Language of God

In this bonus episode, Language of God Producer Colin Hoogerwerf brings a short reflection on finding hope in the outdoors.  Find more articles and resources about caring for creation at biologos.org or join a discussion about this episode at the BioLogos Forum, A good place to start is Why Should Christians Care for Creation?

On today’s episode, Lynette Strickland joins Jim and producer Colin Hoogerwerf to ruminate on her love for creation. Lynette shares how her childhood curiosity in the natural world grew into a passion for doing science, why variation in a species could help it adapt to changing environments, and how studying beetles has helped her understand God’s creation.  Lynette Strickland is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute PreDoctoral Fellow. She received her B.S. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M. Her research, focusing on how ecological factors and genomic factors shape a naturally-occurring color polymorphism in a species of Neotropical tortoise beetle, has been published in journals including Science and Hereditary. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

Growing up in the church, Aaron Niequist never imagined he would experience a faith crisis—until he did. On this episode, he recalls this time of doubt and what helped him through it. Aaron and Jim also discuss reviving liturgy and the seeing faith in light of the Kingdom of Heaven. Aaron Niequist is a liturgist, writer, and pastor. After growing up in a Plymouth Brethren community, he led worship at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI and Willow Creek Church in Barrington, IL. Recently, he has shifted his focus to creating ‘A New Liturgy’—a series of modern liturgical recordings. Check out the video of A New Liturgy: Creation. Find out more about Aaron's book—The Eternal Current—on his website. Music in this episode is from Joseph McDade. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

Biblical interpretation is all about asking questions—How did Ancient Israel understand the book of Genesis? How much context do we, as modern readers, need to discover the intended meaning of the text? Does the text hold the answers to the questions we are asking? Jim and guest host Rebecca McLaughlin discuss these thorny questions with biblical scholar John Walton and explore the answers his work offers them.  John Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He received an M.A. in Biblical Studies from Wheaton College and his Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He has published dozens of books, articles, and translations focusing on Ancient Near Eastern backgrounds of the Old Testament. Explore John Walton’s Lost World series here. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum. Register for the 2024 Science and Faith Conference, April 17 - 19 | Raleigh, NC (John Walton is a speaker!)

Fossils open a window deep into the history of the earth. Through that window we learn about how whales evolved from four-legged creatures to the aquatic animals we know today, we learn about our own species and where we came from, and we learn more about God who made it all. Language of God producer, Colin Hoogerwerf, journeys into the world of fossils alongside paleontologist Ryan Bebej to explore some of these stories. Guest geologist and paleontologist Ralph Stearley introduces us to some of the early Christians who helped figure out what fossils really are and biological anthropologist Cara Wall-Scheffler joins to talk about what fossils can teach us about what it means to be human. Find Ryan Bebej’s personal story here See some photos from our visit to Calvin’s fossil collection at our website. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

The roaring current of stubborn partisan standoffs challenges us to cement ourselves in our views; dialogue erodes as we ditch the public conversation to wrap ourselves in the self-affirming comfort of our isolated belief nooks. Among the most well-acquainted with this phenomenon is On Being host Krista Tippett, who worked as a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin. But she sees something else as well: a hunger for honest conversation. In this episode, Jim talks with Krista about how her work attempts to feed that desire—and where science and faith live in that discussion. Krista Tippett is the creator and host of the On Being and Becoming Wise podcasts as well as curator of The Civil Conversations Project. An accomplished journalist, author, and entrepreneur, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2014. She studied History at Brown University and later received a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1994. Her books are Becoming Wise, Einstein’s God, and Speaking of Faith. Explore the Better Conversations Guide. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

It is all too easy to fall into the myopic assumption that our faith words are universal, that everyone has a shared understanding of what these words mean. But often this is not the case. Many times our sacred words—words like grace, mercy, wisdom—are painted with different hues on other peoples’ interpretive palates. Author Jonathan Merritt joins Jim on this episode of Language of God to discuss this decay of common meaning—and how to revive it. Jonathan Merritt is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, contributing editor for The Week, and an author. His books include A Faith of Our Own, Green Like God, and Learning to Speak God From Scratch, which was released in 2018. He holds a Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Master of Theology from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Watch Jonathan’s presentation at the 2019 BioLogos conference here. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

