The Pastor Theologians Podcast

In this episode we are joined by CPT fellow Douglas Sean O'Donnell. Doug serves as senior vice president of Bible editorial at Crossway. In this conversation, he shares the first part of his story of faith, family, and education. Doug grew up Irish Catholic and had multiple dramatic life events that set him on a path towards a dramatic conversion experience as a young person. He describes his first experiences in low-church evangelicalism and how he fell in love with preaching, the Bible, and the life of the mind.

CPT Fellow Dan Brendsel joins the podcast to discuss his story of faith and education. How do the pastors we sit under shape our vision for the life of the mind? How can we stay connected and engaged in the life of the local church while studying theology academically? How does the life of the church shape theological reflection? Dan traces his journey from Minnesota to Moody, to Gordon Conwell, to Wheaton, and back to Minnesota.

CPT Fellow Amy Peeler returns to the podcast to discuss some of her journey of faith and education.  Dr. Peeler recounts her experiences as a spiritually earnest child who involved herself in ministry opportunities from a young age. She goes on to describe her own wrestlings with biblical texts as a college student. Finally, she shares on some of the theological vision for female identity from her new book Women and the Gender of God.

Author and Journalist Bonnie Kristian joins the podcast to talk about her new book, Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (Brazos, 2022). What are the fractures caused in society by our information overload and our consistent use of social media? How has a crisis of authority contributed to these fractures? What is the connection between Libertarian politics and Anabaptist theology? All this and more in this conversation.

Our September episode on books we, the CPT staff, have been reading.Robert H. Bork – The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (1990)Sinclair Lewis – Elmer Gantry (1927)Charles Marsh – Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir (2022)Crawford Gribben – Survival and Resistance in American Evangelicalism: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest (2021)

CPT Fellow Laurie Norris joins the podcast to discuss her story of life, faith, education, and ministry as a Professor at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. What is it like to grow up and commend the gospel in un-churched communities and regions of the country? How do we integrate multiple spheres of learning in our thinking, theology, and preaching? Laurie also shares the vision behind One-Volume Seminary, which she co-edited with colleagues at MBI.

How do we think theologically about the persuasive aspects of Christian mission and evangelism? How can pastors avoid the manipulative tendencies that have characterized some preaching of the gospel? How can we seek excellence in Christian persuasion without buying into cultural values of growth and success? CPT fellow Mike Niebauer joins the podcast to talk about his new book Virtuous Persuasion, published with Lexham press.

What is leisure? What is the proper end of our intellectual pursuits and the life of the mind? What make the life of a scholar unique? How do intellectual pursuits relate to pastoral ministry? All this and more on this episode with CPT fellow Mickey Klink, featuring conversations on books by Zena Hitz and Luke Timothy Johnson.

Daryl Ellis, executive pastor at Church of the Master and a member of the CPT St. Augustine Fellowship, joins the podcast to share his story about faith, his shift away from an Evangelical Free Church background, education, and how theology informs his administrative-oriented role. Along the way he discusses his adoption of an Augustinian and Thomistic approach to theology from a more Barthian understanding. Listen now for a great conversation that addresses natural theology, the retrieval of a Thomistic theology of the body for evangelicalism, the guiding hand of God, and much more.

The Supreme Court of the United States has overturned Roe v. Wade.  What’s next for our nation and our churches? How do pastors approach ongoing differences of opinion on the decision itself and the means by which it came about? How can pastors commend holistic visions of justice and exhort their congregations toward Christian unity in an increasingly fractured society?