that used to domesticate human beings for genuine relationship have been stripped out by algorithmic matchmaking. Bo had never been on a dating app and called it “elder maxing,” which I’m keeping.

We’ll do the other five theses next week. Also: process theology book recommendations for the curious — Bruce Epperly’s Process for the Perplexed, Robert Mesle’s intro, the Cobb and Griffin intro (buy it now, read it second), and Andrew Davis’s upcoming book through his course at whiteheadsuniverse.com.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

What Would God’s State of the Union Look Like? with John Dominic Crossan

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 13:56:19 +0000

In this first live Q&A of our Lent 2025 series Jesus in Galilee, Dom and I work through 35 questions from the more than 2,000 people who have joined the class — and true to form, Dom tries to honor every single one of them. The conversation ranges from the silver cups of Boscoreale to the Gulf of Mexico, from Josephus’s gritted-teeth defense of Judaism to what a State of the Union address might look like if Jesus gave it tonight. Dom argues that the apocalyptic imagination is, bluntly, a loss of faith; that coinage was the only real mass media of antiquity; that nonviolent resistance was invented — not borrowed — in first-century Judea; and that if you want to understand what an autocrat is planning, read very carefully what the autocrat accuses his opponents of. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of conversation I look forward to all year. If you want in on the rest of the series — the lectures, the live Q&As, and the full archive — head to CrossanClass.com.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Universe Is Alive and It Might Be Looking Back: Andrew Davis on Astrotheology

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 13:49:30 +0000

My buddy Andrew Davis is back on the pod, and this time we’re talking about aliens — yes, that kind. Andrew is a process philosopher who’s been publishing serious academic work in astrobiology, and with Obama casually confirming UFOs are real, the Age of Disclosure documentary making waves, and Spielberg’s Disclosure Day film on the way, it felt like the right time to ask: how does a Whiteheadian process thinker engage the question of extraterrestrial life? Turns out, with a lot more philosophical firepower than you’d expect. We dig into Andrew’s critical engagement with Steven Dick’s cosmo-theology and why he thinks Dick is right that humanity is cosmologically peripheral but wrong to draw the metaphysical conclusion that we’re therefore insignificant — because we’re an anthropo-cosmic expression of what this universe is doing, not an accident in it. Andrew introduces his concept of exo-axiology (the philosophical exploration of value beyond Earth), and we get into why Whitehead’s philosophy of organism flips the modern assumption that the universe is fundamentally dead and life is the weird anomaly. For Whitehead, life, mind, and value go all the way down — which means if you rewind evolution on another planet with the right conditions, something like us might show up again, not because it’s designed for us, but because the universe is in the business of producing aesthetic intensities. We tackle the Fermi Paradox, the Dark Forest hypothesis, whether aliens would be hostile or hospitable (Andrew’s a cosmological optimist who thinks any civilization advanced enough to reach us would’ve had to undergo a spiritual evolution to get past the bottleneck), plasma intelligence, UAPs, and why we should take people’s encounter experiences seriously without being naive about them. Phil Clayton apparently thinks Andrew is the David Ray Griffin of this generation, so take that for what it’s worth — it’s worth a lot. Also, if you’ve had a weird encounter story and want to share it, send it to me. I’m collecting them.

If you’ve ever wanted to dip your toes into Whitehead’s process philosophy but found it intimidating — or if I’ve piqued your curiosity over the years and you want someone who explains it better than I do — Andrew Davis has his Whitehead’s Universe course running again this March and then again in April. Two options: Wednesdays at 5:30 PM Pacific or Fridays at 5:30 PM Eastern, five sessions each, small groups on Zoom, fully interactive and recorded if you miss one. You’ll be reading draft chapters from Andrew’s forthcoming Orbis book before it’s even published, and one student from the January cohort said Andrew made Whitehead’s metaphysical vision “intoxicating” — even as an absolute novice. Whether you’re brand new to process thought or coming back with fresh questions, this is the real deal. Space is limited. Sign up at whiteheadsuniverse.com.

Andrew M. Davis is an American process philosopher, theologian, and scholar of the cosmos. He is the academic and research director for the Center for Process Studies where he researches, writes, teaches, and organizes conferences on various aspects of process-relational thought (Whitehead and Beyond). An advocate of metaphysics and meaning in a hospitable universe, he approaches philosophy as the endeavor to systematically think through what reality must be like because we are a part of it. He is the author, editor, and co-editor of nearly a dozen books including Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy, Process Cosmology: New Integrations in Science and Philosophy, and Metaphysics of Exo-Life: Toward a Constructive Whiteheadian Cosmotheology. This course is based upon drafts of his next book which is comprehensive, yet conversational, introduction to Whitehead’s universe.

Andrew’s Previous visits to the podcast

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Theses on Reactionaries: How White Evangelicalism Became America’s Most Dangerous Ideology with Tad Delay

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:06:15 +0000

Philosopher and religion scholar Tad DeLay (author of Future of Denial) drops a guest essay on us this week, and it’s a barn-burner. Tad brings together Wilhelm Reich, Walter Benjamin, Lacan, Althusser, and Adorno — yeah, the whole squad — to lay out a series of theses on how reactionary consciousness actually works, from repressed sexuality to theological cover stories for raw materialism. He makes the case that white evangelicalism is basically a half-century-old improvisation around whiteness and anticommunism, and that Trumpism is its perfected form — an ecumenical fascism where confessing the dear leader functions like a sinner’s prayer. Along the way he unpacks Frank Wilhoit’s devastating one-line definition of conservatism, explains why charging evangelicals with hypocrisy is a category error (they simply don’t care what they believe), and uses Lacanian psychoanalysis to show how shame, guilt, and anxiety keep the whole machine running. Fair warning: Tad doesn’t let liberals off the hook either — the essay’s conclusion forces all of us to sit with the moral compromises we’ve made and what it means to keep breathing in hell.

Tad DeLay, PhD is a philosopher, religion scholar, and interdisciplinary critical theorist. He has written four books, including his latest, Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change. He is a philosophy professor and lives in Grand Rapids.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Parables, Panopticons, and Pinterest: Why Interpretation Is the Most Important Skill Nobody Thinks They Need

Tripp Fuller — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:52:04 +0000

Bo and I kick off with some old-school podcasting war stories — the duck connector, paying per megabyte, and the time I edited a famous theologian’s interview so aggressively that a fan called me out for making them sound like a different person. Then we roll into our alphabet soup series with G and H. Bo drops a banger pairing genre and globalization — the idea being that if his conservative friends and family just understood these two concepts, every conversation would change. Genre because people are still reading the entire Bible in one monotone voice and ending up with monstrous theology (see: Aquinas thinking one of heaven’s perks is watching people suffer in hell, which Nietzsche had a field day with). And globalization because we keep blaming immigrants for job losses that were actually caused by automation and China, shopping at Walmart without connecting it to the global supply chain, and treating “communism” like a Cold War boogeyman instead of reckoning with China’s weird capitalist-communist hybrid that’s outmaneuvering us. Then Bo pairs hermeneutics with Human 2.0 — Schleiermacher’s insight that even understanding your spouse requires the art of interpretation, and I go full existential crisis mode about algorithms colonizing our inner room, turning our interiority into a plantation for billionaires. Also: U2 dropped a new EP and Bono made me cry in the car, I almost set a teenager on fire making ashes for his first Ash Wednesday service, Trump may have accidentally confirmed aliens exist, and I introduced the crew to a little device called a Brick that turns your phone into a phone.

ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

From Conflict to Collaboration: The Science-Religion Conversation We Need with Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:07:39 +0000

The conflict between science and religion? Turns out it’s mostly a myth perpetuated by a handful of really loud voices on both sides. Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund has spent 15 years using actual social science to study what scientists and religious people really think about each other, and the results are surprising: nearly half of elite scientists maintain religious commitments, most aren’t hostile to faith communities, and there are way more varieties of atheism than you’d think (including “religious atheists” who attend church and pray). We dive into her research on “spiritual entrepreneurs,” the eight shared values between science and religion (yeah, doubt is on the list for both), what went wrong during COVID, and why the science-religion conflict narrative is particularly American and Western. Plus, we get super practical about what churches can actually do—spoiler: it starts with honoring the scientists already sitting in your pews. This conversation challenged my assumptions, gave me hope, and reminded me that the people doing the real work are way more interesting than the stereotypes suggest.

Dr. Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Rice University, where she directs the Religion and Public Life Program. A leading scholar in the sociology of science and religion, she has conducted groundbreaking research surveying over 15,000 scientists and interviewing nearly 1,000 across eight countries to understand how scientific and religious communities actually relate to each other. Her books include Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think, Varieties of Atheism in Science (with David Johnson), Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, and Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion. Her work challenges popular stereotypes, revealing the complex and often collaborative relationship between science and faith—and offering practical wisdom for churches, scientists, and anyone trying to hold these worlds together.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Too Fast, Too Furious for Jesus: Justin Lin on Last Days

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:10:36 +0000

My friend and filmmaker Sarey Concepción and I got to sit down with Justin Lin — yeah, that Justin Lin, the Fast and Furious guy — but this time he’s not racing cars, he’s exploring the too-fast-too-furious side of evangelical missions gone to the extreme. His new film Last Days tells the story of John Chau, the young American missionary who was killed trying to bring the gospel to the uncontacted Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India. If you remember, two years ago we screened the documentary about this story at Theology Beer Camp, and this is a totally different angle — a scripted Hollywood film from an outsider to Christianity who read the news story, had the same eye-roll most of us did, and then did what good artists do: made something to understand what he couldn’t dismiss. What’s remarkable is that Justin took the time to get to know the diversity within evangelicalism, so you get characters ranging from the hardcore adventure missionaries who are basically Carmen San Diego with Bibles, to John’s immigrant father wrestling with how his roughest years shaped his son’s path, to a parallel storyline with an Indian police officer whose own experience with religion’s harm makes her a mirror image of John’s conviction. It’s a film about faith without being a faith-based film — it doesn’t mock John or martyrize him — and it creates this cognitive empathy where you get to sit with the logic that says if people really are going to hell, why wouldn’t you risk everything? Sarey and I unpack the father-son dynamics, the theological engine of unreached people groups and unlocking the second coming, those surprisingly sexy Australian missionaries, and why the Voyage of the Dawn Treader might be the most spiritually dangerous book in the Narnia series. We also may have invented the entire backstory of the Presbyterian minister with a Tesla who stole someone’s missionary girlfriend, and honestly, Justin should use it for the sequel.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Cloud and the Kingdom: Discerning the Spirits of a New Economic Epoch

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:14:29 +0000

I don’t remember who first told me to read Yanis Varoufakis’s T?echno-Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism?, but whoever you are—thank you and also how dare you. This book broke something in my brain, in that good way where you realize the map you’ve been using doesn’t match the territory anymore and now you have to rethink everything. Varoufakis isn’t a theologian, but reading him felt like encountering a prophetic voice—someone naming the powers and principalities of our moment with a clarity that made me uncomfortable in all the right ways.

