Shows / The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Loft is a progressive Christian community that is unapologetically inclusive. If you're curious about what a socially and politically progressive Christianity looks like, this podcast is for you. This podcast features edited audio from our weekly Sunday gathering of people interested in following Jesus' spiritual path of radical compassion. Regardless of your race, gender, class, sexuality, or where you fall on the spectrum of belief or unbelief, you are welcome at The Loft. Their are four…
Episodes
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Decolonizing Christianity will make you a Super Christian
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter talk about one of the four values that shape the theology of The Loft - Decolonization. We discuss what we…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Loft 101 - A Conversational Community
At The Loft, we have a conversational approach to "doing" church and our hope is that this approach helps build and deepen relationships throughout our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Decolonizing Christianity
At The Loft, there are four fundamental values that we draw from the teachings of Jesus that inform how we practice Christianity: Compassion, Decolonization…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Called Into Belonging
We invite you to join us for our annual Homecoming Gospel Concert at The Loft. Homecoming is an opportunity to celebrate our community, reconnect to our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Abolition & Christianity: We Are All We Need
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter are joined by Rev. Dr. Nikia Smith Robert, assistant professor at the University of Kansas and founder of…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Abolitionist Values and Belonging
As followers of the religion of Jesus, we are called to seek out and create homeplaces, communities to which we can feel safe, be seen, and develop a sense of…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: WWJD About Homelessness?
On today's episode, Julia and Westley are joined by community member Alex Smith, and housing rights attorney and affordable housing activist Ysabel Jurado! We…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Housing Insecurity & Belonging
There are many things that Angelinos love about living in LA, but the cost of living – especially housing – is not one of them. Our sacred text is filled with…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Building Our Barbie Dreamhouse Church
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter discuss healing from the trauma of feeling exiled from the spiritual communities of our upbringing. Our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Creating Homeplace
At The Loft, we strive to be a community of care, a place where all people can feel like they belong. As a community, our belonging finds its center at our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Life Lessons from Moana
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter discuss spiritual formation for young adults. We begin our conversation discussing the difficulty young…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Wayfinding
Whether in school or our professional lives, our journey into young adulthood grants us the freedom to discover who we are outside of the gaze of our immediate…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: A Place Where Kids Know They Belong
Whether our homes are happy or troubled, our families functional or dysfunctional, our homes and our communities are our original schools of love, compassion…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: The Danger of Confusing Belonging with External Validation
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter discuss the challenges churches face when they attempt to be a community where people who are…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Loft Gathering: Spiritual, But Not (Yet?) Religious
Each week I begin our gathering by stating, among other things, that all people should feel welcome at The Loft, regardless of belief or unbelief. However, can…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Disability justice is not a matter of cost; it's a matter of priority
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter are joined by Dr. Katie Schellenberg-Bell, a holistic advocate for students with exceptionalities, and…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Disability & Belonging
The Christian church has not done a good, or perhaps even decent, job of creating spaces where disabled people can feel like they belong. Unfortunately, our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Loving our Neighbors as We Love Ourselves
In this episode, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter continue their conversation about creating communities of belonging. We discuss the challenges of creating…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Belonging to Our Neighbors
"And who is my neighbor?" How we answer this question, which was posed to Jesus by a legal expert in the parable of The Good Samaritan, directly informs our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Human Dominion and our Desire for Control
The structure of our modern world gives us the illusion of control. We can control the temperature of our cars and homes. We can control where we purchase our…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Belonging to the Earth, Belonging to Yourself
If we are not careful living in urban and suburban communities can lead us to believe that human engineering can control nature. However, climate science and…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Longing for Homeplace
When have you experienced genuine belonging? Our answer to this question is a window into our community life. We all have a longing to belong and the church…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Longing to Belong
Given the effort required to develop meaningful relationships, what is the value of finding and creating spaces to which we belong? This question is at the…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Collective Remembrance and Defiant Hope
This week we're joined by Rev. Kimberly Scott, incoming Senior Pastor at Grace UMC in Baldwin Hills, to discuss how resilience is rooted in our ability to…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Love & Liberation as Resistance to Bad Theology
This episode we're joined by Reverend Kevin Kim Wright to have a freewheeling conversation about helping people find liberation as a form of spiritual…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Hope in an Age of Nihilism
Given the realities of suffering we see in our world – poverty, hunger, climate change, violence – there are many who see Christian hope as naive, as a way to…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Being Human
What does it mean to be created in the image of God? The history of Christianity has shown us that Christian communities have historically struggled to view…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Gathering: Collective Spiritual Resilience: Wisdom from Queer Black Clergy Women
We welcome Rev. Kimberly Scott to our center conversation with Pastor Molly, sharing about her theological work on practices of resilience, drawn from the…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Faith Seeking Understanding: The Holy Spirit and Christian Life
This Sunday, Rev. Kevin Kim Wright returns to The Loft for conversation with Pastor Molly, as they explore how the Holy Spirit's calling leads us to live out…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Divine Dance
Despite our lack of engagement with the doctrine of the Trinity, I believe that it has continued to persist because it reveals something about the nature of…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: A Progressive Christian Response to Anti-Trans Politics
Why has there been a sudden increase in anti-trans legislation across the country? In this week's episode of Loft Conversations, Julia, Westley, and Rev. Dr…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Cultivating Faith in the Midst of Struggle
Last week, we discussed how our response to the inevitable suffering of human life can grow our faith. But what about manufactured suffering? What impact might…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: A Lot of Religion & A Little Bit of Theology
What is the difference between belief and faith? One definition that we discussed was that belief requires a lot of "religion," but faith asks us to construct…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Theology Is Faith Seeking Understanding
What Christians are to believe and how those beliefs translate into actions have been the source of personal anxiety at a minimum and social conflict at its…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
God's Name Is...
