5:6 Church: Is it Still Helpful? (along with Libby Teder Hugus)

On this episode I respond to questions about moving forward with the church. One young person put it this way: “What is even the point? Given how many people have been hurt, is church even helpful any longer?”

So I give some open and relational theological thoughts, some stuff that’s been influenced by those who are influenced by Bill Hegel, some stuff to rethink omnipotence, mystery, and the misguided but oft-parroted phrase, “everything happens for a reason.”

I also talk a bit about my own personal journey of trying to figure out theology and ecclesiology (i.e., church) after we went through the intense event of losing our daughter. Yeah, that event pretty much colors everything in my life.

-And then I take the discussion about church further with my friend, the Rev. Libby Teder Hugus. She’s a pastor at https://www.thetablecasper.org in Casper, WY. (Sorry, I think I said Idaho in the podcast!) There’s a couple minutes with Libby here, but then I talk longer with her on my patreon page which is at…

• https://www.patreon.com/jonathan_foster For as little as three bucks a month you can get access to that interview, others, and a whole bunch of other helpful stuff. So, check it out.

-Feel free to leave a review, share it with a friend, and of course sign up for my newsletter at www.jonathanfosteronline.com.

-The open and relational resource I want to highlight this week is “Face of the Deep” by Catherine Keller. Dr. Catherine might label herself more process than ORT, and for sure, she would call herself a feminist theologian, but either way, I love this book and all her writing. She says more in one sentence than I do in a whole chapter.

-The main music for this season’s show is from Velveteen and is called “Losing It." It comes to us by way of www.epidemicsound.com, though, strangely, I didn’t use it on this episode. Instead, I went with some stuff I made and/or downloaded at www.Landr.com.

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