So what you’re about to read isn’t exactly a book review. It’s more like the stuff that ran through my head while I was reading—the connections I couldn’t stop making to our faith, our politics, our souls. I kept thinking about Paul’s language of powers and principalities. I kept thinking about the psalmist’s warning against idols. I kept thinking about Jesus flipping tables in the temple, and wondering what he’d do with an algorithm. Varoufakis gave me a new vocabulary for something I’d been feeling but couldn’t name: the sense that we’ve crossed into a new kind of unfreedom, one that’s less about chains on our bodies and more about the curation of our desires.

Consider this an invitation. ?Read the book?. Argue with it. Let it mess with you. And then let’s figure out together what faithfulness looks like when the lords live in the cloud.

???You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

From the Society of Spectacle to the Filioque Clause

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:23:42 +0000

This week Bo and I kicked things off talking about life getting smaller and simpler — from downsizing kitchens to wire racks for air quality — and I confessed that nine days of solo parenting gave me a whole new respect for single parents everywhere. Then I brought something to the table I’ve been chewing on for about a decade: when we gather on Sunday mornings, is what we do a complement to the chaos people are swimming in all week, or is it a supplement — something different, something higher? I’ve pretty much landed on supplement, but social media keeps telling me if your pastor isn’t addressing every headline, find a new church. Bo brought the heat with Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, and we got into why I refuse to let Steve Bannon set the agenda for what happens in the pulpit. From there we dove into our ABCs of Theology series with E for Emergence — from Scrabble boards to beehives to the Genesis creation story — and how I’m trying to model pastoral leadership on emergence rather than top-down command. Then Bo dropped F for Fideism, and we unpacked why retreating into “just believe harder” is so tempting right now but ultimately sells the faith short. We hit the Filioque clause, took some shots at trad Caths and the Yale School, and I gave an update on my new neighborhood evangelism strategy: cleaning gutters and hoping nobody shoots each other when things go sideways. I’ll see you in Valhalla.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000o ther people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classesat www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Steve Bannon Is Not an Idiot: Reinhold Niebuhr’s Unheeded Advice for a Democracy in Crisis

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 14:59:51 +0000

This is an audio essay from my Substack, Process This.

Look, I wasn’t planning to write 5,000 words on Steve Bannon, but then he goes on his podcast and announces that ICE—the same agency that just shot two American citizens in Minneapolis—is going to “surround the polls” in November, and I couldn’t help myself. So I went back to Reinhold Niebuhr’s 1944 book ?The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness?, where he divided the political world into naive idealists who think reason and dialogue will save us, and moral cynics who understand power but recognize no law beyond their own will. Turns out Niebuhr basically wrote Bannon’s biography eighty years early. This essay traces how Bannon evolved from “flooding the zone with shit” to proposing armed federal agents at polling places—and why liberals kept bringing fact-checks to a knife fight. Niebuhr called the children of darkness “wise” because they understand self-interest, but he also called them “evil” because they serve no good beyond domination. The question he leaves us with is whether the children of light can get wise without losing their souls. Spoiler: he doesn’t promise we win.

PS. I was in the middle of writing a completely different essay on Niebuhr before Bannon interrupted me. I loved re-reading ?The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness?? recently, and it’s way too timely.

??You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

When Neighbors Turn on Neighbors with Miroslav Volf

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:44:14 +0000

What happens when our obsession with being better than everyone else destroys both who we are and how we relate to each other? Dr. Miroslav Volf joins us to talk about his new book The Cost of Ambition and why America’s comparison culture, achievement addiction, and hardening tribal identities are setting us up for something dangerous. Volf witnessed neighbors turn on neighbors during the Yugoslav wars, and he’s seeing the warning signs again—right here, right now. We dive into how striving for superiority traps us in an unstable cycle of pride and inferiority, why our worth can’t be based on achievement, and what it means to trust in our naked humanity as the site of God’s gift rather than our endless performance metrics. From social media’s algorithmic comparison engines to the terror of trusting Jesus to raise our kids, this conversation cuts deep into the spiritual crisis of modern life and points toward a different way—one grounded in the self-giving love of Christ rather than the desperate scramble to stay on top.

Dr. Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Born in Croatia, he lived through the Yugoslav wars—an experience that profoundly shaped his theological work on reconciliation, identity, and belonging. He is the author of numerous influential books including Exclusion and Embrace, Free of Charge, and his newest works The Cost of Ambition and Glimmerings (co-authored with poet Christian Wiman). Widely recognized as one of the world’s most respected theologians, Volf’s work bridges the academy and the church, helping Christians reflect on faith, public life, and what it means to follow Christ in fractured times.

You can listen to our previous conversation on the podcast here: Faith in the Public Square in the Era of Trump.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

3 Letters? 1 Pod!

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 21:18:16 +0000

Alright folks, Bo and I are two weeks and two hours delayed because of snow, so buckle up for some cabin fever energy. We tackle the alphabet soup of theology starting with B for belonging and baptism—why there’s zero agreement on how to dunk people in water despite it being central to Christianity. We get into the weeds on bipartisan politics as techno-feudalism on rails (think Snow Piercer but with oligarchs), then dive into C for constructivism and how everything from race to state lines to the Constitution is socially constructed. We break down why actual deconstruction isn’t just burning it all down—it’s lovingly taking apart the boards to rebuild something better. We end with D for democracy and why the cross-pressures of our current moment make deliberative decision-making nearly impossible. Plus: prayer breakfasts, Epstein files, blueberry coffee heresy, and why my kid says I’m nicer after I hang out with Bo. Also, we’re planning a theology nerd glamping retreat where you have to lock up your phones. You’re welcome.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000o ther people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classesat www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Cheap Grace in a Red Hat, Stealing Bonhoeffer’s Fire: What Bonhoeffer Actually Meant—and Why It Condemns His Admirers

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:39:16 +0000

Friends, this week we’re diving into something that’s been eating at me for a while now—how the architects of Christian nationalism have had the audacity to claim Dietrich Bonhoeffer as one of their own. I’m talking about Project 2025 invoking “costly grace” as if Bonhoeffer wasn’t writing about them. Here’s the thing: when Bonhoeffer penned those famous words in 1937, he wasn’t crafting a devotional for suburban book clubs—he was running an illegal seminary under Nazi surveillance, training pastors who were forfeiting their careers, their pensions, and their safety to follow Jesus instead of the Führer. The German Christians of his day fused faith with national identity, blessed political power, and demanded loyalty to a strongman who promised to make their country great again. Sound familiar? The brutal irony is that those who now quote Bonhoeffer are functionally aligned with the very forces he resisted—they’re the German Christians quoting the Confessing Church, and that’s about as theologically obtuse as Caesar celebrating the cross while forgetting he’s the one who put Jesus on it. Costly grace is still available, y’all—it just actually has to cost something.

??Read the full essay and subscribe for more at my SubStack, Process This??

??You can subscribe to the Audio Essay podcast feed here.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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The Bible and the Cosmos: Which Story Comes First? with Dom Crossan & Phil Clayton

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 14:47:56 +0000

So Dom Crossan (JC) and Philip Clayton (PC) came together for this conversation I’ve been hoping would happen for a year and a half, and it was everything I wanted. We started with this question about why atheist political philosophers like Badiou and Žižek are turning to Paul because they need someone who has a militancy about being human that can resist civilization’s death-dealing power. Dom and Phil had this beautiful back-and-forth about whether we should start with Cosmology or the Bible – Dom says both, simultaneously, which is a contradiction but he owns it. They talked about civilization as fundamentally violent since Mesopotamia, whether we’re a sustainable species, and what it means that we can finally ask that question seriously. The Kingdom of God language came up as “kin-dom” – returning to our evolutionary origins where we lived in groups of about 200 people, before agriculture trapped us in civilization. Phil made this point about how our brains were formed on the grasslands of Africa for hundreds of thousands of generations, and now we’re living in a hyper-civilized world where the devil looks primitive compared to OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation. The hope is in asking the right questions, in returning to a kin-dom structure, and in Jesus sending out his disciples to do healing, not setting up a healing shop in Nazareth.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

This Lenten class begins where all of Dom’s work begins: with history. What was actually happening in Galilee in the 20s CE? What did Herod Antipas’ transformation of the “Sea of Galilee” into the commercial “Sea of Tiberias” mean for peasant fishing communities? Why did Jesus emerge from John’s baptism movement proclaiming God’s Rule through parables—and what made that medium so perfectly suited to that message? Only by understanding what Jesus’ parables meant then, can we wrestle with what they might demand of us now.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

As a scholar, Philip Clayton (Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology) works at the intersection of science, philosophy, and theology. As an activist (president of EcoCiv.org, President of IPDC), he works to convene, facilitate, and catalyze multi-sectoral initiatives toward ecological civilization. As a disciple of Jesus, he finds himself energized by the Spirit in the Quaker community.

Previous Podcast Convos w/ Philip Clayton

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Exhausted Soul and a World Gone Mute: The Economy That Ate Your Soul and Wants to Blame You

Tripp Fuller — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 15:49:02 +0000

Okay, so you know that bone-deep exhaustion you feel? That sense that no matter how hard you run, you’re still falling behind? What if I told you that’s not a personal failure—it’s a structural trap? German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has been asking why modern life feels like a whirlpool we can’t escape, and his diagnosis is devastating: our growth economy requires our exhaustion. It’s a feature, not a bug. But here’s where it gets good for us theology nerds—Rosa’s solution isn’t just slowing down. It’s something he calls resonance, and when you hear him describe it, you’re gonna think, “Wait, that sounds like prayer. That sounds like what church is supposed to be.” This essay is my attempt to lay out Rosa’s big ideas and why I think every person of faith should be paying attention to this guy. We’re reading his new book Time and World with Matt Segall this February, so consider this your on-ramp and feel the lure.

