Rector’s Cupboard Podcast

"J.E.S.U.S.A." The Movie with Kevin Miller

The Cupboard welcomes Kevin Miller. Kevin is an author and documentary filmmaker.  He recently directed “J.E.S.U.S.A.”  
View the trailer here 
Kevin says that he writes books that make kids laugh and films that make adults angry. We speak with him about his recent film which delves into the conflation of some Christian groups in the United States with a form of militarism and nationalism. The documentary is not polemic, but rather offers a thoughtful look at biblical interpretation and misinterpretation. While the challenges are real in terms of distortion of Christian faith, there are many reasons to hope for better, more loving expression. 
We highly recommend that you purchase or rent the documentary. The first 8 to 10 minutes are pretty tough to take, but stay with it, better expressions of faith are to follow. 
Episode Terminology:
 
Epistemology: The theory of knowledge. Has to do with how we know what we know.
 
Nationalism: Generally the concept of one particular nation (usually one’s own) as being better than other nations. Nationalism breeds protectionism in terms of immigration, etc.
 
Religious Nationalism: The conflation, the coming together of nationalism with a particular religious perspective. Christian nationalism in the United States implies that the nation would be better off if conservative evangelical Christians were in power.
 
Polemic: oppositional, an attack on something.
 
Books, articles, and websites discussed in this episode:
J.E.S.U.S.A. film
Kevin Miller
Article on the mimetic theory and René Girard, CBC, 2016 
Paul Vasquez video, 2010 
 
This episode we enjoyed two ciders, Hail Mary Rosé Cider and Jackpot Dry Craft Cider, from local cider makers, Windfall Cider. 

Will Willimon

"Discovering God in the Rearview Mirror. Knowing the Hopeful Future in Christ.”
We speak with Rev. Dr. Will Willimon from Duke Divinity School in North Carolina. Will speaks with us about the surprising character of God, the concept of vocation and the hopeful reminder that Christian faith is about the future.
Will has written far too many books to list. He has preached at the National Cathedral in Washington DC and he once sued former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We feel a kindred spirit with Will because he upsets people on both the political right and the political left.
Even better than that, he demonstrates a deep love for humanity with a willingness to admit the reality of our foibles and ridiculousness.
“I feared boredom more than heresy. They said nasty things about Jesus. Nobody ever said he was dull.”
 
For more information about Will and his work, visit www.willwillimon.com.
Books referenced on this podcast: 
Stories
Accidental Preacher
 
 

A More Christ-like Way with Brad Jersak

On March 16 of 2020, just before the orders were issued to stay home, The Rector's Cupboard gathered as small group at Township 7 Winery in Langley, BC.  
Sitting in view of a vineyard on a beautiful day in the shadow of a pandemic, we spoke with author and speaker Brad Jersak about a better way of faith.Brad has written a number of books (see some links below) and has become a help to many “exvangelicals”. In a recent book he pointed out that perhaps the “crisis of faith” that many are so quick to mention in religious circles is not on the part of younger people who are walking away, but rather on the part of those who have handed down a faith that can so often be divisive, misogynistic, fearful and anti-gay. 
We speak with Brad about the differences between deconstructing faith and bulldozing faith and about more helpful metaphors such as renovation of faith and belief.
 
More information about our guest, Brad Jersak, his books and his blog can be found at his website https://bradjersak.com
We're grateful to our host, Jason Ocenas and Township 7 Vineyard and Tasting Room.  Township 7 can be found here: https://township7.com

Growing Up Evangelical: Moms and Daughters

The Cupboard gathers this episode with Allison and her mom, Esther; Catherine and her mom, Carol.
This episode is a bit of a different format as we bring together two moms and their daughters to talk about life, faith, and growing up in what would be considered conservative Christian homes. What was positive about it? What wasn’t helpful? There is much to be said about what it was like raising children within that framework and what it felt like growing up in it. We would suggest grabbing a cocktail, or a cup of tea, and probably some tissues as you listen.
This episode was recorded at Deep Cove Brewery back in February 2020, a very different time, and you can certainly hear it in our voices. Although a different time there is much discussed that transcends our current circumstances and can speak into how we relate to each other in our families and faith communities.
Deep Cove Brewery – www.deepcovecraft.com