Our habits shape us in ways we often neglect, guiding the majority of our thoughts and actions. Pastor John Ortberg argues that when these save us from spending unnecessary energy on menial tasks, they are good. Trouble brews, however, when sin creeps in. In this episode, John talks about the forgotten practice of spiritual disciplines, how biological predispositions affect human character, and the formative role philosopher Dallas Willard has played on his own life.  John Ortberg is the Senior Pastor at Menlo Church in Menlo Park, California. He holds a Master of Divinity and doctorate degree in clinical psychology from Fuller Seminary. John is on the Board of Trustees at Fuller Seminary as well as on the board for the Dallas Willard Center for Spiritual Formation. He is the author of several books, including Soul Keeping, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, and Eternity is Now in Session. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

In Season 2 of Language of God we’re going to hold faithfully to the truths of Christianity, while we explore the realities of this world, up to the limits of what we can know. Our guests include pastor John Ortberg, host of the On Being radio show Krista Tippett, writer and journalist Jonathan Merritt, biblical scholar John Walton, and many others. Episodes coming soon!

Language of God has hosted many great guests already in its first season but as hard as we try, we can’t always get to all your questions. So while we’re between seasons, we thought we’d open the phone lines. Jim Stump, host of Language of God, and a few BioLogos staff members sat down to try and wrestle with some of the questions we received. Here’s their conversation. Read Joel Duff’s article mentioned in the conversation on our website. Ask your own questions to a community committed to exploring topics of faith and science at the BioLogos Forum

BioLogos is not the only organization tackling issues of science and faith today. Today’s episode features a panel from Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (STEAM), a project from Fuller Theological Seminary which offers resources to help teens and young adults to think through issues of science and faith. The panel discusses their project and lessons they have learned along the way. Special thanks to Greg Cootsona, Kate Vosburg, and Len Tang. Find more resources like STEAM in our Resource Center.  

This bonus episode highlights a few favorite ‘Cool Creations’ of people in the BioLogos community. From walking whales to the largest organism on earth, these astonishing snippets of God’s creation offer a reinvigorated view of the world around us. Special thanks to: Ryan Bebej, Jeff Schloss, Rick Lindroth, Kate Vosburg, and Praveen Sethupathy. Original music from Carp.

Rick Potts has always had an interest in origins. As a kid, exploring the origins of musical instruments and the solar system fascinated him. In high school he stumbled upon the study of human origins; he has not stopped investigating since. Dr. Potts tells Jim stories of excavations in China and southern Kenya and of people encountering the exhibit on Human Origins around the US. Reverberating throughout their conversation is the question, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ Dr. Rick Potts is a paleoanthropologist and curator of the Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Before coming to the Smithsonian in 1985, he received his Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University and taught anthropology at Yale University. He has lead excavations throughout the East African Rift Valley as well as in southern and northern China. His research focuses on human adaptation to environmental change. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

The Christian story is both universal and individual, all-encompassing and intensely personal. A robust theology holds the two in tension, weighing the church body against the single sanctuary. In this episode of Language of God, Dr. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier joins BioLogos President Deb Haarsma to discuss the growth of a Latino/a theology which expresses the community’s experience in all its rich variety. Dr. Conde-Frazier speaks to life in the US with immigrant parents, the troubled history of race and science, and the importance of mentorship and role models for young people looking to careers in science.   Dr. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier serves as Coordinator of Relations with Entities of Theological Education at Wesley Theological Seminary. She is the author of Hispanic Bible Institutes and A Many Colored Kingdom and has written extensively on multicultural education, Latin feminist theology, academic spirituality, and education for justice. She received her Master of Divinity from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and holds a PhD in theology and religious education from Boston University.  

How do we live when we don’t have all the answers? How do we find answers amidst Biblical contradictions? Theologian Peter Enns refuses to shy away from asking the larger questions about Christian faith. He brings these questions to his conversation with Jim, wrestling with how the Bible relates to our lives today. They explore the potential behind reading the Bible creatively, the dangers of our modernist sense of truth, and the growing desire for spiritual authenticity. Theologian and Biblical studies scholar Dr. Peter Enns is Abram S. Clemes Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. His research has focused on a broad variety of topics such as Old Testament interpretation, hermeneutics, and the relationship between science and scripture. In addition to writing and teaching, he hosts a popular podcast called The Bible for Normal People. Peter received his B.A. from Messiah College and an M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.