If you want to join the Rosa reading group this February, become a member of the ??Process This?? Substack and you will get invited to all the zoom sessions and have access to the recordings after.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

A Tale of Two Gods: Why C.S. Lewis’s Famous Argument Falls Apart with John Dominic Crossan

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 11:35:39 +0000

In this preview for our upcoming Lent class, Jesus in Galilee, John Dominic Crossan dives into what he calls “A Tale of Two Gods”—Caesar and Christ. He takes on C.S. Lewis’s famous trilemma (Lord, Lunatic, or Liar) and asks the question Lewis never considered: what if there were two contemporary claimants to divinity? Because there were. Before Jesus ever showed up, Caesar Augustus was already being called Son of God, Savior of the World, and Lord. Dom walks us through the Battle of Actium and how Octavian’s victory became the foundation for a theology of peace through violent victory—and then sets that against the Jesus movement’s counter-claim: peace through distributive justice. It’s not just ancient history either; as our live audience pointed out, we’re watching the “normalcy of civilization” play out in real time right now. The big question Dom leaves us with is whether our species is sustainable if we keep betting on escalatory violence. Heavy stuff, but exactly the kind of thing we’ll be unpacking together throughout Lent. Hope you’ll join us at CrossanClass.com—lectures drop soon, and we’ll have live Q&As throughout Lent.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

This Lenten class begins where all of Dom’s work begins: with history. What was actually happening in Galilee in the 20s CE? What did Herod Antipas’ transformation of the “Sea of Galilee” into the commercial “Sea of Tiberias” mean for peasant fishing communities? Why did Jesus emerge from John’s baptism movement proclaiming God’s Rule through parables—and what made that medium so perfectly suited to that message? Only by understanding what Jesus’ parables meant then, can we wrestle with what they might demand of us now.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

Previous Podcast Episodes with Dom & Tripp

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Why Postliberals Want Authoritarian Power (And What to Do About It) with David Congdon

Tripp Fuller — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 10:53:58 +0000

David Congdon came on to talk about his lecture from the ?Democracy in Tension? summit, and man, did we get into it. We’re unpacking what liberalism actually means – not the Fox News version or the MSNBC version, but the philosophical tradition that emerged because people were literally killing each other over interpretations of the Eucharist after the Reformation. David makes this case for why we need to rejuvenate liberalism as a framework for dealing with diversity, because the postliberals basically want to recreate medieval Christendom through authoritarian power, which is… problematic. We talked about historical amnesia, why privatizing religion isn’t the same as excluding it from public life, how both the left and right misunderstand what liberalism offers, and why we can’t just abandon institutions even when they’re flawed. Plus David schooled me on what he’s learned spending eight years working in political theory and philosophy, which has given him a way more nuanced view than most theologians have about this stuff.

?You can get access to Congdon’s lecture and the entire Democracy in Tension series here.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

When Going to Church Makes It Worse: on Moral Bankruptcy of White Evangelicalism

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 19:06:22 +0000

Look, I wasn’t planning on going here—Bo and I were supposed to get to our dictionary series on the B words. But then my algorithm fed me a parade of people I’ve loved my whole life defending an ICE agent shooting a mom three times through a window, calling her a “domestic terrorist,” and I just lost it. So I wrote this piece exploring how the German church’s drift into Nazi accommodation mirrors what’s happening in white evangelicalism right now, and the thing blew up—50,000 extra downloads, shared over 700 times. Here’s what the psychological research shows: it’s not evil, it’s what Bonhoeffer called “stupidity”—a surrender of inner moral independence through sequential complicity. You take that first mundane step of compliance, then you spend the rest of your life defending every compromise you made along the way. The data is damning: the more you attend a white evangelical church, the more you support Trump and resonate with Christian nationalism. Mainline Protestants? The opposite—more church attendance, less nationalism. The white American evangelicalism isn’t the antidote; it’s the incubator. And when my own kid says “I’m just glad we’re not that Christian,” I realize the very community that taught me God loves everyone is now forming people who can read the Sermon on the Mount and treat it like an interesting suggestion. This isn’t Christianity anymore. It’s Christianism—and we need to jump out of this kettle before it’s too late.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000o ther people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Burnout, Burn Up, Burn It Down: Hartmut Rosa’s Diagnosis of Modern Life

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 10:46:31 +0000

What is up, Theology Nerds! This week I’m joined by my buddy Matthew Segall from the Footnotes to Plato Substack to announce something exciting: we’re doing a joint reading group on Hartmut Rosa’s new book Time and World. Rosa’s a German sociologist who does big-picture thinking—like old school “let me tell you about modernity” stuff—and his work resonates deeply with process philosophy. His diagnosis? We’re stuck in what he calls a frenetic standstill—exhausted, burnt out, running faster just to stay in place. I gave Matt my above-ground pool whirlpool metaphor: we’re all running in circles, and if you stop, you get pulled under. Modernity promises us the good life through control—making everything available, accessible, attainable—but the cost is a mute world and the birth of monsters. Rosa’s antidote isn’t slowing down; it’s resonance—a mode of relationship where we’re genuinely touched, we respond, we’re transformed, and we accept it’s all gloriously uncontrollable. Process folks will eat this up: it’s Whitehead’s prehension, creativity, and divine persuasion in sociological clothing. The invitation? Stop. Listen. Let the world address you again. If you want to join us for the Zoom sessions this February, become a member of either Process This or Footnotes to Plato—preferably both. See you soon.

Dr. Segall is a transdisciplinary researcher and teacher who applies process philosophy to various natural and social sciences, including consciousness. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA.

Make sure you check out SubStack Footnotes to Plato, his YouTube channel, and his recent book.

Previous Podcasts with Matt

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Bonhoeffer’s Warning, Unheeded: The Moral Collapse of White Evangelicalism

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 20:35:53 +0000

This is an audio essay from my SubStack, Process This. You can head over here to read the entire essay.

I grew up as a Baptist church planter’s kid, and the church gave me everything that matters most to me—my faith, my love of Scripture, my relationship with Jesus. But for over two decades now, I’ve watched the tradition that formed me transform into something I barely recognize. In this essay, I explore the concept of “sequential complicity”—how small, seemingly reasonable compromises lock communities into escalating patterns of moral accommodation. Using research on how ordinary German Christians became bystanders during the Nazi era, I trace a similar pattern in white American evangelicalism: from the real origins of the Religious Right in the 1970s (hint: it wasn’t abortion), through Reagan, through the Iraq War, and into the Trump era. The data is stark—white evangelicals have undergone the most dramatic ethical shift of any religious group in modern polling history. And the most devout churchgoers aren’t the exception; they’re the most captured. This isn’t an outsider’s attack. It’s a lament from someone who still reads his Bible every night and talks to Jesus before bed. I’m not asking anyone to become a Democrat. I’m asking whether the sequence has carried us somewhere we never intended to go—and whether it’s too late to find our way back.

I hope you enjoy it and consider supporting my work by joining 75k+ other people on Process This. If you want to read or watch the essay, you will find it here on SubStack.

UPCOMING ONLINE LENT CLASS: Jesus in Galilee w/ John Dominic Crossan

What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth? And, what difference does it make?

For over five decades, Dr. John Dominic Crossan has been one of the world’s foremost scholars of the historical Jesus—rigorously reconstructing the life, teachings, and world of a first-century Jewish peasant who proclaimed God’s Rule in Roman-occupied Galilee. His work has shaped an entire generation of scholarship and transformed how millions understand the figure at the center of Christian faith.

The class is donation-based, including 0, so join, get info, and join up here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The A’s Have It: Argument Culture, Adiaphora & Atonement Theories

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 11:31:18 +0000

What is up, Theology Nerds! This week Bo and I kicked off our Theological Dictionary of 2026—26 letters for 26, pairing theological concepts with cultural commentary. We dove into the A’s: argument culture, adiaphora, and atonement. We started with Deborah Tannen’s 1997 book The Argument Culture and marveled at how she thought things were bad then—30 years before algorithms and 24-hour news cycles turned us all into gladiators. Then we explored adiaphora, that beautiful old Greek concept of “indifferent things”—matters not essential to salvation—as a potential antidote to our zero-sum cultural warfare. Tillich’s wedding ring analogy made an appearance, and Bo brought the fire with Bonhoeffer’s insistence that the Jewish question was absolutely not adiaphora in Nazi Germany. Context matters, folks. We landed on atonement as our test case: I want to call theories of atonement adiaphora because Scripture isn’t crystal clear on mechanics, but there’s this one group that insists PSA is the gospel. We unpacked six major theories, got into some Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Keith Ward, and Frank Tupper, and Bo may have gently suggested that penal substitutionary atonement is the least compelling of the bunch. Next week: B is for belonging, with baptism and bipartisan politics as our test cases. See you in Valhalla!

ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Ryan Burge & Tony Jones have conducted the first large-scale survey of American “Nones”, which reveals 4 distinct categories—each requiring a different approach. Understanding the difference could transform everything from your ministry to your own spiritual quest.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000o ther people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Practicing Love Without Being Naive About Power with Marvin Wickware

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:26:44 +0000

Marvin Wickware came on to talk about his lecture from the Democracy in Tension summit and his book Loving Through Enmity, and we got into some really beautiful and difficult territory. Marvin’s story is powerful – raised by an interracial couple in 1980s Indiana who were treated terribly by churches, converted through evangelical campus ministry, ended up at Union studying with James Cone, and that’s where his faith, his values, and his intellectual work all clicked together. We talked about need-based love as an ethical framework, how both democracy and Christianity are aspirational projects that we’re always falling short of, and how to navigate the gap between ideals and reality without either abandoning the dream or using it to mask our failures. Marvin shared about being a black theologian in predominantly white mainline spaces, the importance of having people on your side who can tell you you’re not crazy, and how to practice love toward enemies without being naive about power and harm. It’s the kind of conversation that makes you think differently about what love actually requires of us in this political moment.

??You can get access to Dr. Wickware’s lecture and the entire Democracy in Tension series here.

ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Protected: CLASS RESOURCE PAGE: Jesus in Galilee

david trotter — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:42:27 +0000

Paul Tillich’s Socialist Decision and the Crisis of American Christianity

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:39:28 +0000

This is an audio essay from my SubStack, Process This. You can head over here to read or watch the entire essay.

In this episode, we explore Paul Tillich’s largely forgotten 1933 work The Socialist Decision, written as Hitler rose to power and costing Tillich his professorship and homeland. Here, I explore what it reveals about the current crisis of American Christianity. Tillich argued that authentic human existence requires holding two roots in tension: the “powers of origin” (belonging, tradition, community) and the “prophetic demand” (justice, critique, openness to the stranger). When we collapse into one or the other, we get either authoritarian tribalism or rootless abstraction, and Tillich saw both failures at work in Weimar Germany. The parallels to our moment are striking: white Christian nationalism offers powerful symbols of belonging without prophetic self-criticism, while progressive Christianity has often provided critique without the embodied community and sacred symbols that move the human heart (something I explored here in The Perfect Storm). Tillich’s prescription—what he called “theonomy”—charts a third way: a faith rooted in Scripture, sacrament, and particular community yet free because all these point beyond themselves to a God no finite form can capture.

This essay was inspired by two recent Substack posts from two of my regular reads, Tony Jones’ What the Hell is Going On? and Robert Wright’s Some useful Trump-Hitler comparisons (in light of Minneapolis and Venezuela). Tony ends his post by saying, “I don’t know what will replace Christendom as our moral framework… Some days — and today is one of those days — I fear that we’re too fragmented to come back together under any single umbrella of morality.” Tony and I had a rather lengthy text exchange about it, and in it, I said, “It seems as we lose the cultural and ethical inertia of Christendom, Evangelicals get mean, and Mainline Protestants turn to vapid nostalgia.” As I was doing dishes and ruminating, I thought of Paul Tillich’s The Socialist Decision, an often-neglected work, and found it helpful in processing the current moment. What sparked it? Robert Wright’s measured and provocative reflections on useful Trump-Hitler comparisons. If this essay is interesting, then check out all three.

