My Favorite Podcasts of 2023
Hello friends,
In what has become one of two year-end traditions (books here), I’m sharing my favorite podcast episodes from 2023 with you. This year includes 15 conversations that stuck with me.
Before we get to that, a humble request. Running this site isn’t free. I’m not trying to turn a profit from my writings and conversations, but it would be great if fees like website hosting, email service, etc were covered. If one more person signs up, we’ll be covered for 2024!
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Now, on to some podcasts! I’m definitely biased, but my top two episodes are from Extra Words.
What did the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus actually do? I dived down the rabbit hole into the complex, wild world of Christian atonement theory with Dr. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw. She is a respected biblical scholar and ordained pastor.
In her powerful book Scapegoats: The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims, Jennifer shows how many Christians today read the New Testament as victors, not as victims. The teachings and actions of Jesus thus lose much of their subversive significance. The Gospels become one harmonized story about individual salvation rather than distinct representations of Jesus's radical work on behalf of victims. If the world of atonement theory is new to you, this conversation is a great place to start.
Learning from Black voices means listening to more than snippets. It means attending to Black stories. I sat down with Pastor Claude Atcho to discuss his phenomenal book Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just.
Claude shows how reading about Black experience from some of the great African American writers can guide us toward sharper theological thinking and more faithful living. We discuss the true universality of novels like Richard Wright's Native Son and poems like Margaret Walker’s For My People and how they can inform our faith in ways that extend well beyond conversations about race, helping to bring renewal to our faith, churches, and communities.
The Bible is full of words that describe a strange creature: a monster of the deep. But what exactly does this dragon represent? The BibleProject did a wonderful series on monsters and attached themes of chaos in Scripture. The central figure in the series is the “chaos dragon” and there’s a lot of discussions about the human struggle to win power over it.
This episode came near the end of the series. NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson wrote in about her experiences with chaos in the cosmos aboard the International Space Station. The hosts invited her on for a fascinating conversation that explores ancient cosmology and modern scientific explorations of our universe, all within the context of humans trying to control chaos. I love conversations at the intersection of theology and astronomy, so this was an especially fun listen for me.
What does the Bible say about the virgin birth of Jesus? How do scholars wrestle with the topic? This conversation tackles these questions and more through the lens of the cultural, historical, and societal context of the birth of Jesus presented in Scripture.
This far-reaching discussion hits on a lot of experiences people have with the Bible that they aren’t sure what to do with, such as the fact that the virgin birth is neither mentioned in all the Gospels nor in much of the rest of Scripture. Instead of dealing with realities like these, we flatten out the Gospels and cherry pick certain parts of the Bible to assuage anxiety. So, what happens when we decide to engage with intellectual honesty instead? This episode is a great example of how to go about doing that.
I read and listen to most of what Ezra Klein puts out. He’s one of the most thoughtful, politically progressive voices out there and doesn’t shy away from the problems on his side of the aisle. Even when I think I disagree with him I find his points are often very relevant.
In this conversation, Ezra talks about life transitions and how the architecture of American life doesn’t seem to work for families, something I wholeheartedly agree with. My generation has always lived in the aftermath of disastrous, trickle down Republican economic policy and governments, churches, schools, and other institutions slowly reducing social support for young families. Ezra shares some of his personal experiences with all of this in a way that really resonated with me.
Many evangelicals are taught to share the gospel according to “The Romans Road,” which charts a path through the book to explain the path to salvation. But English theologian and prolific author N.T. Wright says that while anything that highlights how God’s love reaches out to humanity is good news, the book of Romans itself paints a far more beautiful picture of salvation than The Romans Road can encapsulate.
Wright and Moore discuss the storyline of Scripture, what it means that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” and what keeps people from realizing that God is love. They talk about atonement theories, fear of judgment, and embracing the fact that Christians do not need to fear, for God is with them. They consider the meaning of covenant faithfulness and justice, the ecological impact of eschatology, prayer, women in ministry, and how Wright knows for sure that Christianity is true. This is a big conversation worth your time.
This was one of the best episodes from the BibleProject series that I mentioned above. In the story of the Bible, the dragon is a recurring symbol of chaos, death, and destruction. The good news presented in Scripture is that Yahweh is the dragon slayer and gives humans power over the dragon, too.
But in the Bible and our own lives, we can encounter stories and moments like Job’s. The scroll of Job explores what happens when a righteous person, someone who should be experiencing God's Eden blessing, gets their life co-opted by the dragon instead. This is a rich conversation that covers a ton of cultural and theological ground, and feels as relevant today as it probably did millennia ago.
