Shows / Language of God
Language of God
Sharing stories of people who have found a better way of understanding the harmony between science and Christian faith.
Episodes
- Language of God
219. Cool Creatures | Bats
Bats are among the most feared creatures we rarely stop to know. In this episode, Jim and Colin travel to Bracken Cave in Texas, where millions of bats spiral…
- Language of God
218. AI & Human Flourishing | The Practice
In the final episode of our series, we turn toward theology and practice. Christian thinkers have long argued that human dignity isn’t grounded in…
- Language of God
217. AI & Human Flourishing | The Machine
Artificial intelligence can write poetry, generate images, diagnose patterns in enormous datasets, and carry on a remarkably human-sounding conversation. But…
- Language of God
216. AI & Human Flourishing | The Human
Artificial intelligence can do remarkable things. It can recognize patterns humans miss, accelerate scientific research, and even help restore speech to…
- Language of God
215. Janet Kellogg Ray | Woven and Rooted
Janet Kellogg Ray returns to Language of God to talk with Jim Stump about her new book, Fish with Feet: Human Evolution in the Image of God. For many…
- Language of God
214. Luke Bretherton | Scaling Up Love of Neighbor
In a time marked by rapid technological change, social fragmentation, political polarization, and declining trust in institutions, what does it mean to…
- Language of God
213. A Journey into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
After spending five days camping above the Arctic Circle in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Jim Stump reflects on an experience that reshaped how he…
- Language of God
212. Alister McGrath | C.S. Lewis & Science
C.S. Lewis is remembered by many as a novelist, apologist, and literary scholar, but his reflections on science remain surprisingly relevant. Alister McGrath…
- Language of God
143. The Ocean Declares | Horseshoe Crabs, Hospitality & Creatureliness
When the wind is just right, on a small beach in Titusville, Florida, horseshoe crabs crawl out of the water and onto the beach to lay their eggs. Jim and…
- Language of God
183. Cool Creatures | Giant Pacific Octopus
Octopuses and humans have been evolving separately for more than 500 million years, but still, we have a few things in common. We explore what this means about…
- Language of God
145. Dawn Wright | A Divine Abyss
In the summer of 2022 Dawn Wright became only the 27th person ever, the fifth woman, and the first Black person to descend into the deepest part of the ocean…
- Language of God
211. Cool Creatures | Coral
Coral reefs are easy to mistake for rock or plant life. But corals are animals—colonies of tiny polyps living in partnership with algae, building vast reef…
- Language of God
210. Charles Foster | The Significance of Edges
In this episode of Language of God, Colin Hoogerwerf and Jim Stump sit down in Oxford, England with writer, veterinarian, barrister, and philosopher Charles…
- Language of God
209. Tish Harrison Warren | A Grammar for Weariness
In a world that often feels relentlessly exhausting, weariness can seem like something to fix, escape, or push through. But what if it’s also a place where…
- Language of God
208. NT Wright | New Creation Breaking In
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright sits down with Jim Stump to explore how Christians should think about the past, the future, and the story that holds them…
- Language of God
207. Ayaan Hirsi Ali | The Shape of Belief
What happens when one of the world’s most prominent former atheists becomes a Christian—and claims that faith actually strengthens reason and science? In this…
- Language of God
206. Jessica Malaty Rivera | Making Sense from the Noise
In this episode, infectious disease epidemiologist and science communicator Jessica Malaty Rivera reflects on what it means to help people make sense of…
- Language of God
205. Cool Creatures | Lemurs
What if one of our closest relatives had taken a completely different evolutionary path? In this episode of Language of God, we continue our Cool Creatures…
- Language of God
204. Marilynne Robinson | Something Vast and Inexplicable Happened
Genesis has long been a flashpoint in conversations about science and faith. Is it history? Poetry? Theology? Some combination of all three? For decades…
- Language of God
203. Sabrina Little | Run in Such A Way
Elite ultra-runner Sabrina Little has logged national titles and set the American record for the greatest distance run in 24 hours. But for her, the real…
- Language of God
202. Becoming the Answer | Something is Stirring (Part Two)
The second episode turns toward resilience—without pretending that the climate crisis is solved. At COP30, amid formal speeches and stalled negotiations, the…
- Language of God
201. Becoming the Answer | Why Climate Facts Aren’t Enough (Part One)
The story begins in Brazil at COP30, the United Nations climate summit, where global leaders gather to address climate change. From there, it steps back to ask…
- Language of God
200. Seeking Wholeness in a Fractured World
A season of reflection led us back into years of past conversations, where unexpected threads began to intertwine. In this episode, we bring those threads into…
- Language of God
BONUS | Live from COP30
Jim and Colin report from Belém, Brazil and the halls of COP30.