I hope you enjoy it and consider supporting my work by joining 75k+ other people on Process This. If you want to read or watch the essay, you will find it here on SubStack.

ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Courage of Yes: Consenting to a God We Cannot Grasp

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:29:29 +0000

So I made these slides for a talk on centering prayer and process theology, and instead of just presenting them, I sent them to Bo and we played a game where he tried to guess what I was going to say. What emerged was this really fun conversation about how centering prayer is just so different from anything most of us were taught about prayer. Like, it starts in a different place—with practice, not with what you’re trying to get. It ends in a different place—communion, not transaction. It understands God differently—not a distant deity you’re trying to reach, but the one in whom we already live and move and have our being. And it understands the self differently—we’re not isolated individuals initiating contact with God, we’re already woven into relation, already addressed before we speak. We dig into Thomas Keating, Catherine Keller, John Cobb, the Cloud of Unknowing, and how process theology makes sense of what the contemplatives have been saying all along. Bo found it both seductive and disorienting, which honestly is the best compliment I could get. And we end up talking about how this kind of prayer naturally leads to justice work and ecological responsibility, because once you dismantle the false self, you can’t help but feel the suffering of others more acutely.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Four Faces of “None”: What the Largest Study of Religiously Unaffiliated Americans Reveals

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:07:37 +0000

In this first session of “The Rise of the Nones” online class, I am joined by Ryan Burge, Tony Jones, and Sarah Lane Ritchie to introduce findings from the largest survey ever conducted on religiously unaffiliated Americans—over 15,000 participants. The research, funded by the John Templeton Foundation’s Spiritual Yearning Research Initiative, used machine learning to identify four distinct categories of “Nones”: NINOs (Nones In Name Only, who are actually quite religious), Spiritual But Not Religious (the largest group), the Disengaged (content secular individuals far from any religious or spiritual practice), and Zealous Secularists (a small but vocal group actively encouraging others to leave religion). The conversation explores what these categories reveal about American religious identity, why traditional survey methods may be undercounting Christians, and the surprising finding that many “happy atheists” report life satisfaction comparable to religious Americans. Join us for the remaining sessions of this class, where we’ll dive deeper into each category with special guests—registration is donation-based, including $0, at www.AmericanNones.com.

ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

Dr. Ryan Burge is a professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author or co-author of four books including The Nones, The American Religious Landscape, and The Great Dechurching. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and POLITICO. He has also appeared on 60 Minutes, where Anderson Cooper called him, “one of the leading data analysts of religion and politics in the United States.” He was a pastor of an American Baptist Church for over seventeen years. He is currently working on “Making Meaning in a Post-Religious America” – funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Previous Visits from Ryan Burge

Tony Jones is the author of The God of Wild Places and contributing writer to several outdoors periodicals. He’s written a dozen books, including Did God Kill Jesus? and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life, hosts the Reverend Hunter Podcast, and teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary and The Loft Literary Center. He writes a weekly newsletter on Substack.

Previous Episodes with Tony Jones

Dr. Sarah Lane Ritchie received her B.A. in Philosophy & Religion from Spring Arbor University, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and an M.Sc. in Science & Religion from the University of Edinburgh. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh in Science & Religion with a thesis on divine action and the human mind, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of St. Andrews.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

From Philosopher Kings to Billionaire Oligarchs with Tad Delay

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:22:05 +0000

Tad Delay came on to talk about his lecture from the ?Democracy in Tension ?summit, and we got into political philosophy and why democracy keeps sliding toward tyranny. Tad teaches Plato’s Republic in his intro philosophy classes, and he makes this compelling case that Plato basically had us figured out – the fundamental problem is why do people desire their own servitude as though it were their salvation? We traced the history of democratic movements from the French Revolution through the revolutions of 1848 (which most people know nothing about), and Tad connected it all to our current moment with Gaza, Zionism, and how both parties seem to have lost any sense of shame about lying. The conversation got pretty dark but also weirdly hopeful – we talked about social media as a performance of fake happiness, the need to bring back shame about lying and abuse, and how billionaires like Peter Thiel don’t even understand the basics of how power works. Plus we ended with the cheerful speculation that Trump could probably admit to his crimes and people would respect him more for it. Like I said, cheery stuff.

You can get access to Tad’s lecture and the entire ?Democracy in Tension ?series here.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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AI & Theology

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 16:33:53 +0000

This conversation took place at Theology Beer Camp 2025 on artificial intelligence, moderated by Michael Morelli with Ben Chicka and Noreen Herzfield, and it’s one of the most grounded conversations I’ve heard about AI from a theological perspective. Noreen has this incredible background in computer engineering before becoming a theologian, and she’s not buying the Silicon Valley hype. They talked about how AI trained on human feedback becomes sycophantic and biased, how the whole AGI-by-2027 promise is already falling apart, and why the AI bubble is probably about to burst. But the hopeful part is this: they argued that AI can’t replace the actual human connection that changes lives – the teacher who hands you the right book at the right time, the older person who shares a cassette that transforms you. Ben made this beautiful point about how we’re all here because of little encounters that were mustard seeds, and AI can’t replicate that kind of formation. Plus there was a computer programmer in the audience who basically said “there’s no intelligence here, it’s just yes/no questions” and everyone was like, exactly. It’s neither artificial nor intelligent – it’s just code.

Join us at Theology Beer Camp 2026!

Noreen L. Herzfeld is Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and senior research associate with ZRS Koper. A theologian and computer scientist, she is the author of several books, including The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age and In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit. You can check out her previous visit to the podcast: Artificial Intelligence, God, & the Limits of Perfection

Benjamin J. Chicka is Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies at Curry College in Milton, MA. He is a philosophical theologian whose work connects classical American pragmatism, process theology, and ground-of-being theology. Such bridge-building between supposedly incompatible positions reflects his conviction that intrareligious pluralism is as important as interreligious pluralism for the future of theology. Previous podcast visit: Theology & Video Games

Michael Morelli is Assistant Professor of Theology & Ethics and Program Manager, Life-Long Learning at Northwest Seminary & College (a founding member of ACTS Seminaries, and affiliate of Trinity Western University). He holds a PhD in Theological Ethics from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, is the author of Theology, Ethics, and Technology in the Work of Jacques Ellul and Paul Virilio: A Nascent Theological Tradition (2021), and editor of Desert, Wilderness, Wasteland, and Word: A New Essay by Jacques Ellul and Five Critical Engagements (2023). He publishes and presents on a variety of topics within the fields of theology, morality, culture, politics, and technology. He has also worked in local church ministry and continues to serve the church in a lay capacity. Previous podcast: Jacques Ellul & the Technological Society

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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High-Friction Love: The Incarnation in an Age of Smooth Technology

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 14:41:06 +0000

Hey everybody, this is a special Christmas episode where I’m joined by Michael Morelli (Personalist Manifesto podcast) and Paul Hoard (professor at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology) for a live conversation about what the Incarnation has to say to our algorithmically-mediated moment. We get into Advent as a season of waiting in a world obsessed with immediacy and prediction—drawing on Lacan’s understanding of desire, Hartmut Rosa on resonance, and Byung-Chul Han’s “hell of the same” to explore how our devices have trained us to be unable to tolerate longing. We talk about incarnation versus ex-carnation (yes, we went there), why smoothness is a trap, how the manger subverts our fantasies of a powerful God, and what Bonhoeffer’s Christ-reality hermeneutic might offer disciples trying to encounter genuine otherness in a world of narcissistic loops and NPC-ification. Paul brings the psychoanalytic heat on disgust, love, and why intimacy requires being changed by the other, and Michael reminds us that the cosmos hasn’t actually been hijacked by Silicon Valley—despite appearances. We also talk about Black Mirror, The Good Place, board games, and whether Star Trek is secretly fascist. It’s nerdy, it’s hopeful, and it’s exactly the kind of thing you need while driving to Christmas gatherings with sleeping family members in the car.

Michael Morelli is the host of The Personalist Manifesto podcast, where he explores personalist philosophy, theology, and the question of what it means to be human in an age of technological disruption. Michael is a friend of the show, a fellow traveler in the world of continental philosophy and theology, and one of the people who helps make Theology Beer Camp the beautiful chaos that it is.

Paul Hoard is a professor at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, where he teaches at the intersection of psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, and theology. He’s a practicing mental health counselor and a Lacanian scholar who brings clinical insight to questions about consciousness, desire, and what it means to be a self in relationship. Paul is also, apparently, a serious board game nerd who speaks at academic conferences about games. He’s interested in how AI functions as a mirror for understanding human subjectivity—and how Advent might train us to tolerate desire rather than silence it with instant gratification.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

NO ROOM IN THE INN: A Theology Nerds Christmas Special

Tripp Fuller — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 11:04:10 +0000

? NO ROOM IN THE INN: A Theology Nerds Christmas Special ?

Last week, Tripp and Bo played Hallmark Movie Mad Libs—and things got wildly out of hand. With answers shouted out in real time (and some help from the chat), we accidentally wrote an entire progressive Christian Hallmark Christmas movie. It has everything:

? A hunky taxidermist with a heart of gold
? An Episcopal deacon hiding her collar from her boyfriend ? A three-legged poodle named Gretzky
? A food bank called “The Roadkill Cafe”
? Marcus Borg’s The First Christmas as a plot device
? A karaoke scene featuring Georgia Satellites
? A childhood photo of our leads as Mary and Joseph in a church pageant
?? A tragic deer-related backstory
? A boyfriend who gets a little too into Jordan Peterson

This week, we read the full script LIVE. Grab your eggnog, settle in, and join us for No Room in the Inn—a love story about coming home, finding faith in unexpected places, and learning to take the Bible seriously without taking it literally. Will you laugh? Probably (at us). Will you cry? Maybe (not). Will you question how this all came from a Mad Libs game? Absolutely.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Great Disconnect: When the Pulpit and the Pew aren’t Speaking the Same Language

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 10:57:04 +0000

What happens when the person preaching on Sunday morning believes something completely different than the folks sitting in the pews? Well friends, that’s exactly what we’re digging into today. My buddy Ryan Burge brought the graphs—including some brand new data that hasn’t even dropped on his Substack yet—and let me tell you, it’s a real deal predicament for Mainline Protestantism. Turns out about 60-70% of mainline clergy identify as liberal, but only about 25% of the people in the pews do. That’s not a gap, that’s a canyon. We’re talking ELCA, UCC, PCUSA, Episcopalians—the whole crew. And look, Ryan and I are both mainline folks, so we’re not throwing rocks across the river here. We’re throwing rocks at our own faces. We get into why this disconnect exists, what the “silver tsunami” of aging Boomers means for these congregations, and why young progressive folks aren’t joining our churches even though we thought we built them a home. It’s honest, it’s a little uncomfortable, and yeah, we also talk about Zion Williamson and Christmas movies because that’s just how we roll. If you want to go deeper on where American religion is headed, join me and Ryan along with Tony Jones for our upcoming class The Rise of the Nones this January at ?www.AmericanNones.com?. Come on.

