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In this episode of Merging Wisdom, Dan Heroy and Joel Hubbard are joined by Christian author, speaker, and theologian John Crowder. Crowder is known for combining humor, provocative commentary, theology that reaches across denominationalism, and a deep interest in Patristic Christian traditions. They discuss Crowder's new book, The Silence of the Word, and John explains why Christology, contemplation, mystery, and embodied spiritual experience all belong together.
IN THIS EPISODE
• John Crowder’s journey from a strict holiness background toward a more Christlike vision of God
• Humor, self-awareness, ego, and narcissism in Christian ministry
• Why our interpretations of Scripture are influenced by personality, experience, and bias
• Evaluating theology through goodness, truth, beauty, and the revelation of Jesus
• Jesus as God’s self-revelation and the ultimate lens for understanding Scripture
• Christological readings of violent passages in the Old Testament
• How early Christians used allegory without dismissing the authority of Scripture
• The difference between propositional knowledge and participatory knowledge of God
• Why theology, mysticism, intellect, emotion, and embodied experience belong together
• Why mystery does not have to mean uncertainty about the goodness of God
• Crowder’s upcoming book, The Silence of the Word
• Christology, contemplation, incarnation, and humanity’s union with God
• Why evangelical Christianity often resists contemplation and historic Christian mysticism
• Disordered desires and humanity’s underlying search for the good
• The difference between the gospel as a contract and the gospel as covenant, family, healing, and relationship
• How transactional Christianity turns spiritual disciplines into another form of performance
• Crowder’s chapter “Deconstructing into Christ”
• Apophatic theology and the limits of human language about God
• Why deconstruction alone cannot create virtue
• The danger of replacing one distorted image of God with a more fashionable one
• Silence as fullness rather than emptiness or escape
• Contemplation as an experience of grace rather than a method for earning union with God
• Internal Family Systems and the integration of uncomfortable or fragmented parts of ourselves
• What Crowder would say to Christians who are deconstructing but do not want to abandon Jesus
MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION
Church Announcement Secrets Revealed - The Jesus Trip
https://youtu.be/AdcTOaq4O3Q?si=0b6iErhP4F2vP8cX
John Crowder and The New Mystics
https://www.johncrowder.net
The Silence of the Word: Contemplation and the Mystery of Incarnation by John Crowder
https://www.johncrowder.net/products/the-silence-of-the-word
The Church of God Holiness tradition
The Enneagram
Plato’s triad: the good, the true, and the beautiful
George MacDonald on the goodness of God
The Gospel of John
Origen, Marcion, and Christological readings of Scripture
Sola Scriptura and Solus Christus
The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
Penal substitutionary atonement
David Bentley Hart
Maximus the Confessor on human desire and the good
Apophatic theology and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Bernard of Clairvaux’s four stages of love
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson
Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner
https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rise-American-Prophet-ebook/dp/B0F7J6GNJD
ABOUT MERGING WISDOM
Merging Wisdom is a podcast exploring faith, psychology, culture, history, politics, and what it means to live wisely in a complex world.
Where disciplines meet, wisdom emerges.
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Hosted by Joel Hubbard, Dan Heroy, and Sarina Heroy.
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