The Examined Faith

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The Examined Faith is a podcast for those who want to take their faith seriously. Hosted by Tuppy Morrissey, it brings together theologians, historians, and writers to explore the intellectual and spiritual depths of the Christian tradition, the interpretation of Scripture, what it means to believe in the modern world and more.

  1. 6d ago

    Should We Abandon the Parish Model?

    The Church of England is closing churches, merging parishes and running out of money. What if the answer is not bigger churches but far more of them, led by people who will never wear a dog collar? In this episode of The Examined Faith, Tuppy Morrissey talks to the Reverend John Lisle, planting curate at St Luke's, Blackburn, whose dissertation asks whether Anglicanism has fused two different callings into one very expensive office. If priesthood and leadership are not the same thing, why do we train, house and pay for them as though they were? What we cover: Why merging parishes can look less like renewal and more like managing decline John McGinley's case for micro churches, and the Laodicea charge he levels at the Church of England Why a thriving city church of a thousand people is still a drop in the ocean The sacramental problem: if only priests can preside, can a house church be a church at all? Splitting priesthood from leadership, with separate training and separate licences What happens to accountability when anyone can gather twenty people around a Bible Whether apostolic succession is being rightly guarded or quietly overcomplicated Why the best ministers of the gospel are mostly in workplaces and schools, not church buildings Books discussed: John McGinley, The Church of Tomorrow. Andrew Davison and Alison Milbank, For the Parish. Alison Milbank, The Once and Future Parish. Discover more at: https://www.faithwave.app/ #churchofengland  #parishchurch  #churchplanting  #anglicanism  #LayMinistry

  2. 6d ago

    Was C.S. Lewis Right About Paganism vs. Atheism?

    Was paganism actually closer to the truth than atheism? C.S. Lewis, one of the 20th century's most influential Christian thinkers, argued that a pagan who worships false gods is nearer to Christian truth than an atheist who worships nothing at all. It's a claim that unsettles modern assumptions about progress, and one that cuts right to the heart of what faith, wonder, and meaning actually require. In this episode, we sit down to unpack Lewis's provocative verdict on paganism versus atheism: why he saw myth and pagan longing as a signpost toward Christ, and why he considered pure materialism a dead end. It's a conversation about desire, disenchantment, and what it means to take the transcendent seriously, even in its most imperfect forms.In this episode, we cover: Grow in faith, understanding, and wonder with FaithWave: https://www.faithwave.app/ #CSLewis #ChristianApologetics #Paganism #Atheism #Christianity #FaithWave #TheExaminedFaith

  3. 6d ago

    Who Will Go to Heaven? George MacDonald's Consuming Fire

    Who Will Go to Heaven? George MacDonald on Hell, Love and the Consuming Fire Is God's love strong enough to save everyone? Christian universalism has divided theologians for centuries, and this episode digs into why. Tuppy and Eliot read George MacDonald's sermon The Consuming Fire and use it as a way into the oldest and most uncomfortable question in Christian theology: who will be saved? MacDonald was a nineteenth century Scottish novelist, poet and briefly a minister, raised in a firmly Calvinist Aberdeenshire household and best known now for his fairy tales and for the debt C.S. Lewis owed him. Taking his text from Hebrews 12:29, "For our God is a consuming fire", MacDonald argues that the fire is not retribution but love: a fire that burns away everything in us unworthy of God rather than punishing us forever. He never quite claims the title of universalist, but he comes very close, and this conversation asks whether the reading holds up against scripture and against the weight of Christian tradition. In this episode: The Athanasian Creed and the traditional teaching that hell is everlasting The last pagan king of Frisia, who refused baptism rather than abandon his ancestors "Nothing is inexorable but love": MacDonald's theology of God as love first and last Purgation rather than retribution, and sin understood as an alloy to be burned out 1 Corinthians 15:28, Acts 3:21 and the scriptural case for apokatastasis aionios and aidios: what the two Greek adjectives translated "eternal" actually carry Origen, Isaac the Syrian, Julian of Norwich and a long minority tradition Outer darkness as "the fire without light, the darkness visible, the black flame" Freedom, Plato, and whether anyone in his right mind could choose hell forever Annihilationism and the unsettled Old Testament picture of Sheol Does universalism destroy the urgency of evangelism? Hopeful universalism, von Balthasar, and the case for epistemic humility The Examined Faith is a podcast from FaithWave, a prayer and devotional app for Christians who want to think seriously about what they believe. Historic prayers, daily devotionals and guided readings of the classics of Christian spirituality. Download it at faithwave.app Leave your own answer in the comments, and please like and subscribe. Links: FaithWave: https://faithwave.app George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons (free, Project Gutenberg): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9057 Unspoken Sermons, Standard Ebooks edition: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300258486/that-all-shall-be-saved/ Ilaria Ramelli, A Larger Hope? Volume 1: https://wipfandstock.com/9781610978842/a-larger-hope-volume-1/ Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"?: https://balthasarspeyr.org/en/work/books/dare-we-hope-that-all-men-be-saved #Christianuniversalism  #georgemacdonald  #universalism  #UniversalSalvation #christiantheology #apoctastasis

