Episodes

The fear of losing the faith to another culture is producing the very thing it fears. Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma open a series on three forces pressing on the church, beginning with assimilation, and Varma's argument is that syncretism functions mostly as a fear discourse. The word gets aimed outward, at newer expressions of Christian faith in other places, by people whose own expression is so culturally saturated that they have stopped noticing it. He points out that "essence," the ...

The usual complaint about the New Testament's use of the Old is that the apostles play fast and loose. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer thinks the problem runs the other direction. The Old Testament has gone missing from the research, and once you cut it off, ordinary exegetical moves start looking bizarre. Second Temple interpreters and the New Testament authors resemble each other because they were both apprenticed to the same thousand years of Old Testament authors interpreting earlier Old Testamen...

Most readers hear "Old Testament use of the Old Testament" and picture quotations. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer says quotation is the small end of it. An interpretive allusion needs three things: a donor text that gives the language, a receptor text that takes it up, and an identifiable interpretive outcome. That third item is what separates an allusion from an echo, and it is also why later biblical authors so often change the wording. Saying the same thing again was never the point. Moving it fo...

Ezra-Nehemiah opens on a high note. Yahweh keeps the word he spoke through Jeremiah, Cyrus issues the edict, and the exiles go home. By the last chapter, Nehemiah is walking the city alone, pulling out men's hair and cursing them, and the collective repentances that filled the middle of the book have evaporated. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer argues that most of the literature, popular and technical alike, has quietly declined to read that ending as an ending. In this episode, Dr. James Spencer tal...

What does repealing Sunday shopping laws have to do with rising rates of suicide, alcohol deaths, and drug overdoses? More than you might expect. In this episode of Thinking Christian, I sit down with Dr. Tamar Oostrom, health economist at The Ohio State University, to walk through her research on blue laws, religious decline, and what the data reveals about the hidden costs of losing community. The paper's central finding is striking: states that repealed blue laws — the Sunday retail restrict...

Christians have inherited a strange habit of treating the Old Testament as optional. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer argues that Jesus and the apostles would not have understood the question. There was a gospel, a Messiah, and a church before there was a New Testament, and none of it was possible without the Scriptures Israel already had. Even the word "gospel" comes to Mark by way of Isaiah. In this episode, Dr. James Spencer talks with Dr. Schnittjer about his new book, Connected: How Scripture Gu...

Can the church learn to follow the Spirit into places it hasn't been looking? In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Oscar Garcia-Johnson — Professor of Theology and Decolonial Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South — for a conversation that will stretch your theological imagination in the best possible way. Oscar unpacks why the Holy Spirit resi...

Is modern life quietly replacing God with something else? In Episode 60 of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Farma welcome back historian and theologian Dr. Kevin Flatt (Associate Dean of Humanities, Redeemer University) to explore one of the most urgent and underexamined ideas in Christian thought today: Sacred Social Order. Every civilization in human history — from ancient China to Mesoamerican empires to early Christian Europe — understood that human society must align wi...

What if secularization isn't the decline of religion — but the replacement of one social order with another? In this episode, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Kevin Flatt, professor of history at Redeemer University and author of Secularization, Social Order, and World History, to unpack one of the most provocative frameworks in contemporary Christian thinking: Sacred Social Order. Kevin introduces the idea that every human culture — until the modern West — has organized...

Is "Cultural Christianity" a bridge to the gospel — or a counterfeit that replaces it? In this episode, Dr. James Spencer (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) and Dr. Ashish Varma respond to James Wood's widely-discussed First Things article, In Defense of Cultural Christianity. Together they unpack why calling a civilisation "Christian" when Christ is not its governing authority is not just imprecise — it's theologically catastrophic. From the Christendom narrative and American civil rel...

What does it mean to be human — really? In an age of AI, transhumanism, and relentless technological "progress," Christians are making confident claims about humanity without a solid theological foundation underneath them. In this episode, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Marc Cortez, Dean of the Litvin School of Divinity at Wheaton College, to explore one of the most urgent and underdeveloped doctrines in Christian thought: theological anthropology. Dr. Cortez challenge...

What if the church is trapped in the same invisible loop as an addict — and doesn't know it? What does addiction science have to do with the body of Christ? More than you'd think. In this follow-up conversation, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma build on their interview with Dr. David Van Dyke (Wheaton College Marriage & Family Therapy) to explore how systems thinking unlocks a deeper understanding of church health, Christian formation, and why faithful people keep repeating the same destru...

Most people think of mental health as an individual problem. Dr. David J. Van Dyke — professor, marriage and family therapist, and co-host of the With You podcast — thinks that's exactly the wrong frame. In this episode, Dr. Spencer and Ashish sit down with David to unpack how family systems therapy fundamentally reorients the way we see suffering, relationships, and even the gospel itself. From a rebellious teenager who kept losing possessions until there was nothing left to take, to Paul's la...

