A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Randy Knie & Kyle Whitaker

Mixing a cocktail of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.  We're a pastor and a philosopher who have discovered that sometimes pastors need philosophy, and sometimes philosophers need pastors. We tackle topics and interview guests that straddle the divide between our interests.   Who we are:   Randy Knie (Co-Host) - Randy is the founding and Lead Pastor of Brew City Church in Milwaukee, WI. Randy loves his family, the Church, cooking, and the sound of his own voice. He drinks boring pilsners.   Kyle Whitaker (Co-Host) - Kyle is a philosophy PhD and an expert in disagreement and philosophy of religion. Kyle loves his wife, sarcasm, kindness, and making fun of pop psychology. He drinks childish slushy beers.   Elliot Lund (Producer) - Elliot is a recovering fundamentalist. His favorite people are his wife and three boys, and his favorite things are computers and hamburgers. Elliot loves mixing with a variety of ingredients, including rye, compression, EQ, and bitters. 

  1. 5d ago

    Sacred Play: Exploring Music, Sports, and Spirituality with David Gungor

    Text us your questions! We wanted something different from our usual fare, so we invited musician David Gungor to help us see spirituality through an artist’s eyes: beauty, story, woundedness, and play. What starts as a talk about music becomes an exploration of navigating Christian deconstruction, church hurt, and the fear that life’s best days might already be gone. David shares his pastor’s kid upbringing, the family fallout that reshaped his world, and how his songwriting moved from evangelical worship culture toward liturgical art, peacemaking, and honest ambiguity. We dig into his “threefold path” of spiritual growth, why mythos and narrative matter for meaning, and what separates art from propaganda. If you’ve ever wondered why “Christian music” can feel instantly recognizable in the worst way, this part will stick with you: great spiritual art creates space for interpretation, awe, and participation. Things get even more real when David talks about pandemic-era health scares, anxiety attacks, intrusive thoughts, therapy, and the practice of “learning to just be.” We end somewhere unexpected: sports as structured play, where competition can become communal healing and even a kind of liturgy. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Sacred Play: Exploring Music, Sports, and Spirituality with David Gungor

  2. Jul 3

    Republicans Want to Win. Democrats Want to Be Right.

    Text us your questions! Democrats can pass huge bills and still lose the argument with the people those bills are meant to help. That’s the tension we dig into with Chuck Rocha, a longtime Democratic strategist, Bernie Sanders alum, and proud “Mexican redneck” from East Texas who learned politics through factory work and union life. He comes in hot on one theme: voters don’t just weigh policies, they decide whether they trust you, whether they feel seen, and whether your message fits their world. We talk insider baseball on the Bernie versus Hillary primary, what changed between 2016 and 2020, and why party power almost never gives up the wheel willingly. Then we zoom out to the bigger mess: how social media algorithms profit from outrage, how safe districts make primaries the real election, and why gerrymandering and fundraising incentives push politicians toward extremes. Chuck also challenges our assumptions about “populism,” arguing that most Americans are a mix of right and left instincts, and they mostly want government to stop making life harder while still protecting basic dignity and fairness. The practical heart of the conversation is his prescription for a new Democratic majority: root the story in work and family, speak like a real person, show cultural competency, and earn trust before you ask for votes. We also get into faith language, regional candidates, and why Chuck thinks a figure like James Talarico could shock the country in Texas. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Republicans Want to Win. Democrats Want to Be Right.

  3. Jun 12

    Pastor As Gardener (Part 2)

    Text us your questions! We continue our conversation with pastor and author Matt Erickson of Eastbrook Church in Milwaukee. The job of many pastors feels like that of a CEO, with a focus on leadership strategy and the "three Bs": buildings, budgets, and butts in seats. This conversation offers a slower, deeper, and more hopeful way to think about church health, discipleship, and long-term spiritual formation. We dig into the sequoia metaphor: doing work you may never see mature, trusting God with fruit you can’t control, and learning to “know the soil” of a local congregation. That leads into the daily practices that make this possible, from deep roots in a pastor’s own life with God to the courage to let certain ministries die and become compost for what comes next. Then we take a hard turn into prayer, including Simone Weil’s claim that “unmixed attention is prayer,” and why contemplative attention can be a distinctly Christian practice rather than mere mindfulness. From there, Matt helps us frame pastoral work inside Charles Taylor’s “secular age,” where belief is an option and we all live under cross-pressure from competing ideas and value sets within a larger secular frame. We talk about the constant temptation to become a religious salesperson in a spiritual marketplace and why “bearing witness” could be a better model. We also wrestle with orthodoxy, the role of the creeds as family story, and the difference between right belief and lived faithfulness. Finally, we go straight at the question many pastors dread: how to pastor through Trumpism, political idolatry, and public Christian compromises, with the Black church and voices like Howard Thurman and Bonhoeffer shaping the horizon. Catch Part 1 of this conversation here. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Pastor As Gardener (Part 2)

  4. May 29

    Is Pastoring More Like a Startup or a Garden?

