Shows / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction. Thinking Christian is a podcast about the Bible, theology, and culture for Christians who sense that something in today's church isn't working and want to understand why.
Reading the Bible as the final authority for life and faith means questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision of reality than God's word offers. Each conversation goes past the headlines to the ideas and…
Episodes
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Jonathan Leeman on the Church as Embassy | Faith & Politics #16
Jonathan Leeman — president of 9Marks and author of Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ's Rule — joins James Spencer for the…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Should Christians Support Livestreaming an Execution?
Should Christians support livestreaming an execution? James Spencer and Ashish Varma weigh capital punishment, the Bible, and spectacle. James Spencer and…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Norman Wirzba on Land, Life, and Dominion | Faith & Politics #15
Norman Wirzba — Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology at Duke and author of This Sacred Life and Love's Braided Dance — joins James…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureSuicide Prevention in the Church: A Biblical Guide for Pastors (David Gilleland)
Suicide prevention in the church: David Gilleland, author of Holding Hope, explains how pastors can recognize warning signs, ask directly, and walk with people…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureJohnson Amendment Lawsuit: Can Pastors Endorse Candidates? (Troy Miller)
Can pastors endorse political candidates? Troy Miller, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters, explains NRB’s Johnson Amendment lawsuit…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Why Should Christians Engage Politics? (Vincent Bacote) | Faith & Politics #13
Why should Christians engage politics? Vincent Bacote of Wheaton College argues that political engagement needs a theological foundation, not an ad hoc…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Michael Rhodes on What the Bible Says About Politics | #12
Michael Rhodes — lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College in New Zealand, former pastor, and author of Practicing the King's Economy and Just…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Who Pays for the Data Center? AI, Politics, and Faith: Politics and Faith #14
Continuing the faith and politics series, James Spencer and Ashish Varma turn to artificial intelligence — starting with the data centers going up across…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Be Afraid: Horror, Trauma, and What Our Fears Are Discipling Us Into (Kutter Callaway)
Horror is one of the few genres that refuses to let you look away, and it is one of the few that got people back into theaters after COVID. Dr. Kutter Callaway…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Karl Barth on Church and Politics: Is the Church at War? | Faith & Politics #10
American Christians with his answer: the church’s task is to preach the word of God. Asked whether churches should urge members to enlist, buy war bonds…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Karl Barth on War as God’s Judgment: Romans 13 and Degrees of Guilt | Faith & Politics #9
Is war the judgment of God? James Spencer and Ashish Varma take up the second question in Karl Barth’s wartime letter to American Christians, and whether…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Revelation and Empire: Shane Wood | Faith & Politics #11
Shane J. Wood, professor of New Testament and its origins at Ozark Christian College and author of Thinning the Veil, returns for the eighth episode in the…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Karl Barth's Letter to American Christians (1942) | Faith and Politics #8
In 1942, Karl Barth was asked to write to Christians in the United States. He didn't know the American context well, so he asked his hosts to send him the…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
The Secular Was a Strategy | Faith & Politics #7
Michael McDuffee — formerly professor of historical theology at Moody Bible Institute, now living in Germany — joins James Spencer and Ashish Varma…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Politics as an Art, Not a Science | Faith & Politics #6
James Spencer and Ashish Varma debrief their conversation with William Cavanaugh, and work out what he was and wasn't saying. They start with a tension…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
William Cavanaugh on Idolatry and Power | Faith & Politics #5
William T. Cavanaugh — professor of Catholic studies at DePaul, director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, and author of…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
No Nation Can Be the City of God | Faith & Politics #4
James Spencer and Ashish Varma reflect on the previous episode's conversation with Veronica Roberts Ogle — and on what happens when Augustine gets…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
AI and the Church: Tools, Teammates, and Human Flourishing (Troy Miller)
AI is already cutting the audio, designing the graphics, and answering questions people used to bring to their pastors. Troy Miller, president and CEO of…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Augustine's Two Cities: Veronica Ogle | Faith & Politics #3
Veronica Roberts Ogle teaches at Villanova and wrote Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God. She joins James Spencer for the third episode in…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
David Koyzis on Divided Loyalties | Faith & Politics #2
David Koyzis returns to the show for the second episode in the faith and politics series. He's a member of Global Scholars Canada and the author of Political…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Politics Is Bigger Than Voting | Faith & Politics #1
The first episode in a series on faith and politics running through the midterms. James Spencer and Ashish Varma set the terms before the guests arrive. Ashish…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Liberalism Isn't Cruciform. Neither Is Conservatism.
