patheological: The Podcast for the Pastor Theologian Todd Littleton

What happened to the podcast? It would be easier just answering with, “2020.”







To provide an illustration of the unusual difficulties, it took two days and three tries to finish the conversation I had with Thomas J. Oord where we talked about his latest book, God Can’t: Q & A. We had hit our stride in what is always a fun and ranging conversation about anything Tom has written. Then my fiber connection failed. We had been having intermittent trouble but thought it was the oft-needed router reboot. We rescheduled. Tom was very gracious.







On our attempt to finish what we started, the connection failed again. This time we were able to reset it long enough to finished. Thank you Tom! The downside was now I needed to stitch together three audio clips. Given this is a personal side gig, it took longer than I had hoped to get it edited, uploaded and posted. You know what they say, “Good things come to those that wait!”







Indeed we had a good, really good, conversation talking about a couple of the questions Tom received in response to his book, God Can’t. Below you will find the episodes where this all started. If you need context for this podcast this will make it easier than searching the back catalog to find us talking about the two books that really led into this conversation.







Thank you for your patience. We are working on getting back in the groove of regular podcasts. In the meantime, if you are new to the podcast, I am also working to get some back episodes updated since converting to a new platform that cut the links to the audio files. I have a super, exceptional young lady that is going to help me. (We are related.)















Previous Episodes with Tom:







Love Can’t: An Interview with Thomas J. Oord







Who Said God Can’t?







If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

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Jemar Tisby, in his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, offers a number of To-Dos in his chapter The Fierce Urgency of Now. One is simple: Do Something. After a bit of an absence, Patheological returns with that in mind.















What Tisby recommends is not different than the advice given by Dr. Barbara Holmes,







“You tell your people.”







What began as a conversation between two white pastors, in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing and the subsequent protests, ended up a dialogue on race and faith. Scott Curry, a long-time friend, pastor, and repeat guest here on the podcast, called to talk about the events unfolding across the Country. He suggested we put together a conversation between the two of us and two Black pastors. Unfortunately, on the day we set for the conversation Scott came down with a severe migraine. He suggested we proceed and we did.







Joining me for the conversation were: Pastor Dwight McKissic, Cornerstone Baptist Church, Arlington, TX, Retired Pastor, now Oklahoma State Senator, George E. Young Sr, and Paul Littleton with 20 years Pastoral experience.















We hope to have another conversation where Scott and his friend James join us as we keep listening, learning, and working together.















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Copyright © 1999-2018 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 63c770b5d5a7864a89cf6c2f630094ad)

Plenty of space in print and on-air has been given over to discussions of masculinity. What if the better question for all human beings was, “How do we live wisely in the world?”







Seventeen years ago Mark Horne published, The Victory According to Mark: An Exposition of the Second Gospel. In his words, “I never thought I would write a book like this.” One might say this book is nothing like that one. What began as a spiritual practice of memorizing portions of Proverbs that began in 2011 gave rise to the reflections found in Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men.















Mark served the PCA Church in Minco, Oklahoma when we first met. He and his family have since moved to the St. Louis area. Here is more about Mark from the book bio. The first iteration of my blog was Just Todd. I emailed Mark and asked if he minded if I mimicked his blog, Just Mark. He told me that it would be taken in the form of a compliment. Mark led a book reading group through N.T. Wrights, Big Blue Book, Jesus and the Victory of God.







When I saw Mark promoting his book on Facebook, I knew it would be good and so I purchased a copy. I was not disappointed and neither will you be when you click the image of his book and buy a copy for yourself and the young me you know. You may find more from Mark at www.solomonsays.net.















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Copyright © 1999-2018 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 63c770b5d5a7864a89cf6c2f630094ad)

Every day we are being watched by the ghosts of history past. The hosts of Ryan and Philip’s Conversation Rules have a segment on their podcast; History Has Its Eyes On You. No matter the subject of each episode, they point up the value of knowing how it relates to the past.