    Text us your questions! Randy and Kyle sit down with Milwaukee pastor and author Matt Erickson to explore a different vision of pastoral ministry: not the pastor as CEO, brand manager, or religious expert, but the pastor as gardener. Matt’s book, The Pastor as Gardener: A Renewed Vision for Ministry, grows out of real ministry pressure, including moral failures, church decline, the pandemic, and the strain of navigating racial justice and polarization in a multiracial congregation. We dig into why agrarian imagery in Scripture still has bite for modern life, even in an urban church context. The gardener metaphor reframes leadership around cultivation instead of control: planting and watering while admitting we can’t manufacture growth. That shift changes what we celebrate, what we fear, and what we measure, especially when the visible “fruit” of ministry looks strong but the hidden “roots” of prayer, integrity, and interior life are neglected. From there, we talk about what shepherding can still mean today, why care for the sick and grieving often gets delegated away, and why pastors need space to evolve without being treated like they’ve failed. Along the way we touch Gregory of Nyssa, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and the pressure for pastors to project certainty in a world where nobody can be an expert at everything. Look for Part 2 of this conversation in a couple weeks. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Is Pastoring More Like a Startup or a Garden?

  5. May 15

    Why Preston Sprinkle Changed His Mind On Women Pastors

    Text us your questions! We talk with Preston Sprinkle about his book From Genesis to Junia and the long road from a John MacArthur shaped complementarian framework to an egalitarian view that affirms women teaching, preaching, and leading in the church. We dig into the passages that always show up in this debate (especially 1 Timothy 2, along with Paul’s wider world), but we keep pulling the camera back to ask harder questions about biblical interpretation and hermeneutics. Is the Bible a blank slate on gender roles, or does it carry the fingerprints of patriarchal ancient contexts even while pushing against them? What do we do with the fact that sincere Christians read the same Greek and Hebrew texts differently, and that those conclusions affect real people’s lives and callings? Then we press into methodology and authority. Preston lays out why he treats Scripture as the ultimate authority for Christian theology, and Kyle challenges what that claim means when canon, interpretation, and experience are always in the mix. Randy brings the pastoral angle, asking how we deal with morally troubling texts and why “the Bible says it” is rarely the whole story. We also touch the “slippery slope” fear that egalitarianism automatically leads to affirming views on sexuality and why Preston thinks that framing misses the mark. If you're just done with engaging with conservative, Bible-based approaches to these kinds of questions, we get it. But if you care how folks with a voice in that world are talking about women pastors, egalitarianism vs complementarianism, biblical authority, deconstruction, or church power, this one will interest you. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Why Preston Sprinkle Changed His Mind On Women Pastors

  6. May 1

    Trump, Iran, and Where This All Might Be Headed: A Conversation With Mike Madrid

    Text us your questions! The news cycle is moving so fast it’s training us to forget. We invited Mike Madrid, a longtime classical conservative political strategist, commentator, and Lincoln Project cofounder, back on the show to help us slow down and put the recent chaos into perspective. We start with crisis fatigue and the “flood the zone” feeling, then get concrete with the Minneapolis ICE crackdown and why masked, militarized enforcement collides with the conservative case for due process and constitutional limits. From there, Mike breaks down the hard truth about U.S. immigration reform: policy solutions have been obvious for decades, but politics rewards stalemate. We talk border security, pathways to citizenship, why comprehensive reform hasn’t happened since 1986, and how both parties have used immigration as an election weapon instead of a governing project. Following on from our previous conversation with Mike, we also discuss Latino voters. Mike argues Latinos are the closest thing to a true swing voter left, and the data says that affordability and cost of living outrank immigration for that group by a wide margin. That insight reframes midterm elections, party coalitions, and why dramatic vote shifts can show up across different Latino communities. Along the way, Mike gives a midterms forecast and also offers a prediction about future presidential nominees for both parties that you probably won't see coming. We close with the Iran war and why the Strait of Hormuz and the petrodollar system matter to our daily lives, from gas prices to broader economic stability. It’s heavy, but it’s not hopeless. Mike makes a historically grounded case that periods like this can forge a better version of the country, if we choose to build it. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Trump, Iran, and Where This All Might Be Headed: A Conversation With Mike Madrid