  4. Jul 25

    How to Pray When God Feels Absent

    Something a little different this time. This episode is about Christian prayer, and about what to do when God feels absent. Tuppy is joined by Eliot for the first of what we hope will be a series of conversations on Christian themes built around a particular text. The book is Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom, also published as School for Prayer. Bloom was a Russian émigré who trained as a doctor, served in the French Resistance, became a monk, and ended up as Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. He writes on how to pray with an unusual bluntness, and he begins in the least promising place imaginable: feeling distant from God, praying and finding nobody there. Bloom's answer to God's silence is that it can be a gift. If we are not in a state to meet Him, then His withdrawal spares us a judgement we could not survive. Absence is not the failure of the relationship. It is proof that there is one, since a God who could be summoned on demand would not be in a genuine relationship with us at all. What we cover: - The problem of absence, and why Bloom begins with prayer when God feels distant rather than with method - Psalm 22, the cry from the cross, and praying from a sense of forsakenness - Why half an hour morning and evening does not entitle us to God's presence - Prayer as a genuine relationship with God rather than networking, and the rich young man who wanted the benefits - Kallistos Ware on the peasant who sat and looked at God while God sat and looked at him - Humility in prayer, and why pride is not only a sin but a falsehood about the world - The publican and the Pharisee, and mercy that operates outside human justice - Knocking at the door: how we are both outside the kingdom and carrying it within us - Bloom's suspicion of the imagination in prayer, and what to make of his reading of Gregory of Nazianzus - Icons as windows rather than barriers, and where Ignatian imaginative prayer sits in all this - Set prayers and spontaneous prayer, short vocal prayers, and the Jesus Prayer in Orthodox prayer practice - Whether a written prayer can be authentic, and why accessibility is not always a kindness - Moses, the shepherd, the bowl of milk and the fox - Theophan the Recluse on being as aware of God as of toothache If your prayer life has gone quiet, or if spiritual growth feels like knocking at a door nobody answers, this conversation is for you. We would like to know whether this format is worth continuing, so please leave a comment and tell us what you think, and what we should read next. FaithWave is a prayer and devotional app for Christians who want to take Christian spirituality seriously: a large library of historic prayers read aloud, daily devotionals, guided abridgements of classic Christian texts, and a prayer finder to help you find the right prayer for the moment. Download it here: https://faithwave.app Subscribe to The Examined Faith for more conversations on theology, philosophy and the Christian life. #christianprayer #howtopray #jesusprayer #anthonybloom #orthodoxprayer #theology #anthonybloom #christianity