"These Spoons are Brutal!"...and “The Entire Year Got Sucked Up and Disappeared”

Mid-April is a good time to release this episode of the Cupboard that was recorded on January 22nd, 2020. A hosts only episode in which we talk about helpful truths, terrible sorrow and some of the best most ridiculous things ever.
You can hear in our voices the “time before” the 2020 pandemic. How different do things sound already? You can hear pointed out the emptiness of the “prosperity gospel” that continues to be a blight upon the theological landscape in our time of pandemic and is beginning to directly cost lives.
Perhaps best of all, you can hear life and hope, even as we talk about Paris Hilton cooking lasagna. You might do well to enjoy the video yourself right now, it’s in the notes below.
Hosts; Todd Wiebe, Ken Best, Allison Williams, Ken Bell and Producer Rick
Enjoy the episode.
Recorded at Woods Spirit Co. in North Vancouver
https://www.thewoodsspiritco.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayImIgdgLEI

Sanctification Without Fear with Dr. Jeff and Susan McSwain

This episode, Rector's Cupboard speaks with Jeff and Susan McSwain about sanctification and spiritual growth.  
In evangelical circles, sanctification has often been more about self than it has been about God. As a theologian, Jeff outlines a healthier view of sanctification from the theology of Karl Barth (and from Christian Scripture). The concept is that as we are justified in Christ, so we are sanctified in Christ, not of our doing. This means that we are not better than anyone, not divided from anyone by our faith.
We talk about this idea in general and in the context of the work and vocation of Jeff and Susan at Reality Ministries and North Street Neighbourhood.
This episode opens with a host conversation recorded at about week 3 of the COVID lockdown. If you want to skip to the McSwain interview, it starts at 35:23
But hey, you’ve maybe got some time these days to listen to the whole episode. The host conversation is not sombre or depressing. We speak realistically, but hopefully about what we are facing right now.
Jeff and Susan are the founders of Reality Ministries, in Durham, NC (founded 2007). Reality Ministries fosters friendships amongst people of all abilities marked by mutuality, authenticity and the reality of Christ’s love for all. 
Susan currently serves as the Executive Director. Jeff is the Theologian in Residence. He has published various articles and two books, Movements of Grace: The Dynamic Christo-Realism of Barth, Bonhoeffer and the Torrances (2010), and most recently ‘Simul’ Sanctification: Barth’s Hidden Vision for Human Transformation (2018).
Keen to stay at the interface between systematic theology and practical ministry, in the last ten years Jeff and Susan have helped plant a new church and launch the North Street Neighborhood, an intentional community (17 houses) near downtown Durham where people of various abilities share life together.
 
Episode Terminology:
 
Systematic Theology: The academic discipline of theology with the perspective that theology can be divided into areas of particular study. The study of the Holy Spirit, the study of salvation, etc.
 
The Patristics: Often called Desert Fathers. Considered to be early influencers in Christian thought and teaching.
 
Sanctification: The area of theology having to do with moving from sinfulness to discipleship/wholeness. Follows from justification, being made right; sanctification implies a being made whole. For Jeff McSwain (among others) sanctification is a divine effort rather than a human effort.
 