  7. Apr 17

    Thinking About Nature With Brian McLaren

    Text us your questions! Prayer doesn’t always happen in a church. Sometimes it happens under streetlights or beside old trees. We open with Randy’s simple practice of late night walks and how nature has slowly become the place where his spirituality feels dynamic again. That shift also brings a collision with old religious instincts: the inner voice that says connection is dangerous, that wonder is “worship,” that the world exists mainly to serve us. Brian McLaren joins us to widen the frame. We talk about childhood experiences of creation, why Genesis begins with the goodness and value of the world, and how Psalm 19 might be less about “the book of nature” and more about wisdom embedded in reality itself. Kyle presses on the honest question: what makes a mountain feel like God instead of just a mountain? From awe to fear, from humility to love, we explore why these experiences can be spiritually formative. The conversation then turns outward to ethics and survival. We dig into reciprocity versus domination, how capitalism trains us for transaction without relationship, and how Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” is often misunderstood. We also unpack pantheism and panentheism in plain language, wrestle with the moral weight of eating and harm, and return to the biblical tension of “till and keep” as both permission and responsibility. Finally, Brian shares why he wrote his sci fi novel The Last Voyage, how climate overshoot and oligarchy shape the story, and why resignation, whether optimistic or pessimistic, is the enemy of faithful action. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Thinking About Nature With Brian McLaren

  8. Apr 3

    Bart Ehrman: Is Jesus Responsible for Our Moral Common Sense?

    Text us your questions! Bart Ehrman, an atheist New Testament scholar with a penchant for annoying evangelicals, now claims that the teachings of Jesus determined the moral instincts of the West. Bart joins us to talk about his new book Love Thy Stranger and why acts of care for immigrants, refugees, and people outside “our tribe” may be downstream of Jesus, even when the people doing the caring don’t believe in him. We get into what makes Jesus’ ethics so hard to swallow when you read them straight: giving up status, becoming last, serving the powerless, and treating “the least of these” as the real test of faith. Bart explains why many scholars see Jesus as an apocalypticist, how that urgency sharpens the radical demands, and why modern politics can feel like a relapse into the ancient ideology of dominance. Along the way, we ask what loving enemies actually means in real life, not as a feeling but as a set of actions aimed at the other person’s good. Then we discuss a theological lightning rod: the relationship between forgiveness and atonement. Bart argues they’re competing concepts and claims Jesus teaches forgiveness while later Christians developed atonement frameworks after the crucifixion. We also explore the historical ripple effects, like the rise of public charity and institutions like hospitals and orphanages, and we look for honest common ground between atheists and Christians around ethics, service, and human dignity. ===== Want to support us? The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount. If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal. Other important info: Rate & review us on Apple & SpotifyFollow us on social media at @PPWBPodcastWatch & comment on YouTubeEmail us at pastorandphilosopher@gmail.comCheers!

    Bart Ehrman: Is Jesus Responsible for Our Moral Common Sense?
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Mixing a cocktail of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.  We're a pastor and a philosopher who have discovered that sometimes pastors need philosophy, and sometimes philosophers need pastors. We tackle topics and interview guests that straddle the divide between our interests.   Who we are:   Randy Knie (Co-Host) - Randy is the founding and Lead Pastor of Brew City Church in Milwaukee, WI. Randy loves his family, the Church, cooking, and the sound of his own voice. He drinks boring pilsners.   Kyle Whitaker (Co-Host) - Kyle is a philosophy PhD and an expert in disagreement and philosophy of religion. Kyle loves his wife, sarcasm, kindness, and making fun of pop psychology. He drinks childish slushy beers.   Elliot Lund (Producer) - Elliot is a recovering fundamentalist. His favorite people are his wife and three boys, and his favorite things are computers and hamburgers. Elliot loves mixing with a variety of ingredients, including rye, compression, EQ, and bitters. 

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