- Language of God
199. Spiritual Yearning in Science
In a world that has sometimes been called “disenchanted,” we have to ask, does science really strip the world of mystery—or might science actually awaken us to…
- Language of God
198. Cool Creatures | Ferns
You might think of ferns—if you think of them much at all—as the unassuming and understated members of the plant world. What could they teach us about…
- Language of God
197. Rebecca Copeland | Wicked Problems and Unoriginal Sin
Theologian Rebecca Copeland joins Jim Stump to talk about how we think about sin in a world full of wicked problems—complex, interconnected issues like climate…
- Language of God
108. Debra Rienstra | The Discipline of Hope
Our best scientific models make it clear that society needs a big change at a global scale in order to limit irreversible damage—what good can individual…
- Language of God
196. Cool Creatures | Ticks
Ticks are among the most detested creatures in all of nature—but what happens when we look closer? In this Cool Creatures episode, Colin follows Calvin…
- Language of God
195. Rob Dunn & Aminah Bradford | The Spirituality of Paying Attention
What happens when a theologian and an evolutionary biologist walk into a lab together—one asking questions about God through the strange world of microbes, the…
- Language of God
194. Sy Garte | Life’s Deeper Logic
Far from the old picture of life as a mindless, mechanical process, new research is showing that even the simplest organisms—like bacteria—exhibit signs of…
- Language of God
193. Science is Good | Wisdom, Stewardship, & Mercy in Three Stories
Born out of a cultural moment of growing distrust in science, BioLogos’ Science is Good initiative explores how Christians can be a voice for the goodness of…
- Language of God
192. Dorothy Boorse | The Eyes of Flies are like Jewels
Dorothy Boorse describes herself as a child who used to be caught up looking at ants and other small and overlooked things. Later microscopes enhanced the…
- Language of God
191. A Tale of Two Conflicts | Scopes, Teilhard, and 100 Years of Hindsight
In July of 1925, two significant dramas unfolded on different continents—the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Tennessee and the censure of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin…
- Language of God
190. Jay Butler | The Ministry of Public Health
Dr. Jay Butler is an infectious disease physician, epidemiologist, and former Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at the CDC. We had the joy of hosting Dr…
- Language of God
189. Ancient Humans | Becoming Spiritual (Neolithic)
From the earliest bipedal ancestors to the dawn of spiritual awareness, we delve into the archaeological, anthropological, and theological questions…
- Language of God
188. Ancient Humans | Becoming Ourselves (Paleolithic)
From the earliest bipedal ancestors to the dawn of spiritual awareness, we delve into the archaeological, anthropological, and theological questions…
- Language of God
187. Francis Collins & Kristine Torjesen | Science is Good
Francis Collins, founder of BioLogos, and Kristine Torjesen, the new President and CEO, are deeply invested in the power of science to do good in the world…
- Language of God
134. Mónica Guzmán | The Gift of Curiosity
In a world of increasing division, Monica Guzman offers advice for approaching conversation with curiosity. When we attempt to understand those who we disagree…
- Language of God
186. Alan Lightman | Falling into Infinity
Alan Lightman is a theoretical physicist and has always seen the world as a place governed by unbreakable laws. But those laws never did a very good job…
- Language of God
185. Science and the Resurrection Accounts
How do science-minded Christians make sense of the resurrection? This Easter season, Jim Stump tackles that question. After hearing the Gospel accounts read by…
- Language of God
184. Kipuka to Kipuka | Islands of Life, Faith and Restoration
Life has a way of persisting through ecological disturbance in small protected places and then radiating outward. In Hawaii, those places are called “kipukas.”…
- Language of God