Articles, books, and links referenced in this episode:
Jeff’s Website
Reality Ministries Website
ABC news story on North Street Neighbourhood 
Harvard Business Review Grief Article, March 2020
New York Times Article, April 2020 
CNN Video - Churches stay open, April 4, 2020 
The Plague - Albert Camus, 1947
John Swinton book – Becoming Friends of Time: Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship, 2016
The Road to Now Theology podcast episode with Jeff and Susan McSwain

That All Shall Be Saved with David Jennings

This episode of “The Rector’s Cupboard” was recorded in late January 2020.
The Cupboard welcomes guest David Jennings. David is a corporate lawyer in Vancouver and a lay theologian and student. David is a leader within the Presbyterian Church in Canada and Chairs or sits on the Board of many organizations including Image Journal and The Vancouver School of Theology. David is a philanthropist who encourages and facilitates thoughtful theological conversation and supports the arts and the artistic expression of Christian faith.
In this episode we talk with David about the concept of Christian Universalism.We do this by speaking about a recent book by David Bentley Hart. The book is entitled, “That All Shall Be Saved” and it makes the argument from Christian Scripture and history that the proper Christian eschatological (how things end) understanding is that in the end, no one is condemned to eternal punishment or torment.
If you like your hell, that is, if you are convinced it is entirely un-Christian to believe in anything other than eternal damnation (Hart calls you an “infernalist”) then listen to this episode only if you are okay in engaging with thought and interpretation that is different than yours. Then again, you want people who don't agree with you to listen to you sometimes.
If you have struggled with trying to reconcile a God of love, as shown in Jesus Christ, with the idea of eternal damnation for anyone at all, then listen expectantly.
We hope that you know by now, Rector’s Cupboard seeks to have conversations of hopeful faith and theology. You may never have even known that there have been Christians, since the dawn of Christian history who have held to a view different than the infernalist view.
David Jennings is clearly one of those in our time. You don’t have to agree with all that is said. We don’t have to agree with all that is said. We are convinced about the hopeful conversation and no longer impressed with the fearful calls of “Danger! Danger!”
Enjoy!
 
Episode Terminology:
 
Orthodox Spectrum: The range of ideas and interpretations considered valid.
 
3 Transcendentals: 3 things that are often thought to communicate the divine, the higher than – goodness, beauty and truth.
 
Limited atonement: The interpretation that the sacrifice of Jesus has led to the salvation of some people (those who have chosen to believe it).
 
Universalism: Wide variance of aspects to universalism, basically that in the end; all things will be redeemed, made new.
 
Materials referenced in this podcast:
Aaron Rodgers clip
That All Shall Be Saved, David Bentley Hart
Image Journal
 
This episode we enjoyed a flight of beer from House of Funk Brewing in North Vancouver. 

Entering a COVID Spring

As we traveled to record an episode of the Cupboard, we listened to our Prime Minister advise that "If you can stay home, stay home". So maybe we won't be gathering for some time. At least not in person.
 
We are in the midst of, at the beginning of, the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic.
 
Already we are used to the terms, "social distancing", "self-isolating", "flatten the curve".
 
On March 16, 2020 we talk about how we are feeling, how so many are feeling.  If hope is real, we will long to know hope even in uncertain times. We will know hope, even in uncertain times.
 
Best to you and to those you love as you live through this crisis. It's a time like we've never lived before. And as so many are saying, "we're all in this together".
 
National Geographic article discussed in the episode;
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/reference/european-history/plague-doctors-beaked-masks/

Tragic Optimism, Moving from Fear to Hope with Dr. Lynn DuMerton

The Cupboard is joined this week by guest Dr. Lynn DuMerton.  
 
We speak with Dr. DuMerton about her work helping moms who struggle with addiction and judgment and fear, to bond with their young children.
 
Lynn helps run the Sanctuary programme at Union Gospel Mission. The programme works with moms and their children aged 0-6.
 
Through a consideration of this programme and a consideration of Lynn's previous work on "tragic optimism" we look at how fear can come to motivate so much of our thought and action. Tragic optimism (having a sense of hope even in circumstances of suffering) is marked by a number of factors including acceptance that we will face difficulty, and that such sorrow or suffering is not fairly manifest. We consider self-transcendence, the concept that we often find hope in the process of helping others, in the perspective of seeing their pain.  Lynn mentions, that in her work helping moms bond with their children, it is important to help remove fear as a motivator. She points out that healthy bonds cannot be established if the child is scared of the parent.
 