Irish theologian and poet Pádraig Ó Tuama explores how we can appreciate and understand the Bible through the lens of poetry and examines how poetry can offer alternative perspectives on theological questions.
Poetry in general —and even recognizing poetry exists in Scripture— was not part of my faith background until a few years ago, so this is still a new world for me. I don’t think I’m naturally inclined to poetry either, which is why I found this conversation so helpful and encouraging.
Apparently Tom Hanks is as kind and thoughtful as everyone says he is. In playing roles like Chesley Sullenberger, Mister Rogers and World War II heroes, Hanks reflects back to audiences what we could be at our very best. He’s an uncannily wise interpreter of America: what our country has been, and what it could be if we activated our potential to be kind, compassionate, and heroic toward one another.
Hanks shares how working on typewriters fuels his creativity, why there’s such a huge global appetite for superhero stories, why America has become so cynical, and how he endeavors to defy that cynicism. He also speaks to his complicated family upbringing and how it influences how he approaches his film roles, what America learned about itself — and didn’t — through Vietnam, Watergate, and other historical events, how he understands the complexity of heroic figures he’s played, and why he views kindness as an active practice and more. It’s a delightful conversation.
For most of my Christian life I’ve heard very little about the ancient creeds, or much of anything else concerning historic Christianity. White southern American church culture was presented as all Christianity was and could ever be. The last five or six years especially I’ve jumped out of that sinking ship and, along the way, become more rooted in the vibrancy and depth of historic Christianity.
This conversation is a great introduction to some of this. It offers an abridged history of the Christian creeds and provides a great overview of some of the basics about them. But it’s the discussion around the purpose the creeds have served in the story of the Christian faith that I found especially interesting and helpful. If you like structured and honest conversations this is a good one you won’t want to miss.
Most people think anarchists want to live in a lawless society devoid of any structure or order. That most people includes me; but, apparently anarchism is a serious political philosophy that’s more focused on egalitarianism than chaos. Who knew?
Philosopher Sophie Scott-Brown is an anarchist in this tradition. She makes a case for why anarchism is the only political philosophy poised to deal with the uncertainty of the modern world. There’s certainly something for everyone to disagree with in this discussion, but her underlying points and different framing of our challenges today is fascinating. I’m still no anarchist, but this conversation really challenged me in ways I did not expect.
When we read the word “myth,” often what comes to mind is a fictional story. However, a myth is a way of exploring universal concerns of human existence, using symbols for things we may or may not have words to describe. The dragon is one such myth—a symbol humans have used for millennia to talk about chaos and death.
This episode examines ancient Near Eastern literature about dragons. It’s an intriguing, broader contextual look at the ancient times Scripture was written in. They also ask hard questions about how to approach mythology and symbolism in Scripture in relationship to truth and Christian belief, something a lot of Christians in my neck of the woods seem to struggle with.
American youth who grew up in Christian families are leaving the church at a massive scale, and fast. Those of us who walked out of a local church before they started their own exodus know why.
Kara Powell, executive director of The Fuller Youth Institute, shares about the complex reasons for this accelerating trend and discusses why older people need to meet young folks where they are. Host Curtis Chang and Powell also talk about why any understanding of the causes must include parents and churches doing the hard work of self-examination and self-transformation.
If you’re may age or younger you’ll probably nod along for a lot of this. Older folks should really take to heart everything said here. This is just the tip of the iceberg in a lot of ways, but it’s a great place to start.
I’ve pulled back from listening to most of the host-to-host conversations on the Holy Post as they’re pretty redundant, but a lot of the guest interviews are still fantastic. Theologian and writer Esau McCaulley joins to talk about his memoir “How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South.”
This is a sharp and relevant discussion. McCaulley says there is grace in learning to tell the complicated facets of his family’s story, rather than reducing it to a single narrative about race, poverty, or trauma. He believes that’s a lesson we need to apply to America’s story as well.
Jerusalem is the Bible’s image of what a city of God should be. But from the earliest moments of its founding, it's clear that even this city has problems. What will it take for a city to truly become like the garden of Eden?
This episode examines the founding of Jerusalem and what Scripture says it will take for God and humans to dwell together again. It’s a fascinating look at themes of exile, human attempts to take matters into our hands, and how everything seems to stretch back to our trying to get back to Eden.
Finally, thank you!
I’ve heard from so many of you who found the writings and conversations I’ve posted this year helpful. Reading and hearing how they intersect in your own stories is truly encouraging. Thank you for taking the time to read, listen, and share about yourselves. Is there a podcast episode you listened to this year that really resonated with you? Drop it in the comments!
