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Prayer doesn’t always happen in a church. Sometimes it happens under streetlights or beside old trees. We open with Randy’s simple practice of late night walks and how nature has slowly become the place where his spirituality feels dynamic again. That shift also brings a collision with old religious instincts: the inner voice that says connection is dangerous, that wonder is “worship,” that the world exists mainly to serve us.

Brian McLaren joins us to widen the frame. We talk about childhood experiences of creation, why Genesis begins with the goodness and value of the world, and how Psalm 19 might be less about “the book of nature” and more about wisdom embedded in reality itself. Kyle presses on the honest question: what makes a mountain feel like God instead of just a mountain? From awe to fear, from humility to love, we explore why these experiences can be spiritually formative.

The conversation then turns outward to ethics and survival. We dig into reciprocity versus domination, how capitalism trains us for transaction without relationship, and how Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is often misunderstood. We also unpack pantheism and panentheism in plain language, wrestle with the moral weight of eating and harm, and return to the biblical tension of “till and keep” as both permission and responsibility. Finally, Brian shares why he wrote his sci fi novel The Last Voyage, how climate overshoot and oligarchy shape the story, and why resignation, whether optimistic or pessimistic, is the enemy of faithful action.

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Bart Ehrman, an atheist New Testament scholar with a penchant for annoying evangelicals, now claims that the teachings of Jesus determined the moral instincts of the West. Bart joins us to talk about his new book Love Thy Stranger and why acts of care for immigrants, refugees, and people outside “our tribe” may be downstream of Jesus, even when the people doing the caring don’t believe in him.

We get into what makes Jesus’ ethics so hard to swallow when you read them straight: giving up status, becoming last, serving the powerless, and treating “the least of these” as the real test of faith. Bart explains why many scholars see Jesus as an apocalypticist, how that urgency sharpens the radical demands, and why modern politics can feel like a relapse into the ancient ideology of dominance. Along the way, we ask what loving enemies actually means in real life, not as a feeling but as a set of actions aimed at the other person’s good.

Then we discuss a theological lightning rod: the relationship between forgiveness and atonement. Bart argues they’re competing concepts and claims Jesus teaches forgiveness while later Christians developed atonement frameworks after the crucifixion. We also explore the historical ripple effects, like the rise of public charity and institutions like hospitals and orphanages, and we look for honest common ground between atheists and Christians around ethics, service, and human dignity.

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AI can now generate essays, photos, songs, and video that look real enough to fool experts. This impacts how and whether humans can trust one another, and it’s already reshaping how we learn, create, and relate to each other.

Kyle sits down with Micah Voraritskul, author of Human Is the New Vinyl: Why Human Creativity Still Wins in the AI Revolution, to unpack why the vinyl comeback is more than nostalgia. Vinyl is inconvenient, physical, and slow, and that’s exactly the point. Micah argues we’re heading toward a similar “analog counterreaction” to generative AI: people will start seeking out work that is transparently human because it carries authorship, risk, and meaning.

We get concrete about how that might work through Verified Human, Micah’s grassroots trust label. We talk about why watermarking and legislation won’t fully solve the “what’s real” problem, why “disposable content” changes the moral stakes, and why education may be the biggest battlefield. If writing is how we assess learning and AI can write for anyone, what does integrity look like in the global classroom? We also explore the philosophical via Nozick’s experience machine and the spiritual through possible applications to language, Babel, logos, and Pentecost.

If you’re overwhelmed by AI slop but still curious about the tool’s benefits, this conversation offers a balanced, human-first framework.

Disclaimer: This episode description was definitely written by AI.

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We recorded this live gathering in Chicago with the Post Evangelical Collective, and it still feels uncomfortably current. Alongside Dr. David Gushee and Keri Ladouceur (director of the PEC), we sit with a question that haunts a lot of post-evangelical and progressive Christian spaces: how do you keep loving the church after trauma, public rejection, and the weaponizing of God-language against vulnerable people?

From there, we shift to the political and spiritual crisis so many families are living inside. We talk about Christian nationalism, authoritarian power, and the painful question of staying in relationship with people who support what you believe is harming democracy and your neighbors. David names the need to defeat destructive movements without surrendering our commitment to co-humanity, while Keri brings the conversation back to embodiment, connection, and the slow work of refusing the strategies that make us into the thing we oppose.

We also dig into misinformation and “epistemic fragmentation,” that dizzying reality where we cannot even agree on what is real. We explore what churches can model instead: information integrity, truthful speech, and practices that rebuild trust. Then we turn to healing Scripture after it has been used as a weapon, learning to read a not-flat Bible with complexity and community. We close with a candid conversation about masculinity, shame, and brave spaces, and a final invitation into embodied resurrection where tending our own wounds becomes part of resisting what is happening around us.