  5. Jul 11

    The God Machine: What Transhumanism Gets Wrong About Salvation

    Transhumanism promises to overcome death, transcend the body, and achieve something like divinity, all through technology. But is it really a new religion in secular clothing? And does Christianity already have a far better answer? In this episode of The Examined Faith, Tuppy Morrissey is joined by Reverend James Lawrence, Canon Missioner at Blackburn Cathedral and PhD researcher specialising in transhumanism and Christianity, for a searching look at Silicon Valley's salvation story and how Christians might respond to it. Topics covered: What is transhumanism, and why does it function as a full-blown soteriology? The six "doctrines" of transhumanism: creation, humanity, salvation, eschatology, and the divine Charles Taylor's A Secular Age and the "buffered self" cut off from transcendence Technology and salvation: why transhumanism looks like a parody of Christian soteriology Bryan Johnson and the anti-ageing "rule of life": asceticism without a cross Gnosticism and Christianity: how transhumanism echoes the ancient impulse to flee the body and escape matter The Eucharist as a Christian counter-narrative: embodied, relational, and cyclical Why forming communities of practice matters more than winning arguments Chapters: 0:00 Cold Open 0:34 Introduction 1:01 From Tool to Saviour 3:21 Defining Transhumanism 5:22 Charles Taylor and the Secular 11:42 The Nova Effect and Modern Spirituality 15:25 Tolkien, Lewis and the Porous Self 17:03 Transhumanist Soteriology 21:15 The Six Doctrines 22:17 The Big Bang to the Singularity 27:35 Story Over Ethics 31:12 A Christian Response 33:16 Return to the Eucharist 45:54 Bryan Johnson and the Death Cult 48:04 Resurrection Through Death 50:30 Embodiment and Worship 54:17 Gnosticism and the Body 1:00:20 Wrap Up

  6. Jun 13

    Reading the New Testament in the Original Greek | Dr. Philip Towner

    The Examined Faith — Dr. Philip Towner on Why Greek Still Matters Most readers assume a good English Bible is enough. Dr. Philip Towner thinks something quietly disappears in every translation, and that learning biblical Greek — slowly, a page at a time — is how you get it back. In this episode of The Examined Faith, Tuppy Morrissey speaks with biblical scholar Dr. Philip Towner, a New Testament specialist, Episcopal priest, and professor of translation studies at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. Together they explore why reading the Greek New Testament in koine Greek changes biblical exegesis, why "disorientation" is good for the soul, and how a summer of reading a page a day reshaped his whole approach to hermeneutics. In this episode: Why reading Greek isn't a "silver bullet," but slows you down enough to actually see the text — the real first step in learning biblical Greek The healthy disorientation of close reading, and the day John 1 suddenly opened onto the Jacob story in Genesis The singular-to-plural "you" that quietly pulls the reader into the gospel, and why a footnote can't do that Rhetoric the English drops: the threefold "but" of 1 Corinthians 6 and the relentless repetition of parakaleō in 2 Corinthians 1 — biblical Greek grammar that carries meaning translation flattens Titus 2:13 and Romans 3:22: living ambiguities in the Greek that hermeneutics and tradition, not grammar alone, usually settle Eusebeia, epiphaneia, parousia: borrowed imperial vocabulary and the church's quiet act of engagement with Rome Preaching from the Greek without ever quoting it, and translation as keeping the Word alive David Bentley Hart's foreignizing New Testament, and advice for anyone who wants to start (or restart) Greek: no gain without pain This podcast is part of Faithwave. https://www.faithwave.app/ Chapters 0:00 Title and introduction: meet Dr. Philip Towner 0:29 Why learn Greek when we have good English Bibles? 5:35 How Phil fell in love with Greek: a page a day 13:07 Healthy disorientation: close reading the text 16:09 John 1, Jacob's ladder, and the "you" that includes you 23:39 Why the Pastoral Epistles? 29:56 Romans, ambiguity, and what the Greek leaves open 35:31 Titus 2:13 and the Greek genitive 40:22 Eusebeia, epiphaneia, parousia: engaging Greco-Roman culture 50:37 David Bentley Hart's foreignizing New Testament 55:26 Advice for learning (or restarting) Greek: no gain without pain 61:06 Closing and Faithwave #scripture #biblicalgreek #koinegreek #bibletranslation #newtestament #biblicalexegesis #christianfaith