If we only use the same handful of metaphors to describe God, they hide the full wonder of divine love. So, this Sunday, we will talk about old and new…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Theology Comes to Dinner: Part 2
How might we eat in ways that align with our moral and cultural values? This question will be the starting point for our gathering this Sunday. A few weeks ago…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Thinking Theologically About Food - Part 1
In today's episode of Loft Conversations we discuss the "other work" that Rev. Dr. Carter attends to when he is not doing church work - food justice. We begin…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Earth Day and Easter
Rather than an excuse to set our focus in some heavenly realm, Jesus' resurrection helps us see God's presence here among us, on earth. www.TheLoftLA.org
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Dedrick Bonner and The Queer Power of Gospel Music
In this weeks Loft Conversations episode we speak with Dedrick Bonner. Singer, actor, musician, producer - he has done it all! Dedrick founded a gospel choir…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Theology Comes to Dinner
How might we eat in ways that are in alignment with our moral and cultural values? How might we think theologically about our food choices and agricultural…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Easter Sunday - The Quest for Hope
The question that Jesus poses to Mary at his empty tomb is the central question of Easter: who, or what, are you looking for? What kind of Jesus are you…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Good Friday - Inward Journey: The Quest for God
Jesus quotes the psalmist when he cries out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His final lament gives voice to all those who have been…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Quest for Peace
On Palm Sunday, our lenten journey brings us to the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem; the crowd cried "Hosanna," which means, "Save us." We, too, are…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Why do conservative Christians love guns more than their children?
In this week's Loft Conversations episode, we discuss the tragic mass shooting at Covenant Presbyterian School in Nashville. This was not an easy conversation…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Quest for Healing
When Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man, the disciples immediately ask, "Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" In…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Unnamed, But Not Nobody
What happens when we center the unnamed in scripture or society? In today's Loft Conversations episode, we discuss the story of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
To Struggle is to be Human: The Quest for Fulfillment
Risk is an inevitable part of our quest for fulfillment. However, as Jesus and the Samaritan woman demonstrate, if we are to change our present circumstance we…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: Real vs. Manufactured Suffering & Realistic Eutopia's
In today's Loft Conversations episode, discuss the problem with the idea that life is supposed to be free of all types of suffering. Who thought of this idea…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Quest for a Meaningful Life
After his baptism, Jesus continues his Inward Journey in the wilderness. Wandering alone, he spent time in prayer in fasting as he sought clarity about what…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: If Jesus were middle class how would Christianity be different?
It's the season of Lent, and in today's Loft Conversations episode, we discuss the importance of understanding Jesus the person by exploring the context of his…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Jesus: An Interpretation
This Lenten season at The Loft will be a time of reflection and self-examination to prepare for the ministries that God has gifted and called us to live out…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations - Art, Theology, and Racial Justice
In today's Loft Conversations episode, we discuss Rev. Dr. Carter's Black History and Theology sermon that he gave in The Sanctuary, Between The World & Me. We…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Ash Wednesday Meditation
Today is Ash Wednesday, and it marks the beginning of Lent, a season of forty days, not counting Sundays, which ends on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Black Theology and Black History: Between the World and Me
Given the history of racism and white supremacy within the Christian tradition and the rise of white Christian nationalism in our country, how and why do…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Art As Sacred Text
For thousands of years, oral traditions and sacred texts were viewed as spiritual tools that helped individuals connect with the Divine and transcend…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Find the Sacred in Literature, Film, and TV
In today's Loft Conversations episode, we begin our conversation by discussing why we haven't been able to record for a few weeks - Rev. Dr. Carter has been…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
The Wisdom of Octavia Butler and Howard Thurman
For thousands of years, oral traditions and sacred texts were viewed as spiritual tools that helped individuals connect with the Divine and transcend…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Conservative Evangelicals have hijacked the Bible - how can progressives reclaim it?
In today's Loft Conversations episode, we begin our discussion by reflecting on the tragedy in Memphis and the murder of Tyre Nichols. We discuss the role…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Reading the Bible Again, For the First Time
In our society, sacred texts are seen, at best, as irrelevant and, at worst, as an excuse to incite violence, hatred, and division. It seems that the loudest…
- The Loft LA - Progressive Christianity in Podcast Form
Loft Conversations: What A Muslim Feminist Taught Us About Christianity
In today's episode, we discuss the conversation between Rev. Dr. Carter and Dr. Lailatul Fitriyah, Assistant Professor of Interreligious Education at Claremont…