A Billy Graham Center survey of Gen Z reported that nearly half of respondents agreed that Christian support for Trump has made them less likely to attend…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
When Doctrine Divides Christians Who Aren't Wrong
James Spencer and Ashish Varma return to the diagnoses that narrow the church's vision, this time with fragmentation — the way faithful Christians end up…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Marx and Moody: What the Church Left Undone (Gregg Quiggle)
Karl Marx and D.L. Moody lived at the same time, watched the same cities industrialize, and asked the same question about the poor. One had a doctorate…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Is Technology Neutral? Grok, AI Deepfakes, and Discipleship
James Spencer and Ashish Varma close out the series on narrowing with amplification — Marshall McLuhan's insight that technology extends human capacity…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
When Your Interpretation Becomes the Authority | The Diagnosis
James Spencer and Ashish Varma continue the series on what narrows the church's vision with a look at inversion — what happens when an interpretive grid…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
AI With Guardrails: Scott Lindsey on Logos and the Future of Bible Study
More than half of American Christians now say they trust AI with their spiritual life. That is a problem worth taking seriously, and it is also the reason…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Why Do Christian Institutions Compromise to Stay Alive?
Institutions confuse their own survival with the work of God. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma close the diagnostic arc of this series with transaction…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
The Fear of Syncretism Is Making the Church Assimilate
The fear of losing the faith to another culture is producing the very thing it fears. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma open a series on three forces…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Grandparent Texts: How the New Testament Reads the Old (Gary Edward Schnittjer)
The usual complaint about the New Testament's use of the Old is that the apostles play fast and loose. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer thinks the problem runs the…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Not All Moabites Are Moabites (Gary Edward Schnittjer)
Most readers hear "Old Testament use of the Old Testament" and picture quotations. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer says quotation is the small end of it. An…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Why Ezra-Nehemiah Ends Badly (Gary Edward Schnittjer)
Ezra-Nehemiah opens on a high note. Yahweh keeps the word he spoke through Jeremiah, Cyrus issues the edict, and the exiles go home. By the last chapter…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion (Tamar Oostrom)
What does repealing Sunday shopping laws have to do with rising rates of suicide, alcohol deaths, and drug overdoses? More than you might expect. In this…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Why Study the Old Testament? (Gary Edward Schnittjer)
Christians have inherited a strange habit of treating the Old Testament as optional. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer argues that Jesus and the apostles would not…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureDecolonial Theology and the Holy Spirit: Is God Moving Outside Our Gates? (Oscar Garcia-Johnson)
Can the church learn to follow the Spirit into places it hasn't been looking? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureWhat Did Western Modernity Make Us Forget About God? (Kevin Flatt)
Is modern life quietly replacing God with something else? In Episode 60 of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma welcome back historian…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureIs "Secular" Really Neutral? Secularism and the Christian West (Kevin Flatt)
What if secularization isn't the decline of religion — but the replacement of one social order with another? In this episode, Dr. James Spencer and Dr…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureCan a nation be "Christian" without Christ?
