An interlude (sort of) in the middle of our present series. It does not address a historical challenge, but starts from the other end. What can Christians do today in responding to these challenges?

Barney interviews Professor Mark Glanville of Regent College, Vancouver, on his latest book, Improvising Church. We discuss questions like:

• How can the Bible speak meaningfully to new situations Christians face today?
• How can every Christian exercise leadership in his or her church community?
• How can you get people to wake up for a prayer meeting at 5:30am?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for his audio editing!

Everyone has heard of the Spanish Inquisition. But how accurate is the popular understanding of it? What really happened and how does it reflect on Christianity? Is this an episode Christians should repent of? What lessons can we learn for the modern day?

These questions and others are discussed in today’s episode. Austin and Barney are joined by Dr. Dennis Castillo who teaches Church History at St. Mary’s Seminary and University.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Continuing our “Faith and the challenges of history” series, we turn from biblical history to later history. First of all we want to tackle the crusades, one of the most frequently mentioned in debates about the authenticity of Christian claims to bring peace and justice.

We have invited Dr. Mike Horswell to join us in this discussion. He has spent many years studying not only the crusades, but common perceptions of the crusades in the modern era. He is ideally suited to help us unpack: (1) what the crusades actually were? (2) How do people think of the crusades today? (3) How should Christians think of this episode in their history?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

It's a big event: our own podcast co-host's first published book: Austin Stevenson, The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus (T&T Clark: 2024).

The book discusses questions like:

• What is the movement called 'the historical Jesus' and how should Christians think about it?
• How does our own way of doing history depend on our understanding of what it means to be human?
• How can we read the history of Jesus in a way that transforms our understanding of ourselves? Can the 'historical Jesus' do that? If not, what can?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Is our New Testament the same as the original texts written in the first century? How do we know which manuscripts to trust, and who does the work of deciding? What are the implications of the fact that the biblical text itself has a history?

In this episode, we discuss these questions and more with Dr Jesse Grenz, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound editing!

Does the Bible value women? Does it make sense to call God ‘Father’ from a feminist perspective? Why did God create gender difference in the first place?

These questions and many more are tackled by Dr. Amy Peeler, New Testament Professor at Wheaton College. Dr. Peeler has recently published Women and the Gender of God which goes into these issues in more depth.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound editing!

In this episode we talk with Prof Michael J Gorman, New Testament Scholar and author of nearly twenty books including several major works on Paul. In this discussion, Prof Gorman draws a distinction between historical criticism and the historical critical method. He argues that understanding the original context is necessary, but not sufficient when it comes to interpreting the Bible today.

Austin and Barney go back over the last few episodes and share our thoughts. What did we learn? What did we disagree with? How do we compare and contrast the Bible scholars and theologians we've interviewed so far?

What do YOU think though? Email us your thoughts at whatdoyouthink (at) faithatthefrontiers.com and we'll dialogue with you in future episodes!

This is NOT the end of ‘faith and the challenges of history’: it’s just a pause to catch our breath!