Crackers And Grape Juice Podcast

The one, the only David Bentley Hart joins Jason and Dr. Johanna Hartelius to talk about his latest book, Theological Territories: A David Bentley Hart Digest. In particular, we talk about an essay included in the Digest that's timely for our current cultural moment of historical re-examination, "The Story of the Nameless: The Use and Abuse of History for Theology."

"Sing lustily and with good courage." John Wesley wrote those words in the Hymnbook for Methodist in 1761. We at Crackers and Grape Juice take those words seriously! Therefore we decided to bring you some of our current "Quarantunes" - songs that have inspired, enlightened, and even enraged us as of recent. Here's the playlist:1. Thoughts And Prayers - Drive-By Truckers (Jason Micheli)2. Sea of Love - Langhorne Slim & Jill Andrews (Teer Hardy)3. What If I Never Get Over You - Lady A (Johanna Hartelius)4. Cowboy Take Me Away - The Chicks (Tommie Marshell)5. Moon River - Jacob Collier (David King)6. Beautiful Strangers - Kevin Morby (Taylor Mertins)

"The Lost Cause had taught me that faith, particularly faith in Jesus and going to church, was an indispensable part of what it meant to be a good person. But now that very same faith which The Lost Cause had commended was forcing a decision which would impact my past, present, and future. If I kept my faith in The Lost Cause, I would be unable to preach the gospel to the woman sitting next to me. If I wanted to share the gospel with anyone who wasn’t white, I would have to abandon the secular faith of my ancestors. The two were irreconcilable."Rev. Bryan Jarrell joins Jason and Teer to discuss the Lost Cause, statues in Richmond, and the moment his evangelical world was flipped upside down when he met the real-life consequences of the Stars and Bars.https://mbird.com/2020/06/under-robert-e-lees-shadow-growing-up-in-the-lost-cause/Before you listen, do us a solid and help out the podcast.Click over to http://www.crackersandgrapejuice.com. Click on “Support the Show.” Become a patron.For peanuts you can help u

Rev. William H. Lamar IV joins Crackers & Grape Juice to talk about his latest piece featured in Faith & Leadership: 'It's not just the coronavirus -- bad theology is killing us."The Rev. William H. Lamar IV is pastor of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He previously served Turner Memorial AME Church in Maryland and three churches in Florida: Monticello, Orlando and Jacksonville. He is a former managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. Lamar is a graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Duke Divinity School. He is the co-host of "Can These Bones," the Faith & Leadership podcast, and can be reached on Twitter @WilliamHLamarIVhttps://faithandleadership.com/william-h-lamar-iv-its-not-just-coronavirus-bad-theology-killing-us

Jason and Teer are joined by author Tara Isabella Burton to discuss her latest opinion piece in the New York Times and new book, 'Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World.' From the publisher: "In Strange Rites, religious scholar and commentator Tara Isabella Burton visits with the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley; Satanists and polyamorous communities, witches from Bushwick, wellness junkies and social justice activists and devotees of Jordan Peterson, proving Americans are not abandoning religion but remixing it. In search of the deep and the real, they are finding meaning, purpose, ritual, and communities in ever-newer, ever-stranger ways."http://www.taraisabellaburton.com/https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Rites-Religions-Godless-World/dp/1541762533

Drew Hart joins Jason and Teer to discuss his forthcoming book, 'Who Will Be A Witness ' (September 2020), the ghosts of America's racist past, and what the Gospel says to us in a moment of pandemic, protest, and movement. Drew G. I. Hart is a public theologian and professor of theology at Messiah College. He has ten years of pastoral ministry experience and is the recipient of multiple awards for peacemaking. Hart attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Missio Seminary and his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He is a sought-after speaker at conferences, campuses, and churches across the United States and Canada. His first book, Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, utilizes personal and everyday stories, theological ethics, and anti-racism frameworks to transform the church's understanding and witness. https://drewgihart.com/https://twitter.com/DruHartPre-order 'Who Will Be A Witness' - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Will-Be-Witness-