Previous Visits from Ryan Burge

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Rian Johnson on Wake Up Dead Man – Murder, Mystery, and the Search for Grace

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:57:32 +0000

I am SO excited about this episode.

I got to sit down with Rian Johnson to talk about ?Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery?, and honestly? This might be my favorite conversation I’ve had all year. Not just because it’s a blast of a film (which it absolutely is), but because Rian brought so much theological depth and personal wrestling to this project.

I’m always looking for that sweet spot where great storytelling meets profound questions about faith, power, community, and what it means to be human. This film? It’s the jackpot. I literally told Rian I now have an excuse to show a movie I genuinely enjoy in class and call it “movie day.”

The Film: ?Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery ?is now streaming on Netflix. Watch it. It’s spectacular.

Rian Johnson is an acclaimed writer-director best known for creating the Knives Out mystery franchise, including Knives Out (2019), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025). His work is characterized by genre-bending storytelling that weaves together intricate plots with deep thematic exploration.

Johnson’s other notable films include Brick (2005), a neo-noir set in a high school; Looper (2012), a science fiction thriller; and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). He also directed several critically acclaimed episodes of Breaking Bad, including the Emmy-winning “Ozymandias.”

Raised in the evangelical church, Johnson draws on his formative religious experiences to explore themes of grace, moral complexity, and the tension between reason and faith in his work. He cites influences ranging from G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell’s work on storytelling and myth.

Known for his meticulous approach to storytelling—he still writes his screenplays longhand in notebooks—Johnson creates films that function as both wildly entertaining genre exercises and thoughtful examinations of contemporary moral and social questions.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Books for Your Friendly Neighborhood Theology Nerd

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 16:57:01 +0000

Look, we all have that person in our life who won’t stop talking about Motlmann or keeps “accidentally” bringing up liberation theology at Thanksgiving. Maybe that person is you. No judgment. I’m right there with you.

That’s why I brought in my friend Rev. Dr. Thomas Hermans-Webster, acquisitions editor at Orbis Books, to help us figure out what books belong under the tree this year. We each picked 10 books that will make your theology nerd feel seen, challenged, and deeply grateful you know them so well.

HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS: Orbis put the whole collection on sale. Use code ZESTY at checkout and get 30% off. The code is good through the 12 days of Christmas and all the way to Mardi Gras—we’re being liturgical about this.

? Shop the full collection here

?UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS: The Rise of the Nones?

One-third of Americans now claim no religious affiliation. That’s 100 million people.

But here’s what most church leaders get wrong: they’re not all the same. Some still believe in God. Some are actively searching. Some are quietly indifferent. Some think religion is harmful.

?Get info & join the donation-based class (including 0) here.?

The Books

Facing Apocalypse — Katherine Keller

Katherine Keller brings together her longtime process reworking of eschatology and asks what it means for our present moment—ecological crisis, political upheaval, economic uncertainty, all of it. There’s hardly a theologian as enjoyable or savory in their writing as Keller. Her work envelops you like a novel. If you’re wrestling with the question of how to have hope when everything feels like it’s falling apart, start here.

Making Hope: Practices, Prayers, and Parables for a Changing Climate — O’Neil Van Horn

O’Neil Van Horn, one of Keller’s students, invites us to rethink hope—not as something we have or don’t have, but as something we make through regular practices. Each chapter explores a different practice: mending clothes, cycling, birding, composting. It’s process theology inheritance at its best, and it encourages you to slow down without making you feel bad for feeling hurried. A perfect gift for anyone who wants to sit with theology and breathe with it.

Abounding in Kindness — Elizabeth Johnson

Elizabeth Johnson is a pioneer of Catholic feminist theology, and this book is the perfect entry point into her work. Built from a series of lectures, it covers a range of theological topics—each chapter stands alone, so you can jump in wherever your interest takes you. If you’re wanting the Elizabeth Johnson experience for the first time, or just want to revisit her generous, compassionate vision of the faith, this is where you start.

Flourishing: An Integrative Vision for Individuals, Communities, and the Planet — Paul Schutz

What if flourishing was the base theological category for all our work? Paul Schutz makes the case for putting flourishing at the foundation of how we do, evaluate, and offer theology to the world. With a foreword by Elizabeth Johnson, this book traces threads of flourishing through Scripture, the early church, and medieval theology—giving us deep roots for what can feel like a very contemporary conversation.

Earthbound: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World — Grace Ji-Sun Kim

Grace Ji-Sun Kim has a tremendous gift for speaking meaningfully about theology with people in the pews. This is an inviting introduction to eco-theology and ecofeminism that will dive with you. Kim brings the Korean concept of han into the conversation, expanding the planetary register of ecological theology beyond Western frameworks.

Eco-Womanism — Melanie Harris

One of Tom’s all-time favorite Orbis books. Melanie Harris asks all of us to engage our “eco-memory”—our stories and inheritances with particular places, creatures, and ecological communities. In the great tradition of womanism, she gives us tools to interrogate why some of us have been encouraged to distance ourselves from ecological relationships. Every time Tom teaches this book, students mention it in their evaluations as the most important book of the semester. That’s an endorsement.

Re-enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion — Ilia Delio

If you want to know what happens when someone who has spent way too much time with Teilhard and Whitehead starts thinking about AI, here it is. Ilia Delio offers a vision for artificial intelligence connected to a re-enchanting of the earth and the historic structures of religion. It’s a way of thinking about the frontier of transformation as our means of communication, connection, and information processing change—and asking: shouldn’t we think through doing the religion part well?

Sacred Resistance: New Spiritual Communities Formed Through Eco-Activism — Mark Clatterbuck (ed.)

Five case studies of how multi-religious communities have formed through eco-activism work. There’s a chapter on the Line Three pipeline protest (co-authored by Winona LaDuke), a chapter on nuns in Pennsylvania protesting a pipeline, Virginia Missionary Baptists and yogis working together, and more. With beautiful photography throughout, this book shows how real acts of resistance for earth justice give rise to new ways of being in inter-religious friendship.

Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin: Process Philosophy and Theology in the Age of Science — Ilia Delio and Andrew Davis (eds.)

This is the one for your process party friend. Scholars specializing in Whitehead, Teilhard, or both make unique contributions on a host of topics connecting these two giants of process thought. Plus, there’s a never-before-published-in-English interview with Teilhard de Chardin, translated by Don Viney. This is the only place we know of where this interview appears in English. Process paraphernalia at its finest.

Undoing Conquest: Ancient Israel, the Bible, and the Future of Christianity — Kate Common

What do we do about the church in settler colonial nations if the conquest narrative in Joshua didn’t happen? If there’s no archaeological record of Jericho, and the evidence points to a different origin story of ancient Israel, how do we heal and repair our relationships with the victims of conquest? Kate Common gives us paths forward—this is biblical archaeology, Hebrew Bible interpretation, and a challenge to find new stories in our scriptures for a flourishing life that doesn’t depend on genocide.

God of the Oppressed — James Cone (50th Anniversary Edition)

The 50th anniversary edition of Cone’s classic, with a new introduction and cover. This is early-career Cone at the intersection of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement, giving voice to black liberation theology and engaging the doctrine of God. For a theology book, it’s a page turner—the energy is palpable. If your loved one already has The Cross and the Lynching Tree and you’re wondering what’s next, this is it.

The Cross and the Olive Tree: Palestinian Christians Speak — John and Samuel Manai (eds.)

A collection of essays from eight Palestinian theologians, most of them early or mid-career, asking what it means to do Palestinian liberation theology as a Palestinian for Palestinians. Instead of writing theology for the European or US gaze, these writers use Palestinian sources and methods. A beautiful, heartrending book that gives us a chance to embrace the world Church and learn from Christians who have been in the land for two millennia.

Jesus Symbol of God — Roger Haight

One of the most important Christology texts of the 20th century. Roger Haight wanted to write a book about Jesus Christ that gave people on the edge of belonging space in the conversation—people of other faiths, no faith, or who don’t know what they’re doing. He uses “symbol” as an interdisciplinary word, though he notes he could have just as easily said “Jesus, the Sacrament of God” and changed nothing. A logos/wisdom Christology that got the Vatican’s attention (they required a letter in the back saying it’s not approved). Read banned theology books.

Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church — Leonardo Boff

Speaking of theologians who made the Vatican angry: Leonardo Boff. This brilliant little book takes seriously what Latin American liberation theology and the bishops were saying about the church for and of the poor. Boff asks really important questions about how lay people reinvent the church in their own times and places, especially when there aren’t any priests within 200 miles. Essential reading on the role of small discipleship groups and God’s preferential option for the poor.

The Image of the Unseen God: Catholicity, Science, and Our Evolving Understanding of God — Thomas Hoskinski

One of the best introductions to Christian process theology out there. Hoskinski engages science when thinking about the God-world relationship, then uses that framework for a range of theological topics. When I taught this book, students said, “I could use this with people at my church and they’ll actually get what we’re talking about.” If you want to give someone a process theology book that’s definitively Christian and accessible, this is it.

Church Is Sanctuary: Reconstructing Refuge in an Age of Forced Displacement — Leo Guardado

Leo Guardado looks at sanctuary both as a historical practice of the church and in the context of migration in North America today. He examines the sanctuary movement of the ‘80s and ‘90s, when churches declared their places of worship as legal sanctuaries for refugees. What could it mean to be church when our principal activity is providing sanctuary? An unfortunately timely book that seems more important every week.

The Violence of Love — Oscar Romero

A collection of prayers from the archbishop who was gunned down while serving the Eucharist. Romero’s prayers are prophetically clear on the call to justice, but he never puts himself above or in front of others. This book is I pick up every year—it’s moving, it’s accessible, and if you want someone in your life to catch the vision of liberation theology, giving them prayers by a saint (with a movie to show how cool he is) is a pretty good way to do it.

Jesus the Liberator / Christ the Liberator — Jon Sobrino

Two volumes that together form one of the most impactful liberation Christologies ever written. Jesus the Liberator starts with the historical Jesus, read by someone spending time in base communities, working with people being harmed. Christ the Liberator takes the tradition and reads it back down to connect with grassroots liberation. Sobrino’s central insight: the presence of Christ today is and has always been in the crucified people. A Christology banger.