Have we grasped this yet as a theological concept? Why do we often think that being scared of God is a good thing? How can we work out better theological concepts and healthier bonds in our spiritual lives?
 
We begin the episode with a consideration of Covid 19 fear around the world.  The article we discuss can be found at:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/coronavirus-canada-stockpiling
 
We speak with Lynn about a hockey programme in a First Nations community in Manitoba. For information about this programme follow the link below: https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/hockey-survived-peguis-first-nation-home-team-heroes/
 
This episode of the Rector's Cupboard was recorded at North Point Brewing in North Vancouver.
https://www.northpointbrewing.com

Sexuality and Hope with Dr. Hillary McBride

The Cupboard welcomes guest Dr. Hillary McBride.
 
Dr. McBride is a Psychotherapist, and host of the CBC Podcast "Other People's Problems" and the Liturgists Podcast.
 
We speak with Hillary about purity culture, scrupulosity, mental health and body image, changing views from one generation to the next. 
 
How is it that when religious culture becomes fearful or controlling or strict, so often the first location of control is over women's bodies? Purity culture has hurt men as well as women, often preventing people from taking steps of maturity and life. The cycle of ignorance, fear, and shame has done terrible damage to so many women and men. Dr. Hillary McBride in her work and in her podcasts and books, offers a better way of understanding, a better way of speaking and even more promisingly, a way of hope. 
 
Episode Terminology:
 
Gnosticism: A philosphical/religious way of seeing the world. For our purposes in this episode the basic consideration is that gnosticism presents a spiritual/earthly (or physical) division. Much of the New Testament is written in contrast and opposition to gnostic thinking which said that Jesus could not have been divine because he had a physical body. The inferior way of seeing the physical also led to some extreme actions as seeing the body as degraded led some to think that any form of expression, including sexually was fine as the body was degraded anyway.
 
Purity Culture: The emphasis/idolatry of sexuality (particularly female sexuality) in some religious circles that led to expressions such as “chastity vows”, etc. This was the conflation of morality and even spirituality to focus upon sexual behaviour (particularly female sexual behaviour).
 
Platonic Thought: From the philosopher Plato, related to gnosticism, Plato presented a spiritual/physical distinction that elevated the spiritual and denigrated the physical. Much of what is considered “christian” is actually platonic as this way of thought pervaded Biblical interpretation and teaching.
 
Jung – (Carl Jung): A branch of psychology, therapy coming to emphasize talk therapy, often a consideration of the conscious and the subconscious together.
 
Original Blessing: Corollary to “original sin”. Some Christian teachers and writers are emphasizing not that we are bad, but that we are blessed. In most cases this is not to deny that we do wrong or that we sin, but that the emphasis is on blessing instead of badness.
 
Divine Immanence: God’s presence is often considered to be expressed in transcendent ways, ways that are above human, spiritual, other than human. The other reality of the presence of God is expressed in immanence, in the here and now, in the physical. Transcendent can mean “far away”, Immanent can mean “close to us”.
 
Many thanks to our recording host House of Funk Brewing, located in North Vancouver, BC.  
 
Rector's Cupboard episode hosts: Todd Wiebe, Allison Williams, Brett Ziegler. 
 
Books and articles discussed in this episode:
 
Hillary McBride's website
Harvey Weinstein Article - NYT, January 2020
Pastor Eaten by Crocodile (not an alligator as Todd said) - Snopes, 2017
9th Grader Expelled - NBC News, January 2020
Ben Greenfield Article – Times of London, January 2020
Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are - Hillary McBride, 2017
Embodiment and Eating Disorder - Hillary McBride, 2018
Shameless – Nadia Bolz-Weber, 2019
Beyond Shame – Mattias Roberts
You are Your Own – Jamie Lee Finch
Come as You Are – Emily Nagoski
The Purity Myth – Jessica Valenti