183. Cool Creatures | Giant Pacific Octopus
The giant Pacific octopus and humans have been evolving separately for more than 500 million years, but still, we have a few things in common. We explore what…
- Language of God
99. Heino Falcke | The Hidden World Above
From stargazing as a child to helping lead the team which took the first ever image of a black hole, Heino Falcke has only seen his faith and his work as an…
- Language of God
182. Christian Climate Observers | Stories from COP29 & Around the World
In the fall of 2024 198 countries from around the world came together in Azerbaijan, at COP29, to try and find solutions to the climate crisis. While the…
- Language of God
BONUS | So This is Christmas
A reflection on what it means to cultivate joy even if you don't feel very merry. Theme song and credits music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Other music in this…
- Language of God
BONUS | Live from COP29
Jim and Colin report on location from Baku, Azerbaijan where they are attending COP29, the United Nations Climate Change conference. In this bonus episode…
- Language of God
181. Norman Wirzba | Textures of Hope
Hope has sometimes been made out to be something we possess, something we hold like a shield to protect us from pain. But Norman wants to recast hope as…
- Language of God
180. Hans Madueme | A Better Way to Disagree
Hans Madueme is a Young-Earth Creationist. In this conversation, the goal was not to come to an agreement about the age of the earth but instead to understand…
- Language of God
179. Francis Collins | Truth, Science, Faith, Trust
After many years working at the very top levels of science and medicine, pursuing knowledge that would lead to better and healthier lives for so many people…
- Language of God
178. Brian McLaren | Showing Up in the Face of Doom
The title of Brian McLaren’s new book, Life After Doom, might at first be imposing…that word, “doom" looms large, but there is also life. McLaren has been…
- Language of God
177. Extinction | You Can't Love What You Don't Know
It is hard to care for, protect, or even to mourn those we have no relationship with. We try to develop a relationship with a few creatures that are still…
- Language of God
176. Extinction | Will There Be Wild Things Out There?
We look to present times to see how extinctions are actually happening and what we know about them and we explore the work of biological conservation to…
- Language of God
175. Extinction | Creatures Here and Gone
Extinction is a familiar idea for almost everyone, but it wasn’t long ago that no one would have thought a species could go out of existence. We explore this…
- Language of God
174. From Play to Purpose | How Culture and Faith Made and Make Us Human
The story of evolution is often centered around genes and randomness. More and more, scientists are finding that culture is also a driver of evolution. When we…
- Language of God
143. The Ocean Declares | Horseshoe Crabs, Hospitality & Creatureliness
When the wind is just right, on a small beach in Titusville, Florida, horseshoe crabs crawl out of the water and onto the beach to lay their eggs. Jim and…
- Language of God
173. Creation Groans | Living with Grief, Living with Hope
The climate crisis often leads people to feelings of grief, despair, and fear. With the of help faith leaders, climate activists, artists and teachers from…
- Language of God
132. Neuroscience, Mental Health and the Church
The church has had a complicated relationship with mental health. Research shows that 1 in 5 adults experience mental illness in a given year and yet 66% of…
- Language of God
172. Camille Dungy | Dandelions and Bindweed
Camille Dungy is a poet, and it is with a poet’s close attention that she reflects on the interactions between humans and the greater-than-human world. In the…
- Language of God
171. Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire & Francis Collins | Live from Faith and Science 2024
Francis Collins and Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire are both renowned scientists and both of them played special and important roles during the pandemic. In this…