Recovering Evangelicals
Religion & Spirituality Podcas
A podcast for people who were once very comfortable in their Christian faith … until the 21st century intruded and made it very hard to keep on believing. And for those who are intrigued by science, philosophy, world history, and even world religions …. and want to rationalize that with their Christian theology. And for those who found that’s just not possible … and yet there’s still a small part of them that … … won’t let it go.
Location:
United States
Description:
A podcast for people who were once very comfortable in their Christian faith … until the 21st century intruded and made it very hard to keep on believing. And for those who are intrigued by science, philosophy, world history, and even world religions …. and want to rationalize that with their Christian theology. And for those who found that’s just not possible … and yet there’s still a small part of them that … … won’t let it go.
Language:
English
Episodes
#153 – A post-Christendom Christianity
5/3/2024
A northern Irish philosopher (who grew up in the 30-year war between “Protestants” and “Catholics”) gives us a whole new perspective on this ancient religion. This week, we’ll hear from a very thought-provoking philosopher — Dr. Peter Rollins — who we guarantee will have you thinking about Christian faith in entirely new ways. Peter grew […]
Duration:01:14:14
#152 – Awe and spiritual experience, pt 2
4/26/2024
An experimental psychologist and a theologian with a PhD in psychology give us their perspectives on the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual/religious experience. Last week, we explained why we decided to look more closely at the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual / religious experience, as well as […]
Duration:00:55:53
#151 – Awe, and the religious/spiritual experience
4/19/2024
After a quick primer on this uniquely human phenomenon, we’ll hear from someone who had a profound, life-changing experience during a solar eclipse, and then relate all of this to religious/spiritual experiences. Humans seem to be unique among all other species on Earth when it comes to the emotion of awe. Whether it’s experienced while […]
Duration:00:57:57
#150 – Human evolution and Christian theology
4/12/2024
Many Christians can fully accept the idea of human evolution, but they use a language which betrays Young Earth Creationism. If we don’t update our language, we may lose a whole generation of Christians. Many Christians are perfectly fine with human evolution: descent over millions of years down a family tree we share in common with […]
Duration:01:11:43
#149 – Creating a new Christian worldview
4/5/2024
A week after Easter 2024, and in response to questions from our listeners, we discuss a whole new perspective on who Jesus was, and what he gave the Jews, and the world, when he died on the cross. Several members of our private Facebook Discussion Group asked us to explain how we’ve been able to […]
Duration:01:05:08
#148 – Brian MacLaren: Life After Doom
3/29/2024
Brian takes an entirely new and unexpected direction in this latest book: it’s not enough to talk about bringing heaven down to earth, we have to stop creating hell on earth. Brian MacLaren is widely recognized in the Evangelical community. In fact, in 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals […]
Duration:00:59:15
#147 – The “personal relationship” with the divine
3/22/2024
A social anthropologist, with decades of scholarship on people striving to connect to another dimension, gives us her perspective on the Evangelical version of this phenomenon. “It’s not a religion … it’s a relationship!” Many Christians claim this is what separates their faith from all others. There was a time when I myself made this […]
Duration:01:07:06
#146 – Hell? or Purgatory?