Community of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church — Stephen Bevans

Steve Bevans is one of the most significant theologians of Christian mission of the last 70 years. This book is a magnum opus exploring the phrase “community of missionary disciples” from Vatican II—what does it mean to call the church a community? To call the church missionary? To say the church are disciples? For pastors and anyone involved in building community, this is a long, sustained, patient exploration of the church on the move together with God.

The Modern Spiritual Masters Series

Finally, we pulled several volumes from Orbis’s Modern Spiritual Masters Series—short excerpts of spiritual writing from significant figures that let you experience them as more than just a brain in a vat. The series includes:

Walter Rauschenbusch — Social gospel pioneer, prayers and devotional bits
Clarence Jordan — Baptist preacher, founder of Koinonia Farm, excerpts from the Cotton Patch Gospels
Howard Thurman — Mystic, mentor to MLK, profound spiritual writing
Dorothy Day — Catholic Worker movement founder
Dietrich Bonhoeffer — Theologian and martyr
Phyllis Tickle — Key voice in the emergent church conversation
Richard Rohr — Franciscan contemplative
Dorothy Soelle — Liberation theologian and mystic

These books ground all the theological attention in something embodied and consequential. A perfect way to slow down and breathe with writing that cares for you as more than just an intellect.

Get the Books

All of the books above are available at Orbis Books. Use code ZESTY for 30% off through Mardi Gras.

? Shop the Homebrewed Christianity Christmas Collection

Now go forth and get nerdy.

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

Join us for a transformative four-week Advent journey exploring how the four gospels speak their own revolutionary word against empire—both in their ancient context under Roman occupation and for our contemporary world shaped by capitalism, militarism, and nationalism.

Advent marks the beginning of the church year—an invitation to step out of the empire’s time and into God’s time, where the last are first, the mighty are scattered, and a child born in occupied territory changes everything.

This course invites you into an alternative calendar and rhythm. While our modern world races through December toward consumption and productivity, Advent calls us to a different time—a counter-imperial waiting, a subversive hope, a radical reimagining of how God enters the world.

What will we experience? Each week, we’ll hear one gospel’s unique vision of the birth narrative, allowing Matthew, Luke, John, and Mark to speak in their own voices about what it means for God to show up when empires think they’re in control. We’ll discover how these ancient texts of resistance offer wisdom for our own moment of political turmoil, economic inequality, and ecological crisis.

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Venison Chili, Reindeer Farms, and the Spirit of Advent

Tripp Fuller — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 11:14:30 +0000

What is UP, Theology Nerds! This week Bo and I got real caffeinated—or maybe it was eggnog—and let the vibes take us wherever they wanted to go. We kicked things off with some personal life updates (Bo got banished to an RV for being too large and loud at Christmas, and I’m navigating the trials of doing dishes with a teenager sleeping underneath the kitchen). Then we nerded out HARD on Christmas movie power rankings after a heated debate at my cigar lounge—Christmas Vacation took the crown, obviously, but Fellowship of the Ring is a Christmas movie and I will die on that hill. The real magic happened when we completely improvised a Hallmark Christmas movie Mad Libs-style, and let me tell you, it got WILD: we’ve got an Episcopal deacon named Felicia, her problematic Pfizer-rep boyfriend Ted who’s getting his faith formation from Jordan Peterson, and a hunky Canadian taxidermist named Clayton who runs a reindeer farm, serves venison chili at the “Roadkill Cafe,” and owns a three-legged poodle named Lucky. There’s fires, no room at the inn, Georgia Satellites karaoke, and theological debates about female ordination. We wrapped up with our favorite Christmas hymns (Oh Holy Night supremacy!), Bo’s discovery that contemporary Christian Christmas mashups actually slap, and the revelation that AI thinks Bo is a “kenotic scholar”—which, honestly, same. Next week: Christmas party with Kate Flynn, cigars of the year, and I’m dramatically reading our Hallmark script. Merry Advent, nerds!

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Protected: CLASS RESOURCE PAGE: The Rise of the Nones

david trotter — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:05:55 +0000

From Garden to New Jerusalem: Why the Church’s Economic Blindness Matters

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:42:28 +0000

So here’s what we’re wrestling with in this episode: What if economics isn’t just a topic theology comments on, but actually the bigger framework that shapes what’s theologically possible? That’s the question that sent Brian McLaren searching, and it’s what led him—and us—to the Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani and his game-changing framework about modes of exchange laid out in his book, The Structure of World History We’re talking about how nation, state, and capital work together as these integrated energies, and how if you try to critique just one without seeing the others, you end up reproducing the very thing you’re trying to escape. The biblical narrative becomes this fascinating case study—starting with naked hunter-gatherers in a garden with no religion, state, or market, and ending with the New Jerusalem coming down with no need for a temple. And maybe, just maybe, understanding these modes of exchange—the symbolic, the coercive, the economic—helps us see what kind of future we’re actually moving toward. It’s the kind of conversation that makes you realize the church’s learned ignorance about economics might be the source of its greatest spiritual crisis, and you know what? That’s worth paying attention to.

You can find the YouTube playlist of videos outlining Karatani’s work here.

Joining me for this conversation is…

Guillermo Bervejillo is an economic geographer and community organizer who bridges critical theory and social movement practice. If you missed our previous conversation, where we introduced Karatani’s work check it out – Kojin Karatani’s The Structure of World History.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. Don’t miss his AMAZING new book, The Last Voyage.

Dawson Allen is the movement manager at the Center for Action & Contemplation.

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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Bonhoeffer’s Witness Against Christian Nationalism

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 18:43:12 +0000

What is up, Theology Nerds! This one’s a banger. At Theology Beer Camp 2025, I got to sit down with an EPIC braintrust of Bonhoeffer scholars—Jeff Pugh, Lori Brandt Hale, Reggie Williams, and Andy Root—for a panel that went deep into Dietrich’s life, his communities, and why his witness matters more now than ever. We wrestled with how Bonhoeffer’s critique of stupidity as a sociological force, his understanding of Christ as the center that opens us to the other, and his call to prayer and righteous action speak directly into our current moment of rising nationalism and the masquerade of evil. These scholars didn’t flinch from the hard questions: What do we do when the church has failed? How do we resist without contempt? And what does a faithful community look like when you might be hiding people in your house? If this conversation lights a fire in your theological belly, then you need to be with us at Theology Beer Camp 2026—October 8-10th in Kansas City. Head over here and grab those pre-sale tickets. This is what we do: beer, community, and theology that matters. Come join us.

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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Taylor Swift, Bach, and the Death of Mainline Protestantism

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 16:51:30 +0000

What is up, Theology Nerds? Bo and I kicked off this week’s episode from my pop-up ice fishing tent in 39-degree rain—complete with my new “professional lighting” that makes it look like I’m telling ghost stories—because that’s just how we roll. We dove into our Spotify Wrapped numbers (156% audience growth, baby!). We discovered that our listeners are simultaneously jamming to Taylor Swift, Bach, and Bob Dylan while devouring Jen Hatmaker and Dan McClellan audiobooks. After a spirited throwdown over whether you should sing Christmas songs before Christmas Eve (spoiler: the liturgical fundamentalists are losing the war on Advent), Tripp unleashed an AI-generated slam poetry performance comparing process theology to Calvinism that may have broken something in all of us. Then we got into the real stuff—why so many evangelicals have never encountered liberation theology, why institutional reform feels impossible (hint: systems are designed for the outcomes they produce, not accidentally broken), and why trying to change the church from within is like sawing off the branch you’re standing on from the wrong side. We wrapped with some announcements about Theology Beer Camp 2025 in Kansas City and my usual plea: read the red letters, people.

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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When Empire Strikes Back: Herod, the Magi, and Holy Resistance

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:02:45 +0000

Well, we kicked off our Advent Against Empire series with Diana Butler Bass diving deep into Matthew’s birth narrative, and wow—it did not disappoint. Diana brought her three signature lenses (anti-imperialism, non-violence, and eco-wholeness) to the most Jewish of all the gospels, and things got delightfully nerdy. We explored how Matthew’s genealogy isn’t just a boring list of “begats”—it’s a subversive royal document packed with scandalous women and outsiders that announces Jesus as the true king in direct confrontation with Rome and Herod. Diana walked us through a brilliant two-act structure: Act One is all about the birth of Wisdom and Joseph (a dreamer who winds up in Egypt—sound familiar?) receiving divine announcements. Act Two gives us the Apocalyptic clash between the World as it is and the World to come, with the Magi’s cosmic rebellion against Herod, the horrific violence that follows when the empire doesn’t get its way, and the holy family’s return. We also geeked out on Jesus as the embodiment of Sophia—Wisdom incarnate—and how Matthew’s five-discourse structure mirrors the Torah itself. If you’ve always thought of Matthew as the “Christmas pageant gospel,” prepare to have your assumptions lovingly dismantled.

Want to go deeper? Join Diana and me for our full four-week Advent journey, The Beginning of Another World: Advent Against Empire. Each week we’re letting a different gospel speak its revolutionary word—no harmonizing, no smoothing over the rough edges. The class is fully asynchronous so that you can participate on your own schedule or join us live for our recordings. Sign up HERE and contribute whatever you can (including 0). Come get nerdy with us!

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp

ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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NT Wright on Ephesians: The Church as a Small Working Model of New Creation

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:45:07 +0000

N.T. Wright returns to the podcast for round three—no Malibu rooftop this time, but plenty of theological fireworks. We dig into Tom’s new book, The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God, starting with why he thinks the scholarly consensus dismissing Pauline authorship is more about 19th-century German liberal Protestant hangover than good historical work. From there, we get into the real meat: Ephesians isn’t answering the question “how do I get to heaven?” It’s painting this massive cosmic picture of God’s plan to unite heaven and earth in Christ—and the church’s wild vocation to be what Tom calls “a small working model of new creation.” We talk about how Western Christianity has shrunk Paul’s vision into individual soul-sorting when the text is way more interested in what it looks like when formerly irreconcilable people come together as one new humanity. Tom pushes back on how both conservatives and liberals read their politics into the text, and we wrestle with the marriage passage in chapter 5 as the letter’s theological climax (not the culture-war flashpoint we’ve made it). We close with a beautiful reflection on Ephesians 6 as an Advent text—the church holding the line between Christ’s victory and his return. Plus, Tom’s grandson sings in the New College Oxford choir, and honestly, that’s the kind of intergenerational beauty Ephesians is pointing toward.

Prof. N.T. (Tom) Wright is Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He is one of the world’s leading Bible scholars, with expertise in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, the New Testament, and Biblical Studies. He is also Emeritus Professor at the University of St. Andrews and the former Bishop of Durham.