Somewhere in the past few years, I met Brad Raley through mutual friends. Our interactions, though only 30 minutes away, came online. Then something written, maybe a comment posted on a social media item, prompted one or both of us to make contact by Facebook Messenger.







Then it happened.







Sitting in the Denver Airport waiting on my flight home, I posted a photo, I think, of a good cup of coffee. No sooner had I done so I received a message, “Are you in the Denver Airport?” Though we only lived about 30 minutes apart, I met Brad as we were both traveling back to Oklahoma from Denver. Me heading back home. Brad heading back to prepare for a move back to Colorado.







Brad earned a PhD in History. I minored in History in college. Brad has taught history as an adjunct and in secondary education. I have taught our girls and am teaching our grands the value of history in order to understand the present. Brad introduced me to Kevin Kruse and others. I, well, I don’t think I could keep up with Brad’s breadth and grasp of history.







Recently, given the Shelter-in-Place in 97% of the Country, Brad had some time and messaged me about podcasting. What better occasion to turn his interest into a conversation! We did just that. It is a wide-ranging conversation and in that format, you will hear what makes an understanding of history important for our present and our future.















If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Copyright © 1999-2018 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 63c770b5d5a7864a89cf6c2f630094ad)

If you are a pastor or on a church staff, there is no shortage of suggestions for what to do during the current novel coronavirus pandemic. Many pastors find themselves forced to think about live-streaming services, using Zoom or Google Meet to offer Bible Study, and Youth Pastors are digging deep into their creative barrels to find some fun ways to make connection online. There is little doubt some ministers feel like they are working longer and harder as the uses of new technology represent more than deciding to add exercise into a weekly, or daily, routine.







My friend Marty Duren wrote a piece that was published on lifeway.com, Dealing with Loss, Grief, and Grace in a Pandemic. He writes,







I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced something that was so obviously good—yet felt like such a big piece was missing. It was a void that’s hard to describe, a sadness across the six-foot expanse. It was as if the circumstance set in place a bottomless crevice forbidding even the most brotherly/sisterly physical expressions of Christian love. We know the circle is unbroken, but in that moment, it felt busted into a dozen pieces.







On this episode of Patheological: A Podcast for the Pastor-Theologian, Alan Cross set up a conversation between friends. Alan currently serves at a Pastor in Sonoma County, California, Paul Littleton is a former pastor and currently serves in leadership in a local church, and Marty Duren is a former pastor who is currently the Director of Communications for the Great Commission Collective and serves in a local church.







Listen in as Alan leads us on a conversation about church leadership in a pandemic using Marty’s article as the springboard.























If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Copyright © 1999-2018 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 63c770b5d5a7864a89cf6c2f630094ad)

Over time Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become something of a Rorschach Test for Christians. That is, everyone finds something in Bonhoeffer’s corpus to claim for their theological project. Jeffrey C. Pugh says not so fast. Instead of thinking that Bonhoeffer passed through phases, like early and late, one might better understand the German theologian as always answering the question, “What does Christ mean for this concrete time in history? Think not that this is a cover for relativism. Instead consider the question one that always kept Bonhoeffer focused on Jesus, the Christ.







Jeffrey C. Pugh returns to Patheolgoical for a conversation around his book, Religionless Christianity: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Troubled Times. Pugh’s book has been in the to-read stack for quite some time. I don’t exactly recall what it was the pushed Jeffrey’s book to the top but I am glad it did. Once finished I wished I had read it years ago. It seems so prescient for our day today.







Many of you know that I really enjoy a good conversation. This may be one of the best conversations I have had in a long, long time. Pick up a copy of Religionless Christianity. You will be glad you did. You may be as thankful for the recommendation to pick up the book as you are to listen in as we talk about it.







If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Copyright © 1999-2018 This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. The use of this feed on other websites breaches copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it makes the page you are viewing an infringement of the copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 63c770b5d5a7864a89cf6c2f630094ad)