3/15/2024
We trace the evolution of the human construct “Hell” (Sheol; Hades; Gehenna; Dante’s Inferno), then talk about how hell may not be a place of eternal conscious torture by fire (the modern Evangelical version), but a transitional process intended to purify (Purgatory and Universalism). One of the most disturbing elements of the “Good News” preached […]
Duration:01:08:29
#145 – Grieving the loss of faith
3/8/2024
David Morris, with a PhD in psychology and theology, tells us about the psychology behind forming a spiritual/religious worldview, and then rejecting that worldview, and the mourning process that follows. In this episode, we talk to Dr. David Morris, who holds a PhD in psychology and in theology, worked for one of the largest publishers […]
Duration:01:00:58
#144 – Giving up God – a personal story
3/1/2024
For Sarah Henn Hayward, reading a few too many books, meeting a few too many beautiful non-Christians, and asking a few too many questions, was just too much for her Evangelical faith. For five years, we’ve been building a community of like-minded people wrestling with a spirituality that didn’t work for us …. or even […]
Duration:01:17:52
#143 – Season 5 opener
2/23/2024
Setting the stage for the next season of episodes, and how we want to move beyond merely “dancing in the ruins” of a deconstructed faith We’re back! After a 3-month hiatus to recalibrate and strategise, we’re now embarking on a season in which we’re emphasizing reconstruction of a new Christian worldview that works … for […]
Duration:01:04:15
#142 – Putting together a new Christian worldview (part 6)
11/3/2023
A brief retrospective on Season 4, and a longer one on the journey that the podcast has taken us on through Christian belief. Well, we kept it going for over a year, and added 54 more episodes to our archive. But all good things must come to an end. And so this will be the […]
Duration:00:57:56
#141 – The Teleological Menace: Why Biology (Still) Requires God
10/27/2023
Biology is unique among the sciences in its apparently absolute dependence on language that implies a goal, direction, or intention. Does this mean that biology IS goal-oriented, or directed? If so, that has huge philosophical and theological implications!? Our deep-dive into Intelligent Design got us wondering why so many people embrace that worldview. Not just […]
Duration:01:20:49
#140 – LTEE shows evolution in real-time!
10/20/2023
The details behind the story of how bacteria mutated in order to grow bigger and better by eating oranges, instead of sugar. Last week, we talked to a member of the Long-Term Evolution Experiment, Dr. Zachary Blount. He and his colleagues followed 75,000 generations of bacteria competing for a limited food resource — sugar — […]
Duration:01:22:58
#139 – The Long-Term Evolution Experiment – not “just breaking genes”
10/13/2023
Two very different interpretations of the same set of data: one from Creationists and ID proponents, and the other from the scientists actually doing the work. Here, we talk to one of the latter. A frequent talking point for creationists and Intelligent Design proponents in their anti-evolution rhetoric is a ground-breaking scientific project referred to […]
Duration:01:14:53
#138 – Science denial / Science education
10/6/2023
Dr. Janet Kellogg Ray, a deeply Evangelical believer and state college professor, has long been speaking to and educating Evangelicals about their science denial Unfortunately, science denial and pseudoscience run rampant in Evangelical circles. In our previous episodes, we’ve learned about the exceptionally strong correlations between being Evangelical and: … being against COVID protection measures […]
Duration:01:19:32
#137 – Putting it all together
9/29/2023
After a seven-episode deep-dive into Intelligent Design, we finally arrive at our better informed opinion of our position on this worldview. We started this 7-part mini-series introducing the Intelligent Design proposal that many creationists hold, and also shared our position at the outset on it: at that time, we were not convinced, feeling like we […]
Duration:01:03:44
#136 – a leading ID proponent rebuts our anti-ID challenges
9/22/2023
After last week’s scientific experts cleared up much ID-rhetoric, we ask a rising star in the ID movement — Dr. Jonathan McLatchie — to respond to our reinvigorated questions, concern, and critiques of Intelligent Design After starting this mini-series with an interview with one leading ID proponent, and then hearing from a number of scientific […]
Duration:01:08:46
#135 – The expert’s fascinating version of how the flagellum really came to be
9/15/2023
Three internationally-recognized, world experts on the bacterial flagellum connect the dots regarding the evolutionary origin of the flagellum, and draw some compelling comparisons to the evolutionary emergence of the Bible! Three episodes ago, Dr. Michael Behe used the bacterial flagellum as Exhibit A in his defense of the Intelligent Design proposal. Last week, we heard […]
Duration:01:06:31
#134 – The bacterial flagellum according to an expert
9/8/2023
A scientist who specifically studies the bacterial flagellum using some of the most cutting-edge research tools clears up a few myths and misconceptions. Much of Dr. Michael Behe’s defense of Intelligent Design rests on claims made about the bacterial flagellum. It certainly has become his signature, and one could even say it’s become the symbol […]
Duration:00:47:18