Tom’s Previous Visits to the Podcast

ONLINE ADVENT CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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Tolkien & Trump: The Professor or the Profligate with Dr. Craig Boyd

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 15:21:34 +0000

Alright Tolkien Heads, this one’s important. Dr. Craig Boyd joins us to dig into Tolkien’s political philosophy and—look, we gotta talk about how the alt-right has been trying to claim Tolkien as one of their own, which is just… no. Craig offers a much-needed corrective by actually reading what the man wrote and believed. The heart of the conversation is this contrast between Gandalf and Saruman as two models of leadership: one rooted in service and humility, the other in domination and control. And yeah, this feels pretty relevant right now. We get into why the easy path of controlling people is so seductive, and why the harder road—actually loving and respecting the folks you’re leading—is what builds real community. Saruman thought he could use the enemy’s tools for good ends; spoiler alert, it doesn’t work that way. Power-hoarding corrupts everything it touches. Gandalf shows us another way: sacrifice, humility, genuine care for human flourishing over accumulating influence. Whether you’re a Tolkien nerd, into political philosophy, or just trying to figure out what faithful leadership looks like in this moment, this one’s for you.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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The Hour of Gratefulness

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 15:00:39 +0000

Here’s our Thanksgiving episode with some vital jazzercise energy and a whole lot of carnitas-shaking—you’re welcome for that visual. But then we got into the real stuff: like how exhausting it is when every single day brings another thing that would’ve ended any other administration, and how our outrage sensors are so fried we might miss the moment things shift from “different in degree” to “different in kind.” We talked about ICE raids emptying classrooms and what it means to show up for our neighbors. But since Bo told me we had to do gratitude, we pivoted to the stuff that fills us up—mentors who shaped us, the regulars who show up in the chat every week, and the beautiful weirdos at Theology Beer Camp. I shared how the homebrewed grannies became a spontaneous hug ministry for folks returning to church after being hurt, and honestly, my eyes watered while reading about it.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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Finding Our Way Forward: How Whitehead Shows Us Religion as Life’s Creative Force

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 15:46:07 +0000

This is an audio essay from my Process This substack?. In it, I reflect on Alfred North Whitehead and what he can teach us about religion in our time. You see, Whitehead didn’t see religion as just doctrines or institutions—he understood it as a creative force that connects our deepest ideals with the passion that actually moves us to act in the world. And here’s what’s beautiful: he shows us that the divine isn’t a force that dominates or controls, but a gentle invitation woven through all of reality, calling us toward truth, beauty, and goodness. We’re not passive recipients of this, we’re active partners, and every act of kindness, every moment of genuine connection actually adds something real to the universe that wouldn’t exist without us. The real transformation in history, whether it’s been the Civil Rights Movement or the climate movement today, happens not through force and domination, but through the slower, harder, more beautiful path of persuasion—changing hearts and minds one person at a time. And here’s what gives me hope: nothing we do in love is ever lost. It all becomes part of this larger story of the universe moving toward wholeness. So in this post-religious age, we desperately need this capacity to be moved by beauty and called by goodness. The question isn’t what we believe, it’s whether we’ll let ourselves be caught up in this larger movement of love.

To join the Whitehead reading group, become a supporting member of ??the Process This Substack. In addition to Zoom invites to the reading group and archives of each session, you will get an ad-free podcast feed of the podcast and invites to all the other live streams with friends like Diana Butler Bass & Ryan Burge.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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How the Lectionary Kept Me Christian: Diana Butler Bass on Practicing the Year

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 11:06:11 +0000

What is up, Theology Nerds! So this episode we got my friend Diana Butler Bass back in the house to talk about her brand new book A Beautiful Year and this open online Advent class we’re doing together over the next four weeks. Here’s the deal: Diana’s gonna walk us through how the Christian liturgical year—especially the lectionary—actually saved her faith during the pandemic when the church doors closed. She unpacks the lectionary as a real deep, anti-imperial, feminist, creation-care kind of reading that shows how Jesus is literally challenging Caesar through the gospel accounts. We break down why that matters for how we read the four Gospels and their unique takes on the Incarnation, and this is the crucial part: how all of this ancient story stuff actually orients us for what’s happening right now with Christian nationalism and all that ugliness. The Advent class is donation-based (yeah, pay what you want), and you can catch it live each week or grab the video and audio later. Head to homebrewedclasses.com to sign up. Trust me, you’re gonna want in on this conversation.

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Community Over Cops: Building Justice from the Ground Up with Ross Halperin

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 12:17:40 +0000

On today’s episode, we’re talking with investigative journalist Ross Halperin about his new book Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land. Ross takes us on a fascinating journey from academic research on impunity—the unsolved homicides plaguing American cities—to Honduras, where he discovers an unexpected solution. We dig into why the US solve rate for murders hovers around 60% compared to over 90% in other wealthy democracies, and spoiler alert: it’s not about more surveillance or militarization. The real issue is witness testimony, and that requires trust. Ross introduces us to Kurt and Carlos, whose charity work proves that community trust, built through years of genuine service and investment, is the key to bridging the gap between communities and law enforcement. We talk about how faith animates their work without being preachy, the humility required to stay open to criticism, and why top-down solutions often miss what actually moves people to speak up. It’s a conversation about what it means to bear witness—not just to tell a story, but to show up and be trusted.

Ross Halperin is an investigative journalist and author of Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land. A Harvard University graduate, he worked on Wall Street before transitioning to research on criminal justice, where he worked under Mark A.R. Kleiman, one of the world’s leading criminal-justice scholars. His interest in unsolved homicides and systemic violence grew from this research, which revealed that the United States has dramatically lower murder solve rates than comparable wealthy democracies.

That research led Halperin to a presentation by Kurt Biehl at a summit organized by criminologist David Kennedy, sparking a years-long investigation into how one community in Central America tackled violence through trust-building and faith. Bear Witness is the result of his embedded reporting in Honduras, exploring how real change happens not through top-down mandates, but through patient commitment to community relationships.

Halperin’s own commitment to community building is evident in his work closer to home as well—he led a campaign to reconstruct the library in his hometown, reflecting his belief in the power of institutions and gathering spaces.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

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Blood, Wounds, and Watch Words: A Deep Dive into Radical Moravian Theology

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:43:17 +0000

What a fun convo! Bo and I were joined by Rev. Dr. Chaz Snider, a Moravian Minister and Radical Theologian for some nerdy goodness. We started with something that’s been keeping me up at night: the dangerous decoupling of Jewish identity from Israeli identity in certain conservative circles, and how this might unleash a kind of naked antisemitism we haven’t seen in over a century. From there, we dove deep into Moravian theology with my friend Chaz, who just defended his dissertation on Zinzendorf and radical theology. We explored everything from the wounds of Christ to ecumenical mysticism, talked about how the Moravians survived centuries of violence as a peace church, and wrestled with what it means to maintain radical faith in a world that wants you to conform. Plus, we touched on American-style racism versus European ethno-nationalism, the problem with identity politics outside a liberal framework, and why the Moravian daily texts might just be the devotional practice we all need right now.

Sign up HERE to stay up to date on Theology Beer Camp 2026 & get EARLY ACCESS to the cheapest tickets.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Is America Possible? with Corey Walker & Bill Leonard

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 14:19:58 +0000

Hey Theology Nerds! On this episode, we’re wrestling with one of those questions that’ll mess with your theology AND your politics – Vincent Harding’s knockout punch of a question: ‘Is America possible?’ I’m talking about the REAL America, not the one on your uncle’s Facebook feed, but the wild, beautiful, messy dream of a multiracial, multi-ethnic, pluralistic, egalitarian democracy that actually, you know, WORKS.

We’re getting into all of it – how democracy and capitalism are duking it out, what Christianity has to say when it’s not too busy blessing the status quo, and why asking better questions might just save us from ourselves. This is about imagination, the kind that gets people in trouble with empire. We’re talking solidarity that actually costs something, conversations that require actual courage (not just Twitter courage), and why your algorithm might be more theologically problematic than that praise band you love to hate.

If you’ve ever wondered whether faith communities could stop playing defense and start building the world we actually need, or if you’re ready to imagine America as something more than a 250-year-old experiment in barely not falling apart – this one’s for you. We’re bringing the theological fire to the most urgent questions of our time, because apparently that’s what we do around here.

Corey D. B. Walker is Dean of the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University. As a scholar, he’s committed to a broad vision of human flourishing. His research, teaching, and public scholarship span the areas of African American philosophy, critical theory, ethics, and religion and American public life.

Bill Leonard is the Founding Dean and Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Wake Divinity. Leonard’s research focuses on Church History with particular attention to American religion, Baptist studies, and Appalachian religion. He is the author of over 25 books, including The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers.

Previous Episodes

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas on the Big Screen

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 14:44:35 +0000

Wow, do we have a conversation for you! My filmmaker-theologian friend Sarey Martin Concepción and I sat down with director Lofty Nathan about his wild new film “The Carpenter’s Son“—and let me tell you, this isn’t your Sunday school Jesus. We’re talking Nicholas Cage as Joseph (yes, he’s a national treasure), FKA twigs bringing something totally unconventional to Mary, and demon snakes that literally made my phone start searching when I mentioned them. The film pulls from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas—one of those apocryphal texts that didn’t make the canonical cut but the Coptic Orthodox Church has preserved—and asks the question nobody really wants to ask: what was it actually like for Jesus to figure out he was, you know, God? Nathan, who grew up Coptic Christian himself, doesn’t sanitize anything here. We dig into all the big stuff: identity crises, divine vocation, the problem of suffering, and what happens when your kid can perform miracles but doesn’t quite get the whole “with great power” thing yet. Fair warning: I watched this alone in the dark and those demon snakes freaked me out. But underneath the horror elements, there’s this sincere, thoughtful wrestling with what incarnation really means. November 17th, folks—see it in theaters where you can properly freak out with other people.

About the Film

Okay, listen—I know “Nicholas Cage plays Joseph in a horror-tinged Jesus origin story” sounds like it could go sideways real fast, but stick with me here. “The Carpenter’s Son” (November 17th in theaters) is actually something special. Director Lofty Nathan grew up Coptic Orthodox and brings that insider perspective to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas—yeah, that apocryphal text about young Jesus that most of us theology nerds have read but never thought we’d see on screen.

Here’s the thing: this film takes seriously what most biblical epics are too scared to touch. What’s it like being Mary and Joseph trying to raise a kid who’s literally divine? We’re talking about a boy in Roman Egypt discovering he can raise the dead but maybe doesn’t have the wisdom yet to know when he should. There’s demon snakes (I’m still processing those), crucifixions that aren’t THE crucifixion but sure do foreshadow it, and this fascinating character called “the accuser” who basically shows up to ask Jesus if he really wants to take on his Father’s business given how messed up creation is.

