Mere Fidelity: The Spirituality of Time

Mere FidelityThis week Alastair, Matt, and I get into the issue of time and how it affects our spiritual life. I’m not gonna lie, this one was pretty fun. We jump into everything from Augustine, to the musical nature of keeping time, the various spiritual dimensions to our awareness of time and eternity, and we manage to avoid speaking about A-Theory and B-Theory, which I’m sure everyone will thank us for.

I hope you enjoy this one. And if you do, feel free to share it.

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Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: Out of the House of Bread w/ Preston Yancey

Mere FidelityOn this episode of Mere Fidelity, Matt, Alastair, and I are joined by our friend Preston Yancey. He’s just written a new book entitled Out of the House of Bread on the nature of the spiritual life and the spiritual disciplines. Also, it’s about baking bread. Aren’t you now quite curious how these go together? Possibly hungry for bread too? Well, listen to this episode as you drive to the market to buy bread and find out!

You can also follow the podcast on iTunes, or using this RSS feed. Listen to past episodes on Soundcloud.

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Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: The Last Supper and the Last Week of Jesus

Mere FidelityThis week on Mere Fidelity, Alastair, Matt, and I tackle the subject of the Lord’s Supper. We try to set it in the context of the last week of Jesus, while moving around to the various Gospels and the canon of Scripture as a whole. This one–I think–had some particularly appropriate insights as we enter Holy Week heading towards Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We hope you are as edified as we were.

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Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: Have Evangelicals Become Too Obsessed With Politics?

Mere FidelityIt’s election season again, which means that politics is on our mind more than it usually is. But is it too much? This episode of Mere Fidelty, Matt, Alastair, and I discuss the problem of political engagement and obsession in the church. We take up issues like the disconnect between different political and theological classes, the work of James Davison Hunter & the culture war syndrome, the problem of loudest voice in the room, instrumentalizing the faith, and so forth. And we even give Alastair a fantastic new nickname. You won’t want to miss this one.

Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: Christmas v. Advent?

Mere FidelityMerry Christmas! Well, presuming that you haven’t had N.T. Wright steal away your Christmas fun. The usual crew shows up this week to discuss this article by Peter Leithart (a self-proclaimed Grinch of sorts). In a sense, what do we gain and what do we lose when we start to pit the Christmas of Faith against the Nativity of History? Is it Christmas v. Advent? Do our cultural expansions of the Christmas stories add or detract from our understanding of what happened all those years ago?

We hope this conversation deepens your Christmas reflections as it has ours.

Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: John Barclay’s Paul and the Gift

TMere Fidelityhis last week, Alastair, Andrew, Matt, and I took up a discussion through John Barclay’s new book, Paul and the Gift. Three of us (Alastair, Andrew, and I) have already read and reviewed the book, but we wanted to delve deeper into what we found though-provoking, ground-breaking, unhelpful, and so forth. We touch on issues of Pauline theology, grace, Barclay’s thesis in particular, and theological method with a few sparks flying in the midst of it all. A very lively conversation, if I do say so myself. We hope you enjoy.

If you do, feel free to share:

Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: What is Christ-Centered Hermeneutics?

Mere FidelitySo, we’ve all see that phrase “Christ-centered” pop up on the blogosphere before. “Christ-centered preaching”, “Christ-centered theology”, “Christ-centered dog washing”–but what does that even mean? Especially when it comes to interpretation, what does it mean to have a truly Christ-centered hermeneutics? Does that just mean doing typology all day long? And is there a right way or a wrong way to do typology? Do we stick to only the types authorized explicitly by the apostles, or can we expand? And if we expand, how do we stop before we fall into typological excess? And what about Tim Keller?

Alastair, Andrew, and I go into all this in this week’s episode of Mere Fidelity. It was a fun one. I hope you enjoy and pass it along.

By the way, if you’d like to review and rate us over at iTunes (if and only if you like us), please feel free to do that here.

Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: Curiosity

Mere FidelityLast week I wrote a piece exploring and summarizing John Webster’s little essay, “Curiosity.”  Then we decided on Mere Fidelity to have a chat about what curiosity is and isn’t and how it plays into our lives as disciples, pastors, and students. Also, Matt, Alastair, and I get into a heated argument about the role and place of cat videos in the economy of God’s dealings with his created, redeemed, and fallen creatures. So, you definitely want to listen in for that.

Soli Deo Gloria

Mere Fidelity: Intersex and Sexual Difference w/ Megan DeFranza

Mere FidelityThis week usual crew is joined by Megan K. DeFranza, author of Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God. Matthew Lee Anderson reviewed the book recently for Christianity Today, which you can read here. Also, after you listen to the show (or whenever, really), Alastair has already posted some follow-up thoughts on the conversation that I think are well worth considering. It was a good episode, but we barely scratched the surface on so many important issues. Alastair gets after them.

Soli Deo Gloria