The Uncensored Unprofessor Ed Rybarczyk: theologian, author, and podcaster

Because I taught college for 25 years I'm tracking the devolution of Pro-Hamas rallies on university campusi. But it wasn't that which provoked this show's one-off reflection. No, instead it was a couple articles in my denomination's quarterly ministers' magazine that smacked me upside the head. They accepted the premise. Accepted the definitions and premises of a progressive framing of reality. Uncritically, they took progressive (woke) terms and tried to run them through a Christian-coffee-filter in order to flavor (or baptize) those terms and make them Christian. In this episode I explain what is happening to pastors and churches who try to Christian-baptize progressive terms and premises. I also reflect on the recent water baptism of actor Russell Brand. Beautifully so, Brand seems to have been red-pilled not only by the madness of our era but by the work of the Holy Spirit. So come and think with me, laugh with me, and reflect with me on what being Christian means in our 21st century and its context.

In this, the last, episode of my series on God's Holy Spirit I present the theology of Kallistos Ware. A bishop in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ware emphasizes that God's Spirit is encountered especially through other people. More particularly, through holy fools and seasoned soul-guides. What are those two types? How do we, might we, encounter such personalities in our Protestant world? In the show's cultural-critique portion I continue my reflections on why it is so brutally hard to have hetero-nuclear families today. What is the ideology that weighs down upon them? Why is there such structural and systemic oppression? Come laugh and think with me about being a Christ-follower in a century speeding toward terminal absurdity.

In the theological component of this episode we examine the unique contributions of Michael Welker to Pneumatology (God's Spirit). Why does Welker land where he does? Why does his presentation seem to take itself apart? What are his foundational commitments? Do they align with biblical commitments and teachings? Along the way I also unpack the significance of method for the doing of theology. So? Welcome, all you theology nerds! At the show's beginning I begin a multi-episode lament on what is happening to the hetero-nuclear family. Why is it so hard to do family life? Why do the hard-working, responsible, two-parent families take it so hard on the chin from our reigning and oppressive system? This is a little show about big ideas, so come and think (and laugh) with me!

He came through a resolutely Baptist upbringing. In that context he was taught that the gifts of God's Spirit ceased with the time of the Apostles. So he was shocked when, attending a revival meeting at the Toronto Airport Vineyard, Clark Pinnock was dramatically healed of an eye affliction. It spurred him to go on and write an entire systematic theology about the Holy Spirit. What'd he emphasize in the doing? What about his systematic theology makes me (and many others), as a theologian, uncomfortable? What do I admire about what Pinnock wrote? In this show I also talk about whether Christians are to be 100% submitted to the state. I also work through some remarks made by a 25-year experienced exorcist.

How is God present in and for His creation? Traditionally, that has been addressed through Christological categories. Our theologian for this episode, Wolfhart Pannenberg, presses us to consider that it is God's Spirit who is immanent (in, with, for, to) regarding creation. What does that look like? Is it biblically based? We also examine Pannenberg for his eschatological (end times) perspectives on Holy Spirit. Pannenberg was an intersting and courageous man; he stood for objective truth all-the-while he taught inside of ardently secular German universities. At the show's beginning I talk about a recent ban of Hillsdale College, share my reflections on the 2024 total solar eclipse, and reflect on what a Holy Spirit-driven earth care might look like compared to today's religious Green movement. Come think and laugh with me!

While he was a young man Jürgen Moltmann was conscripted into the Germany Air Force. After an Allied bombing of his city Moltmann then spent 3 years in a Scottish prison. While there he encountered the Gospel. But his own dramatic experience became foundational seedbed for his own theological career. What did that mean for his theology? What did that mean for his teachings about God's Spirit? In this episode I explore all of that, celebrate what I appreciate about Moltmann's scholarship, and describe what and why I reject some of his theological formulation. Along the way I also re-vist how American Church leaders were manipulated by the Federal Government when Covid 19 was hitting the planet. What did those Church leaders do that is grotesque? Why did they do what they did? What can we learn about the power of narratives? What does this all reveal about the power of power among the powerful?! Come laugh and think with me!