Is "Cultural Christianity" a bridge to the gospel — or a counterfeit that replaces it? In this episode, Dr. James Spencer (PhD, Trinity Evangelical…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureWhat does it actually mean to be human? (Marc Cortez)
What does it mean to be human — really? In an age of AI, transhumanism, and relentless technological "progress," Christians are making confident claims…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureSystems, Virtue & the Body of Christ
What if the church is trapped in the same invisible loop as an addict — and doesn't know it? What does addiction science have to do with the body of…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureFamily Systems and the Church: Is the Problem a Person or a System? (David J. Van Dyke)
Most people think of mental health as an individual problem. Dr. David J. Van Dyke — professor, marriage and family therapist, and co-host of the With…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureChristian Parenting Beyond the Checklist: What Scripture Offers Instead
Is Christian parenting a strict formula to execute, or an art form to practice? In a culture that bombards Christian parents with exhaustive 10-step checklists…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Women in Ministry: History, Stakes, and What Comes Next (Beth Allison Barr)
The Southern Baptist Convention just passed a constitutional amendment restricting women in ministry — and the implications reach far beyond the SBC. In…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Discipleship, Not Dominance: Rethinking Biblical Masculinity (Kutter Callaway)
What does it actually mean to be a male disciple of Jesus? And why does so much of what gets called "biblical masculinity" look more like cultural bravado than…
- Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture
Shadow vs. Substance: How the Book of Hebrews Unlocks Old Testament Law (Rebekah Josberger and Renee Duffy)
What if Old Testament laws aren’t outdated rules to follow, but a deep, tangible story we are invited to practice? In this episode of Thinking Christian…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureIs the Sabbath a Restriction or a Gift? Sabbath as Trust in God's Provision (Rebekah Josberger and Renee Duffy)
Is the Old Testament Law a heavy burden to be avoided, or a guide to the heart of the Lawgiver? In this installment of our crossover series with the Bible…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureMore Than Rules: Deuteronomy and the Heart of God's Provision (Rebekah Josberger and Renee Duffy)
For many Christians, the Book of Deuteronomy feels like a dense wilderness of repetitive laws and ancient regulations that seem disconnected from a vibrant…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureChristian Parenting by Wisdom, Not Checklists
Is there a "secret recipe" for biblical fatherhood, or have we been looking at the wrong map? In this special Father's Day episode of Thinking Christian, Dr…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureRedefining Toughness: How Ancient Philosophy and Scripture Shape the Male Soul
Is our modern definition of "toughness" actually biblical, or is it just a shadow of the ancient world? In this intellectually stimulating episode of Thinking…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureBeyond the Biblical Manhood Checklist: Overseer and Deacon Traits for Every Disciple
Is 1 Timothy 3 a list of "manly" traits, or a calling for the entire Body of Christ? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureFilling the Void: What Comes After "Biblical Manhood"?
If we move past the confusing labels of "biblical manhood," what are we actually left with? In the final visionary installment of this series on Thinking…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CulturePatterns Over Principles: A New Framework for Biblical Manhood
Are we following Jesus, or just a "masculine" version of ourselves? pa In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma dismantle…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureDiscipleship Over Definitions: Why Character Trumps Personality
Does being a "Biblical Man" mean fitting into a specific cultural mold? In this installment of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureBeyond the "Uber-Masculine": Finding Identity in Christ's Authority
If we throw away the old, distorted maps of manhood, what do we use to navigate instead? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureBeyond Stereotypes: Redrawing the Path for Male Discipleship ⚓
What happens when the "old maps" of masculinity fail us? 🗺️📉 In this follow-up episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma move from…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureBeyond Stereotypes: Redrawing the Path for Male Discipleship
Is the current conversation around "Biblical Manhood" giving us a clear path, or just a distorted map? In the season premiere of our new series on Thinking…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureFaith in the Age of Reason: Navigating the Journey of Modern Theology
How did we get here? From the Enlightenment to the rise of Postmodernism, the landscape of what we believe about God has shifted beneath our feet. In this…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureThe Numbing Trap: From Ozempic to "Biohacking" Our Way Out of Reality (Benjamin Matthew)
In a world that demands instant results, we’ve found a thousand new ways to numb the pain of existence. Join Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Benjamin Matthew…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureThe Limits of Therapy: Why a Counselor Can't Replace Your Community (Benjamin Matthew)
Are we asking therapy to do something it was never designed to do? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Benjamin Matthew take a…
Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and CultureThe Loneliness Epidemic: Why Modern Life Isolates Us and How the Church Can Help (Benjamin Matthew)
Loneliness isn't just a "feeling"—it’s a structural crisis. In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Benjamin Matthew take…