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We're still here! Stay tuned.

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What kind of God is worth trusting when life falls apart? We pull up a chair with Thomas Jay Oord and guest Chris Lilley for a spirited, vulnerable conversation about omnipotence, evil, and why love may be the only measure of divine power that doesn’t betray our moral core. The stakes are high: beliefs about God’s power shape how we face suffering, talk to our kids about hope, and decide whether prayer is protest, surrender, or both. If you haven't heard our first conversation with Tom about God's power, we recommend checking that out first here.

Tom lays out open and relational theism: God moves through time with us, gives and receives, and has a nature of uncontrolling love. From there he challenges three classic readings of omnipotence—doing anything, exerting all power, and unilaterally determining outcomes—arguing they either collapse logically or become morally intolerable in the face of real-world evil. Chris, a former Thomist and Reformed teacher now in the Episcopal ordination process, offers a thoughtful pushback: if omnipotence can be carefully qualified, should we abandon it, or teach it better? His turning point is painfully human: holding his newborn while teaching election and realizing he couldn’t preach a God who ordains every outcome and still call that good.

We wrestle with creation, “almighty” in the liturgy, liberation theology’s demand for a God who not only intends justice but accomplishes it, and a hard question about the afterlife: could you rest eternally with a God who could have stopped your suffering? Tom reframes power as maximal influence—everlasting, universal, persuasive—rather than control. Kyle names the unresolved middle: if God could fix it later, why not now? The conversation doesn’t hand out easy answers; it invites you to weigh goodness against power and decide which vision of God you can actually pray to.

If this episode challenges or helps you, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review so others can find the show.

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Our friend Jeff Cook—writer, podcaster, and Enneagram systems thinker—is back with us to discuss his recent book (volume 1 of a series because of course it is): about the Enneagram. (See our first conversation from S03E26 here.)

Jeff explains how the Enneagram names the “why” beneath our choices, conflicts, faith, and love. Randy shares how the framework has sharpened his self-awareness and softened his edges. And Kyle characteristically pushes back a bit on evidence, parsimony, and the risk of thick theories outrunning data. The result is a lively, generous exploration that treats the Enneagram as a language for motive rather than a box for behavior.

Jeff starts by laying a foundation—head, heart, and body—as an ancient scaffold echoed in philosophy, spirituality, and clinical practice. From there, he maps how core desires show up under stress and security and why the hardest question, “What do you want?”, may be the doorway to identity and change. We pressure-test the model where it matters most: relationships. Randy gets a live read on Eight-with-Six dynamics—strength meeting vigilance, autonomy meeting reassurance—and why "body types" experience control and agency in ways that feel physical, not theoretical. We also tackle the cottage-industry problem, academic standards, and how to treat the Enneagram like a Wittgensteinian ladder: use it when it helps, set it aside when it doesn’t.

If you’ve been burned by rigid labels, you’ll appreciate our insistence on flexibility, nuance, and practical outcomes. If you’re curious about real-life gains, Jeff’s focus on gifts will resonate: name what you uniquely bring—clarity, courage, steadiness, empathy—and aim it outward. Useful, not ultimate. Humble, not hazy.

Enjoy the conversation? Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good debate, and leave a review on Apple or Spotify.

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Is the drive to be better than others making us worse? We talk with theologian Miroslav Volf about his book The Cost of Ambition and explore why comparison-based striving saturates our schools, churches, workplaces, and politics. Volf separates healthy aspiration from superiority-seeking and makes a compelling case for excellence without domination, rooted in agape, i.e., unconditional love that affirms people beyond performance.

We dig into the Christ hymn of Philippians 2 and why self-emptying is not weakness but a different kind of strength. Volf shows how resurrection and ascension empower humility rather than feed triumphalism and why honoring everyone is both a spiritual discipline and a democratic necessity. From the academy’s “one-up” culture to the marketplace’s imitation traps, he argues that obsessing over competitors blinds us to our unique gifts and corrodes joy. Even stalwart capitalists like Warren Buffett warn against competitor-fixation. Volf adds a deeper moral and theological critique as well, drawing on Paul’s piercing question: What do you have that you did not receive?

We also test his claims against Nietzsche’s will to power, happiness research on social comparison, and the rise of Christian nationalism. Is Christ a moral stranger to our priorities? Volf challenges both sides of the aisle to recover mere humanity—Kierkegaard’s vision of belovedness before achievement—and to practice agape toward others and ourselves. The result is a bracing, hopeful vision: strive for truth, craft, and contribution, not for status; pursue excellence as stewardship, not self-exaltation.

If you’re weary of the status treadmill yet still hungry to do meaningful work, this conversation will give you categories, language, and practices to recalibrate your aims. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who needs a healthier way to win. If the episode resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and let us know your thoughts.

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