Being Human

The Bible is a fuller and richer story than we might tend to think. Within it, all other stories find their place. But is it possible to truly make sense of the world with a biblical perspective? Introducing professor and author of Biblical Critical Theory, Chris Watkin. As a scholar in the relationship between the Bible and philosophy, his groundbreaking book seeks to place biblical ideas alongside the cultural theories of our day. Chris joined the podcast for a conversation on the power of stories, philosophy and disrupting culture’s disagreements. He chatted with Jo and Peter as they explored some of the ideas of Biblical Critical Theory, a book that the late Tim Keller had “eagerly anticipated for years”. Interested in reading Biblical Critical Theory or more of Chris’ work? Head to thinkingthroughthebible.com Part one (00:00) 02:20 – How do ideas become viable, visible and valuable to us? Introducing critical theory and the way it shapes the stories we tell and our view of the world. 06:23 – Discovering the kinship between Christians and philosophers. Whether we agree or disagree, it's important to make space to ask the big questions of today. 09:23 – The God story isn’t just one story added alongside the many others trying to explain our world. Rather, it is the story within which all other stories exist. 11:08 – How do we make sense of the world with a biblical perspective – do we need a lens or a map? Part two (15:09) 15:55 – How does the Bible disrupt our culture’s comfortable dichotomies? When there is a tendency to pit human dignity against human humility, the Bible balances them in harmony. 21:57 – Is it possible to tell the story of sin in a way that makes sense in cultural conversations? 26:35 – The Christian story ‘out-cynics’ the cynic and ‘out-hopes’ the optimist. Part three (30:54) 31:05 – The implications of new creation and revelation. What are we being redeemed for? 34:01 – Putting this into practice: what difference can biblical critical theory have in our daily lives?

Renowned social commentator Karen Swallow Prior discusses the meaning of 'evangelical' and its controversies in different contexts. They explore the power of metaphor and imagination in understanding spiritual realities and address the importance of addressing injustices faced by women and people in the church and community.

How can we recognise and fall in love with the big, underlying narratives of the God Story? How do we learn to study the Bible on its own terms? Co-founder of the BibleProject pastor, scholar and ‘life-long learner’ - Tim Mackie, is credited as one of the best Bible teachers in North America. As a multiple PhD-holder in theology, Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies, Tim first encountered Jesus in a skatepark in the middle of Portland, Oregon. Now he works with his team at the BibleProject; creating resources to help make the God Story accessible to so many. Join Jo and Peter in our first interview episode of this season. In this fascinating conversation Tim shares how he gave his life to Jesus and how unravelling some of the big picture stories that we see woven throughout scripture can transform our view of who we are and who we have been created to be. You can learn more about Tim Mackie and the BibleProject, including a rich library of videos, podcasts and more by visiting bibleproject.com. 00:00 (Part 1) 01:00 – Discovering a compelling and unavoidable Jesus: Tim’s journey from skateboarder and sceptic to Bible scholar and teacher. 12:14 – How do you take big ideas and boil them down to their essence? Introducing the BibleProject - connecting beautiful, visual explanations with the core ideas of scripture. 15:06 (Part 2) 15:25 - Learning to study the Bible the way it was originally constructed - as a unified story – and how the opening chapters of Genesis are like the opening minute of a symphony (where all the key ideas are introduced in the beginning). 21:38 - Transcendence, goodness, and images - some of the key melodies of the symphony introduced in Genesis 1 and 2. 24:51 - Our identity as image bearers isn’t often explicitly written about in the Bible, and yet is everywhere. Why is that and how – as readers - can we recognise the biblical hints? 27:34 - The Eden story paints Adam and Eve as our representative characters – capable of seeing what is good and helping goodness flourish, but sadly those moments are fleeting and fragile. 30:50 (Part 3)   31:01 – Jesus arrives on the scene as the first real human – a new Adam and Eve. How does the climax of the God Story retell the story of Eden and Israel, and what does this mean for us today? 35:46 – When different Christian traditions vary in theology, how do we reconcile the fact that we might get it wrong? Can we choose pathways of humility and life-long learning to hear scripture on its own terms? 38:56 - The Lord’s Prayer: the invitation to encounter the Imago Dei and Missio Dei as two sides of the same coin.  

We know that the stories we live in can affect us and our world, but how? And how can we see clearly what’s good and what’s not in terms of who we are and how we live? Let us introduce you to the Being Human lens – a new tool to help us recognise the cultural stories of our day and help build confidence in how the God story enables us to live truly fully human lives.  We all have lenses (figuratively speaking!). We all view the world, and one another, through something. The best kind of lenses help us to bring new things into focus and to recognise things previously obscured.  The Being Human lens bring an innovative focus to the stories of who we are and how we live by identifying four core themes that bubble up throughout our cultural conversations. These are: significance, connection, presence and participation. As we dig into these four aspects, we can start to see how the richness of the God story enables us to truly discover what it is to be human and respond to Jesus’ invitation into a new humanity.  Listen along to the conversation today.  Interested in taking the lens further? Jo and Peter’s new book Being Human: A new lens for our cultural conversations, is out 12 October 2023. To find out more and pre-order your copy today, click here.  Part one (00:00)  03:02 – Welcome to the Being Human lens – a new tool to help see how stories affect who we are and how we live in terms of our significance, connection, presence and participation.  07:20 – We look to Jesus as the ultimate, truly fully human being, who invites us to find our humanity in and through Him.  08:50 – Significance – We matter, but who can we trust to tell us that we matter, and why? Do we earn significance, give ourselves significance, or receive it from God?  Part two (12:30)  12:35 – The secular stories of uncertainty, contestability and fragility, in which believers are tempted to doubt and doubters are tempted to believe. Who know us in an age of unknowing?  16:32 – Connection – We matter to each other. How can AI help us consider our connection and relationship towards each other?  How is Jesus both the model and means for transforming relationships?  Part three (20:50)  20:55 Presence – Being here, now, matters. Despite the tendency to deconstruct and doubt, to be human is to be present, in a time, a place and a body.  26:52 Participation – The difference we make matters. Amidst ongoing permacrisis, how can we partner with an active God to bring light to the darkness and order to the chaos?  33:10 The invitation is to take notice of the storylines we are encountering, to recognise how they are shaping our humanity and consider the good, true and beautiful vision of being human found in the God story.