Look, I’ll be honest—I’m right on the borderline with horror films, but this isn’t cheap scares or camp. It’s more like those medieval paintings where they weren’t afraid to show both the divine and the demonic in all their intensity. Nathan’s created something that’s reverent and unsettling at the same time, asking real questions about suffering, identity, and what incarnation actually means. Plus, FKA twigs as Mary? Inspired casting that brings something totally fresh to a character we thought we knew.

See it in a theater—trust me, you want other people around when those demon snakes show up, and you’ll definitely want folks to process with afterward. This is the kind of provocative, thoughtful religious filmmaking that gets conversations going way past the parking lot. Whether you’re into theological questions, appreciate good horror, or just want to see something genuinely different, this film delivers. Just maybe catch the afternoon showing if you’re sensitive like me and want to avoid demon snakes coming out of the mouths of people in your dreams.

You can check out Sarey’s work over at Secret Art Project.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Truck Stops Without Trucks & Churches Without Christians

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 16:16:16 +0000

Well folks, we started off talking about Bucky’s (the truck stop that doesn’t allow trucks – make it make sense), but then things got real when I shared about this secret squirrel meeting I went to about combating white Christian nationalism in Idaho. Bo and I went deep on religious pluralism, why evangelicals suddenly love Mormons when they run for president, and how my Muslim friend made me a better Christian dad during lockdown. We also covered the wild story about Kentuckians trying to vote in an election that didn’t exist (they really wanted to vote against Mondaire), Trump flags mysteriously disappearing from Bo’s neighborhood after some military comments, and somehow ended up talking about 98 Degrees doing cover songs because they ran out of their own hits. Yeah, it’s a ramble-fest, but that’s what you’re here for, right? See you in Valhalla, brother.

Sign up HERE to stay up to date on Theology Beer Camp 2026 & get EARLY ACCESS to the cheapest tickets.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Two Books, One Night: Finding Beauty in What We Can’t Control with Diana Butler Bass & Andy and Kara Root

Tripp Fuller — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 14:16:47 +0000

Hey Theology Nerds! What an absolute banger of an episode we’ve got for you – two live conversations straight from the wild and wonderful chaos of Theology Beer Camp 2025 in St. Paul. First up, I sit down with the incomparable Diana Butler Bass and my co-host Sarah Heath to dive into Diana’s brand new book A Beautiful Year – and let me tell you, it’s peak DBB, friends. We’re talking about seasons and spirituality, finding God in the everyday rhythm of time, and how the church might just be walking away from us while we’re walking toward it (trust me, it makes sense when Diana explains it). Then we pivot to my friends Andy and Kara Root who share killer insights from their new book A Pilgrimage into Letting Go: Helping Parents and Pastors Embrace the Uncontrollable – basically how to not completely screw up raising kids in a world that’s accelerating faster than we can keep up with. Both conversations get real about control, confession, and finding those holy moments we can’t manufacture but desperately need. So do yourself a favor: grab both of these books, and while you’re at it, get on the list for Theology Beer Camp 2026 – because where else are you gonna find 600 theology nerds singing Bohemian Rhapsody together? Head over here to sign up for all the info. Trust me, you don’t want to miss what we’re cooking up for next year!

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp

Andrew Root is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary, USA. He writes and researches in areas of theology, ministry, culture, and younger generations. Some of his most recent books are The Congregation in a Secular Age (Baker, 2021), The End of Youth Ministry? (Baker, 2020), The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need God (Baker, 2019), Faith Formation in a Secular Age (Baker, 2017), and Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies: Youth Ministry in the Age of Science (Fortress Press, 2018). Andy has worked in congregations, parachurch ministries, and social service programs. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen and Maisy, and their dog. When not reading, writing, or teaching, Andy spends far too much time watching TV and movies.

Previous Visits with Andy Root

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Religion in the Making: Where Evolution Turns Up the Volume on Value

Tripp Fuller — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 11:09:16 +0000

Hey friends! In this introductory session for our “Religion in the Making” reading group, Andrew Davis and I dive into why Whitehead’s 1926 lectures are the perfect entry point into process thought—way more accessible than slogging through Process and Reality’s 40-page tangents on numbers! We explore how Whitehead was in this exciting third phase of his life, finally getting to work out his philosophical ideas after leaving Cambridge for Harvard, and how this book captures that fresh energy of someone discovering how religion isn’t just about beliefs but about the habits and ways we orient ourselves toward value and meaning. Andrew shares how Whitehead flips modern philosophy on its head by showing that our clear sense perceptions emerge from a deeper “iceberg of related connectedness,” making room for those moments when the depth dimension of reality breaks through into consciousness. If you want to join us for the next four weeks as we work through each lecture, become a supporting member at ProcessThis.Substack.com and let’s explore together how religion is about finding “that side of the universe we can care for” that flows from the very nature of things!

Andrew’s Previous visits to the podcast

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

An Adventure in Ideas: Discovering Whitehead’s “Religion in the Making”

Tripp Fuller — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 18:01:20 +0000

In this audio essay, I explore why Alfred North Whitehead’s “Religion in the Making” might be exactly what we need in 2025—especially if you’re someone who’s done with traditional religion but can’t shake the feeling that something sacred is going on. I share Whitehead’s remarkable story: a Cambridge mathematician who didn’t even start teaching philosophy until he was 63, who lost his son in WWI, and whose wife Evelyn taught him that beauty and love aren’t decorations on philosophy—they are the philosophy. Writing in 1926 amidst post-war trauma and scientific revolution, Whitehead saw past the tired warfare between science and religion to something more generous: What if the universe isn’t dead matter but alive with meaning? What if we’re not weird exceptions in a meaningless cosmos but examples of what the universe has been doing all along? I explain why this matters for anyone deconstructing faith, loving science, seeking justice, or simply hungry for a spirituality that’s intellectually honest and alive to mystery. Most beautifully, Whitehead reminds us that religion isn’t about safety or certainty—it’s an adventure of the spirit, and maybe it’s time we said yes to that adventure again.

This is an audio essay from my SubStack, Process This. ?You can head over here to read or watch the entire essay.

To join the Whitehead reading group, become a supporting member of the Process This Substack. In addition to Zoom invites to the reading group and archives of each session, you will get an ad-free podcast feed of the podcast and invites to all the other live streams with friends like Diana Butler Bass & Ryan Burge.

For Further Exploration of Whithead

Whitehead’s Work:

Religion in the Making (1926) – Start here & join our reading group for Substack Supporters
Science and the Modern World (1925) – His first Harvard book
Process and Reality (1929) – The systematic work (warning: dense!)
Adventures of Ideas (1933) – Civilization, ethics, beauty

Secondary Sources:

Robert Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead
Catherine Keller, On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process
Andrew David, Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

For a Must-take Introduction to Whitehead: Join Dr. Andrew Davis’ online class Whitehead’s Universe in the new year. Based upon his next book, he discusses it with me in this special podcast episode.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Why Your ‘Biblical’ Christianity Might Just Be Colonial Nonsense

Tripp Fuller — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 15:09:00 +0000

Wow, this episode was a wild ride! Bo and I kicked things off recapping the absolute magic that was Theology Beer Camp in St. Paul – seriously, the energy this year was different, more connected, more like a family reunion of podcast nerds day-drinking and talking theology. Then we dove into what really gets my blood boiling: this whole restorationist fantasy that we can just skip over 2,000 years of church history and get back to some “pure” Christianity. Like, have these folks even read Acts? The whole book is basically the Holy Spirit dragging the apostles kicking and screaming into a bigger vision than they ever imagined! We talked about how the church has evolved on huge issues – slavery being the prime example – and how claiming “the Bible clearly says” usually means you’re about to ignore how the Spirit has been moving. The conversation got pretty heated when we discussed how American Christianity often can’t tell the difference between its own cultural agenda and God’s actual mission. Oh, and apparently Pope Francis is getting dangerously close to endorsing liberation theology, which honestly, about time!

?Sign up HERE to stay up to date on Theology Beer Camp 2026 & get EARLY ACCESS to the cheapest tickets.??

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Theology Beer Camp All-Stars Unite!!

Tripp Fuller — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 13:21:19 +0000

Get early access to info & tickets for TBC26

Join me and the Theology Beer Camp All-Stars as we debrief the beautiful chaos that was camp this year! We’re talking 600 people, ages 8 to 96, with highlights including: Jared Byas secretly being a Magic: The Gathering wizard who destroyed everyone, a volunteer named Tor who flew in from Norway and became everyone’s bestie, an opening theological wrestling match, and yours truly singing karaoke in a bunny suit because someone has to lower the bar for everyone else. But here’s the real deal—as much as we love talking nerdy theology stuff, what makes Beer Camp special is the permission to just be yourself. Whether you’re pouring coffee at 6 AM, filling beer steins, or revealing your secret nerd hobbies, it’s about people showing up as people. Big thanks to our volunteer coordinator Bren (Camp Gandalf) and her 40-person crew who made it all happen. Already can’t wait for next year, and that’s saying something since I usually need two weeks of sleep before I can even think about it again.

Sign up HERE to stay up to date on Theology Beer Camp 2026 & get EARLY ACCESS to the cheapest tickets.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.

Natalie Wigg-Stevenson: Memory Loss, Rain Dancing, and Making Meaning

Tripp Fuller — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:07:56 +0000

Wow, this conversation with Natalie was something else – one of those episodes where you start talking about a brain injury from cleaning a closet (seriously, turn the lights on, people!) and end up in the deep end discussing psychedelics, embodiment theology, and what happens when your brain decides to play tricks on you for two years straight. Natalie’s journey through losing her ability to read, write, and even walk properly while being a theologian who studies embodiment is just wild – like, the irony isn’t lost on anyone here. We went from talking about her accident (metal rod straight between the eyes, could’ve been way worse) to functional neurological disorder, to ketamine therapy and psilocybin journeys, with stops along the way for discussions about academic labor, memoir writing with amnesia, and why she finally got a dog after swearing she never would. The whole thing was this beautiful mix of vulnerability, theological nerdery, and real talk about how our bodies and minds can betray us in ways we never saw coming – and somehow we still managed to end with lawyers probably appreciating our thorough disclaimers about not giving medical advice. Classic.

Dr. Natalie Wigg-Stevenson is Associate Professor of Contextual Education and Theology at Emmanuel College, where she directs the MDiv and Contextual Education Programs. Her current research delves into how ethnographic methods could help create theological conversations across church, academy and everyday life. She is also interested in liturgical, feminist and queer theologies, cultural theories of practice, aesthetics, pop culture, and in decolonizing pedagogies. An ordained Baptist minister, Natalie is particularly passionate about preaching and worship, and about adult education in church settings.

You can check out her previous visit to the podcast here: From Transgressive Devotion to Snuggle Puppy.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS w/ Diana Butler Bass

This class is donation-based, including 0. You can sign-up at www.HomebrewedClasses.com

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 70,000 other people by joining our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com

Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community.