  7. May 30

    Cancelled for a Tweet: The Cost of Biblical Courage | Dr Aaron Edwards

    Most pastors say they value both truth and compassion. Dr Aaron Edwards thinks that framing is already the problem. In this episode of The Examined Faith, Tuppy Morrissey speaks with theologian, author, and preacher Dr Aaron Edwards — a man who lost his academic post for a tweet, and hasn't stopped talking since. In this episode: Why "pastoral" and "bold" are not opposites — and what shepherds actually do to wolves The slow drift of evangelical institutions: how churches and colleges get absorbed into the systems they set out to resist Aaron's firing from Cliff College, the Twitter mob that preceded it, and what it taught him about cowardice in the church Kierkegaard as prophet: why a 19th-century Danish philosopher is still the best diagnosis of nominal Christianity — and why he's harder to read than he should be Social media as the new Areopagus: why Christians need to speak where it costs something Marc Guehi, Kaka, and what genuine public witness looks like — and doesn't look like Raising seven children in the faith: Psalms, arrows, and telling a five-year-old the truth Aaron's Substack, That Good Fight, is at aaronedwards.substack.com. His forthcoming books include a study of David's mighty men and the battle for Christian masculinity. https://www.faithwave.app/

  8. May 18

    How Oxford Changed My Faith | Theology Student Interview

    What is it really like to study theology at Oxford University, and can it deepen your Christian faith, or shake it?  Tuppy Morrissey sits down with Alina Khokhlova, an Oxford theologian who specialised in the ancient Syriac language (a branch of Aramaic language closely related to the tongue spoken by early Eastern Christians), to explore what studying theology formally can offer believers today. Alina shares her journey to Oxford, where she became one of the only students in a decade to pursue the Syriac pathway — reading rare late antique theological texts in their original language with almost no set curriculum. They discuss what a typical week studying theology at Oxford looks like, how to navigate the challenges of higher biblical criticism, and why reading Scripture in ancient languages can become a surprisingly prayerful and meditative practice. The conversation also turns to icons — what they are, how to read their symbolism, and why they matter for Christians of every tradition — as well as the rich church life Oxford offers, from Anglo-Catholic chapels to Orthodox communities that are quietly booming with converts. What we cover: Why study theology formally — and is it for everyone? Studying the Syriac language and Eastern Christianity at Oxford What a typical Oxford theology tutorial week looks like Biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek, and the value of ancient languages Higher criticism and its challenges for Christian faith How theology can deepen — not undermine — belief Icons as visual theology: symbolism, veneration, and the Incarnation The Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican church scene in Oxford Evagrius of Pontus: "The one who prays is a theologian" 0:00 – Opening 0:44 – Introduction 1:34 – Why study theology formally? 2:17 – Backgrounds & paths to Oxford 8:32 – What is a typical week at Oxford? 9:55 – Studying ancient languages 14:02 – Faith & textual criticism at Oxford 18:29 – How theology deepened faith 24:15 – Churches in Oxford 29:44 – Orthodox Christianity in Oxford 33:12 – Icons & religious art 44:04 – Archaeology & material religion 46:01 – Key lessons from Oxford 48:25 – Final thoughts & encouragement For Alina's videos on Icons: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsSDcjFojHAZl56RVCMpTPVSctu1HKdZf Try the FaithWave app: https://www.faithwave.app/ #aramaic #AramaicLanguage #oxforduniversity #theology #christianpodcast #syriac #christianity #christianfaith

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The Examined Faith is a podcast for those who want to take their faith seriously. Hosted by Tuppy Morrissey, it brings together theologians, historians, and writers to explore the intellectual and spiritual depths of the Christian tradition, the interpretation of Scripture, what it means to believe in the modern world and more.

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  • Creator
    Faithwave.app
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Examined Faith
  • Show Website
    The Examined Faith