The Being Human podcast is back! Jo Frost and Peter Lynas return with another season full of insights, humour, cultural commentary and biblical truth. Episode one recaps what's been happening since we last sat in front of a microphone... We live in a fast-paced, rapidly changing and increasingly exhausting culture. We are still being bombarded with stories and narratives every day telling us what’s real or fake, what’s gone wrong and who’s calling it out, where there’s injustice and who’s going to fix it. That much hasn’t changed. Nor has the importance of the fundamental yet highly contested question – what does it mean to be human? But plenty is new – so let’s catch up! Part one (00:00) 00:51 What does it mean to be human? Recapping on the question and story that is everywhere. 02:23 The permacrisis melting pot: war and disinformation, political and economic turmoil, AI and the confusion of language. Part two (11:37) 11:42 Why do our cultural stories – both big and small – feel so complex, fragile and fragmented? 12:56 The Jenga tower of secularism, expressive individualism and post-modernism. 20:34 Our cultural stories hold glimmers of goodness, but without a shared foundation, they tell a flawed story of humanity. Part three (22:22) 22:22 How do we begin re-housing some of these stories back into the good, true and beautiful God-story? 26:50 Upcoming podcast guests, the Being Human lens and everything else you can expect from this new season.  

This pandemic has compounded the acceleration of change, disorientation, and in many ways, hopelessness. However, is there something rooted in our history that can give us hope for the possibility of change in the present day? With a diverse and impressive career, historian, Sarah Williams, continues to grapple with the very heart of what it means to be human. As a teacher of the history of Christianity to international postgraduates at Regent College, Sarah’s research interests lie more recently in the relationship between Christianity and perceptions of gender, sexuality and the spirituality of time. In this interview, hear Sarah share powerfully from her own story, as well as drawing on her work that are seeks to empower the church through history, language and prayer, that we may learn to wonderfully articulate the beautiful gospel to a culture that is suspicious of it.

In a time of fragility around us and within us, from the climate to our identity, how can we live a life with Christ that is both holistic and justice-focused? In this episode, Jo and Peter chatted with theologian, former church leader, and director of the One People Commission, Rev Dr Israel Olofinjana. Originally from Nigeria, Rev Israel moved to the UK to pursue a calling to be a reverse missionary and has since become a leading figure in the UK church on unity and ethnic diversity. In this interview, hear him draw powerfully from his own story and journey with cultural identity, as well as his current position on climate justice, mental health and creating intercultural safe spaces to tackle racial injustice. How can we effectively care for each other and our planet as a unified church? Listen to this essential and timely interview today. Want to discover more about Rev Israel, and the work of the Evangelical Alliance’s One People Commission? Visit the website today.

“Apologetics today is more about explaining to the church what is going on in the world than explaining to the world what the church teaches.” This is a view held by author, theologian and ecclesiastical historian Carl Trueman. In his latest book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (2020), he investigates the foundations and developments of the current secular age and sexual revolution as symptoms, rather than the causes, of the human search for identity. In this latest interview, Peter and Jo peel back some of the underlying ideologies of the day, and ask Carl how the church can navigate the opportunities and challenges of this ‘cultural climate change’ in which we are immersed. Interested in reading The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self? Purchase it from SPCK here.   

Do we fully appreciate the power of art and creativity in reconciliation processes? When considering conflict, both global and local, how can understanding the imago dei (image of God) influence advocacy? Peter and Jo chatted with artist and activist Hannah Thomas. Hannah was selected for Forbes 30 under 30 in 2019, and nominated for a UN Women UK Award in 2020, and her art projects have been exhibited in Buckingham Palace, the Scottish Parliament and the Saatchi Gallery. Through portrait painting and participant-led workshops, she seeks to bring the stories of those who have faced displacement and conflict-related sexual violence into places of influence in the Global North. Particularly amid an ongoing pandemic, how can we learn from Hannah’s experiences in post-conflict settings and seek to engage in our own communities in need of restoration? Listen along to the conversation today. You can also discover more about Hannah’s work, including examples of her art projects, on her website here.

In a culture that idolises desire, but lacks real intimacy, can we tell a better story? And is this possible when some mainstream theology has perpetuated unhelpful conceptions of desire, and its potential for knowing God?     Originally from Sydney, Australia, David Bennett is an author, communicator, and scholar currently completing a doctorate in theology at Oxford university. His first book, A War of Loves (2018) describes his own story from atheistic gay activism to becoming a follower of Jesus.  David chatted with Peter and Jo about the opportunity for our theology and conversations around faith, sexuality, and desire to be transformed for good. As someone who is passionate about the potential for people to live and flourish through Jesus’ teaching, listen to David uncover his thinking around the most fundamental part of what makes us human.  Want to learn more about David Bennett and his work? Visit his website at https://www.dacbennett.com/