We could all use the comfort of Fred Rogers right about now. Joining this episode of the podcast is author Shea Tuttle, the author of "Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers." Mister Rogers touched the lives of many, and that is an understating of his impact. A Presbyterian minister, Fred Roger ensured that the Grace of God was shared with everyone he met, whether in person or in The Neighborhood. Yet, while extending Grace Mister Rogers also expected us to grow. Growth is what we need now, to grow out of the hate, bigotry, racism, and nationalism that plagues us today. Shea Tuttle is the author of "Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers" and co-editor of "Can I Get a Witness? Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice." Her essays have appeared at Greater Good Magazine, The Toast, The Other Journal, Role Reboot, and Jenny. She holds an M.Div. from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.Shea lives in Virginia with her fami

What does a theologian say to young preachers in the early 1930s, at the dawn of the Third Reich?Karl Barth's lectures on preaching amidst the growing cloud of Nazism in 1932-1933 resulted in the little book, Homiletics. In it, Barth takes his students back to the fundamental questions about what preaching is and what it is for, returning again and again to the affirmation of the Godness of God, the only ground of resistance to ideological captivity.In this latest episode, Jason and Dr. Johanna talk with Bishop Will Willimon, author of Conversations with Barth on Preaching, about Barth's emergency homiletic for pandemic times.

"One major reason Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke is our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.”Our guest this week is Lee Camp, Professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville and host of the popular Tokens Show in Nashville. Check out his website: https://www.leeccamp.comHis latest book is Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians. Fifteen propositions for changing Christianity in AmericaChristian identity is in moral and political crisis. Lee Camp writes “that one major reason Christianity in America has been made into a bad public joke is our failure to rightly understand what Christianity is.” Scandalous Witness provides a way forward. Although refusing to reduce Christianity to any partisan agenda, he reminds us that the gospel is inherently political and that we are called to be political witnesses. Camp’s provocative diagnosis is that “American hope” is a bastardized form of Christian hope. The United States is not the hope of the world nor

Church Historian, Malcom Foley, joins us on the podcast to talk about the murder Ahmad Arbery within the context of the history of lynching in the American Church. Malcolm is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Baylor’s Department of Religion, studying the history of Christianity. His dissertation investigates African-American Christian responses to lynching from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Malcolm earned a BA in religious studies with a second major in finance and a minor in classics from Washington University in St. Louis. He subsequently completed a Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School, focusing on the theology of the early and medieval church. During his time there, he served Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven as a pastoral intern. He is currently the Director of Discipleship at Mosaic Waco in Waco, TX.You can find his article here: https://mereorthodoxy.com/ahmaud-arbery/?fbclid=IwAR14W_k9WUxQQfIS6IwiUJ-3YpO1it_WqGTG7bOPTYYzqlcGwiacQc41wmQ

Our guest this week is Katherine Stewart, a journalist at the New York Times. Katherine's investigative work has focused on the Religious Right and Christian Nationalism. She talks with us about the influence they have had on the Trump White House, their hostility to science, and how it has impacted the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Most recently, she is the author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious NationalismYou can read her article here: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-power-of-christian-nationalists-in-trump’s-america/12194914

For this special episode, we talked with my friends Brian Stolarz and Dewayne Brown about their new documentary film on Netflix, The Innocence Files. The movie tells the story of Dewayne's wrongful conviction for a cop-killing in Houston, his ten plus years on death row, and Brian's legal struggle to free him. I'm fortunate to have these two as friends, and I hope you will check out their film. If you would like to help Dewayne while he awaits compensation from the State of Texas, HERE is the Go Fund Me to do so. 

Our guest this week is Professor Jack Levison, author of numerous books including the recent works The Holy Spirit Before Christianity and Boundless God. Jack was a fun, funny, engaging, and insightful guest-- plus, he did his homework enough to know that our producer, Tommie, isn't a dude.Featured in the Huffington Post and on parade.com, relevant.com, and beliefnet.com, Jack Levison’s writings appeal to a wide popular audience. Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, considers him “the most competent scholar and clearest writer on the Holy Spirit that I have known.” Jack is also an internationally acclaimed scholar. With a BA from Wheaton College, an MA from Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Christ’s College and winner of the Fitzpatrick Prize for Theology, and a PhD from Duke University, Jack now holds the W. J. A. Power Chair of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. The author of more than a dozen books, both popular an

Expertise in the age of COVID-19 has been shaped by any fool's ability to start a blog, podcast, or stand behind a podium. In this episode, Jason and Teer sat down with Mrs. Dr. Johanna Hartelius, host of You're Not Accepted, to discuss the Op-Ed she wrote for the Houston Chronicle. Check out the op-ed here: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Trump-Fauci-tensions-on-coronavirus-show-need-15171822.php"Americans are at a crossroads. With the novel coronavirus prompting a nationwide lockdown and hospitals warning of an impending shortage of life-saving ventilators, we, the public must decide: What type of “expert” are we willing to listen to?"