Is Christian parenting a strict formula to execute, or an art form to practice? In a culture that bombards Christian parents with exhaustive 10-step checklists and uniform blueprints for family life, it is remarkably easy to accidentally provoke or exasperate our children. This week, Dr. James Spencer, PhD and Dr. Ashish Varma return to the podcast to look at fatherhood through the lens of scriptural wisdom rather than cultural anxieties. True biblical wisdom doesn't produce recipe-followers; ...

The Southern Baptist Convention just passed a constitutional amendment restricting women in ministry — and the implications reach far beyond the SBC. In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and co-host Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Beth Allison Barr, historian, Baylor professor, and author of The Making of Biblical Womanhoodand Becoming the Pastor's Wife, to break down what happened, why it matters, and where evangelical Christianity may be heading. Beth traces the amendment's...

What does it actually mean to be a male disciple of Jesus? And why does so much of what gets called "biblical masculinity" look more like cultural bravado than anything Jesus modeled or taught? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Kutter Callaway, associate professor of theology and psychology at Fuller Seminary and author of Theology for Psychology and Counseling, to dig into those questions. We talk through how we got here, because this didn't just appear out of nowhere. There's a history, a re...

🤔 What if Old Testament laws aren’t outdated rules to follow, but a deep, tangible story we are invited to practice? 🎙️ In this episode of Thinking Christian, host James Spencer is joined once again by Rebecca Josberger and Renee Duffy from the Bible Unbranded podcast to tackle one of the most debated topics in biblical study: how to interpret Old Testament law through a theological framework. 🗺️ Using the command of the Sabbath as their core anchor ⚓, the team unpacks how the ancient laws in ...

s the Old Testament Law a heavy burden to be avoided, or a guide to the heart of the Lawgiver? 📜🤔 In this installment of our crossover series with the Bible Unbranded podcast, Dr. James Spencer, Renee Duffy, and Dr. Rebekah Josberger tackle the common misconceptions surrounding Biblical Law. Far from being an obsolete set of rules, the law—and specifically the Sabbath command—reveals deep theological truths about who God is and how He cares for His creation. In this episode, we discuss: Rehabi...

For many Christians, the Book of Deuteronomy feels like a dense wilderness of repetitive laws and ancient regulations that seem disconnected from a vibrant relationship with Jesus. 📜📉 In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer sits down with Renee Duffy and Dr. Rebekah Josberger from the Bible Unbranded podcast to flip the script. They reveal that Deuteronomy isn't a burden—it’s the "backbone" of the Bible. By exploring the specific "if-then" commands and Moses' final heartfelt se...

Is there a "secret recipe" for biblical fatherhood, or have we been looking at the wrong map? 🗺️🧔 In this special Father's Day episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma sit down to discuss the weight and wonder of Christian fatherhood. Moving beyond cultural stereotypes, they dive into Ephesians 5 and 6 to explore how a father’s role is rooted not in dominance, but in the wisdom of the Spirit and the mutual submission of the household. In this episode, we discuss: W...

Is our modern definition of "toughness" actually biblical, or is it just a shadow of the ancient world? 🏛️💭 In this intellectually stimulating episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma explore the intersection of virtue ethics and theology. They look back at how the ancient world understood masculinity and femininity in relation to the virtues and ask: How did the early church transform these ideas into a call for all disciples? In this episode, we discuss: Virtue E...

Is 1 Timothy 3 a list of "manly" traits, or a calling for the entire Body of Christ? 📋🤔 In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma dive into one of the most cited texts in the "biblical manhood" debate: 1 Timothy 3. They challenge the common assumption that the characteristics of overseers and deacons are exclusively masculine, demonstrating how these same virtues are applied to women and the broader community throughout the New Testament. In this episode, we...

If we move past the confusing labels of "biblical manhood," what are we actually left with? 🗺️❓ In the final visionary installment of this series on Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma address the "void" left behind when we deconstruct faulty masculinity frameworks. If "biblical manhood" as a standalone category is unclear and often unhelpful, what is the concrete path forward for men in the church? In this episode, we discuss: The "Void" Problem: Why taking away a flawe...

Are we following Jesus, or just a "masculine" version of ourselves? 🗺️🤔 In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and Dr. Ashish Varma dismantle the common "mapping" errors in the biblical manhood conversation. They argue that many modern frameworks for masculinity are actually "second-order" cultural reactions rather than "first-order" biblical truths. In this episode, we discuss: How to Lie with Maps: Understanding how the "abbreviations" we use to define manhood can lead to u...