In the face of the rising threat of Christian Nationalism to both church and democracy, Beau Underwood joins us to talk about how some of the hidden undercurrents are present not just among evangelical Christians, but in the mainline church, which is the theme of the book he co-wrote with Brian Kaylor, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism.

Beau Underwood is the senior minister at Allisonville Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis, a contributing editor for Word&Way, and is pursuing a doctorate in public affairs. He has graduate degrees from the University of Chicago in both religion and public policy. His writing as appeared in Sojourners, The Christian Century, and Religion and Politics.

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We're starting a Book Club, and you're invited! We talk about why we wanted to do this, how you can be involved, and the first book we'll discuss: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by journalist Tim Alberta.

The Book Club will be a weekly discussion on Fridays at 12pm ET starting August 2, 2024 (recordings available to all members). To participate, get yourself a paid membership to the Gravity Community.

Though evangelicals emphasize fidelity to the gospel above all else, many have fallen in step with "a different gospel" of Christian nationalism. Analyzing Scripture, church history, and current events in the United States and Russia, Joel Looper offers evangelicals a theological rationale for resisting Christian nationalism.

Joel Looper teaches at Baylor University where he serves as coordinator for Shalom Mission Communities, a network of international Christian communities. He's the author of Bonhoeffer's America: A Land Without Reformation and the book we talked about on this episode Another Gospel: Christian Nationalism and the Crisis of Evangelical Identity.

Show notes:

• The article we referenced about the Texas school board member who disavowed the far-right platform she campaigned on: "A GOP Texas school board member campaigned against schools indoctrinating kids. Then she read the curriculum."

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There is no such thing as substitutionary death sacrifice in the Torah, which changes everything we thought we knew about Jesus's death. The consistent message throughout the entire NT is not that Jesus died instead of us, rather, Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed the image of his death. It's not about substitution, it's about participation, and Andrew Rillera helps us see this in his book Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death.

Andrew Rillera is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada.

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What if obedience is not the goal of Christian parenting? What if it's our job as parents to instead help our kids get to know God and discover that God can be trusted? In her book Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn't Have to Heal From, pastor and parent Meredith Miller helps families nurture the kind of faith that can flex and grow, be broken and repaired. The kind of faith that can stand up to the life a child will live, the doubts they will encounter, and the questions that will come up along the way.

Meredith Miller is a pastor and a parent who has spent most of the past twenty years helping families follow Jesus. She has been involved with Fuller Youth Institute since 2007 and from 2014-2019 she was Curriculum Director for the children's ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, Illinois. Meredith holds a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as a B.A. in Religious Studies and Spanish Language & Literature from Westmont College. She is pastor of Pomona Valley Church and calls Southern California home.

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Men today are starved for sexual formation. They've been failed by parents, churches, and culture alike, leading to widespread shame, confusion, and brokenness in the area of sexuality. We talked with therapist Sam Jolman about helping men reconnect their God-given sexuality with innocence, awe, and joy, and shows readers how to celebrate--instead of struggle against--the gift of sexual desire. Sam is the author of The Sex Talk You Never Got: Reclaiming the Heart of Masculine Sexuality.

Sam Jolman is a professional therapist with over 20 years of experience specializing in men’s issues and sexual trauma recovery. He seeks to help men and women heal, know their stories and find greater sexual wholeness and aliveness. He received his master’s in counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and was future trained in Narrative Trauma car through the Allender Center at the Seattle School of Theology and psychology. Sam lives in Colorado with his wife an three sons. Together they enjoy exploring the best camping spots in a pop-up camper. Sam goes to therapy, loves fly fishing and can often be found trying to catch his breath on the floor of his local CrossFit Gym.

You can connect with Sam's work by subscribing to his Substack newsletter, and you can get his free e-book on how to give a sex talk by ordering his book and connecting on his website.

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Lee C. Camp joins us (again!) for a wide-ranging conversation about human flourishing, habits, ethics, politics, philosophy, and faith. This is Lee's second time on the podcast - we talked with him in 2020 about his book Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians.

Lee C. Camp is an award-winning teacher and Professor of Theology & Ethics at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. Lee is also the host of No Small Endeavor - an acclaimed podcast series exploring the habits, practices, and dispositions that facilitate human flourishing, a.k.a. the good life.

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In a world experiencing turbulent change, we need people who are resilient, kind, open, generous, and brave. How do we become those kinds of people? In Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, popular podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield uses the seven deadly sins as a framework to explore this question.

Elizabeth Oldfield hosts The Sacred, a podcast about our deepest values, the stories that shape us, and how we can build empathy and understanding between people who are very different. She has a regular column for UnHerd and has appeared on BBC One, Radio 5Live, Radio 4, and The World Service. Her work has appeared in The Financial Times, Prospect, The Times, CNN, The Guardian, and beyond. Oldfield is also a contributing editor at Comment magazine, a guest lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and former director and now senior fellow at Theos, the UK's leading religion and society think tank. She lives in London, England.

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