Now that I have no other office but Zoom, I’m inclined to curse the internet and whatever dolt of a father and whore of a mother that begat him. Except, thanks to the webs, a writer I admired has become a friend I hold dear. Thomas Lynch is back on the podcast to talk to us about his latest collection, The Depositions, and about burying the dead in light of COVID-19. Essayist, poet, and funeral director Thomas Lynch was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1948. His critically acclaimed volumes of poetry include The Sin-Eater: A Breviary (2011), Walking Papers (2010), Still Life in Milford (1998), Grimalkin and Other Poems (1994), and Skating with Heather Grace (1986). Lynch is also the author of essay collections such as The Depositions: New and Selected Essays on Being and Ceasing to Be (2019), The Good Funeral: Death, Grief, and the Community of Care (2013), and The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (1997). He has received numerous awards and grants from the National Book Foundation, the National End

John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic, the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine. His earlier book Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history and in 2005 the New York Public Library named it one of the 50 best books in the preceding 50 years, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. His books have also been embraced by experts in applicable fields: in 2006 he became the only non-scientist ever to give the National Academies Abel Wolman Distinguished Lecture, a lecture which honors contributions to water-related science, and he was the only non-scientist on a federal government Infectious Disease Board of Experts. He has served on num

To help your church plan and prepare for the impact of COVID-19, we talked with Kent Annan of Wheaton College’s Humanitarian Disaster Institute about their new manual, Preparing Your Church for Coronavirus (COVID-19): A Step-by-Step, Research-Informed and Faith-Based Planning Manual. This manual offers faith communities a 6-step guide for preparing, planning, and facing a public health threat like coronavirus.With biblical wisdom, research insights, and quick, actionable steps, this manual equips all traditions and denominations with practical ways to address the coronavirus threats and potential emergency.You can get it here: https://www.wheaton.edu/academics/academic-centers/humanitarian-disaster-institute/covid-19/

“People who know what kind of new world they want to create through revolution are trouble enough; those who only know what they want to destroy are a curse. If you want to save America’s soul, consider becoming a minister. If you want to force people to confess their sins and convert, don a white robe and head to the River Jordan. If you are determined to bring the Last Judgment down on the United States of America, become a god. But if you want to win the country back from the right, and bring about lasting change for the people you care about, it’s time to descend from the pulpit. We’re all Americans and we owe that to each other. That’s what liberalism means. For the first time in living memory, we liberals have no ideological adversary worthy of the name. So it is crucial that we look beyond Trump.”In this episode, taped back in summer of 2018, I talk with Dr. Mark Lilla about his book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics.Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University an

Have you ever struggled with "giving God control, finding God’s will, hearing God speak, or letting God work”? Do those phrases sound familiar and even spiritual, but when you try to apply them, they actually cause more anxiety, not less? Phillip Cary is back on the pod to discuss these sorts of phrases’ and how they are actually based in good intentions, but bad theology. When we understand how the gospel differs from what one author calls “the new evangelical theology”, we come to realize that many techniques we try to apply to our Christian life are often oppressive, unbiblical, and manipulative. Phillip Cary (PhD, Yale University) is scholar-in-residence at the Templeton Honors College and professor of philosophy at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He serves as editor-in-chief of Pro Ecclesia and is the author of Good News for Anxious Christians, Jonah in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series, and three critically acclaimed books on the life and thought of Augustine.

Jason and Dr. Johanna Hartelius, co-host at C&GJ, have recently co-authored a scholarly journal on Karl Barth, Fleming Rutledge, and the rhetoric of apocalyptic preaching.So what better time to revisit an old podcast from the very beginning of Crackers and Grape Juice? Here’s one from the vault with the Episcopal priest and author of Help My Unbelief and the Crucifixion. Fleming talks about the economy of exchange in Christ’s cross, judgment, justice, forgiveness, and the rectifying power of God’s Gospel.