The Broken Middle: Recent Episodes
Kurt Poland
In this first of a two-part episode, Pastor Kurt Poland talks with Dr. Edward Phillips, professor of Early Christianity and Worship at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, about the most dominant patterns of Sunday morning worship in the US. This podcast explores the first three of these six models, the Seeker Service model, the Creative Worship model, and the "Traditional" model. In the next episode, Pastor Kurt and Dr. Phillips will discuss the second three models, the Praise and Worship model, the Prayer Meeting model, and the Word and Table model.
In this episode Pastor Kurt Poland talks about how the internet is changing ministry with one of Southern California's most pioneering pastors, Rev. Bailey Brawner of Mission Hills United Methodist Church in San Diego. Rev. Brawner is a founder of the online LGBT Christian meetup space, The Voyage, the host of the podcast Ask A Pastor Anything, and a TikTok influencer. She shares about how ministry over social media was a natural outgrowth of her own sense of community, and about how the church might move into this new space in the name of the God of love.
The Rev. Kirkpatrick Tyler is an African Methodist-Episcopal Pastor and the director of Skid Row Outreach for Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Office. In this podcast Rev. Tyler helps me see Skid Row in a new light. We talk about how to fight homelessness in LA, and about life on the boundary between church and state.
The second part of a conversation with a giant of American religious history that frames contemporary conflicts over racial justice and political polarization in a deeper historical context.
Part 1 of a conversation with Dr. E Brooks Holifield, professor emeritus of Church History at Emory University, and author of such definitive books as Theology in America and God’s Ambassadors: A History of the Clergy in America. In this part we talk about the historic differences between liberal and conservative Christians, and we discuss what declining church affiliation may mean for American Christianity going forward.
A conversation with one of America’s leading experts on American Christianity about the history behind some of biggest divisions in the American church and society today.
The second half of the podcast with Dr. Jennifer McBride and Dr. Kristopher Norris. In this half the conversation turns toward what Bonhoeffer can teach the white church in America about race, repentance, and resurrection.
Further reading:Books by Dietrich BonhoefferLife Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in CommunityThe Cost of DiscipleshipEthicsLetters and Papers from PrisonCreation and Fall
Books by Dr. Jennifer McBrideThe Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness (Oxford University Press)Radical Discipleship: A Liturgical Politics of the Gospel (Fortress Press)
Books by Dr. Kristopher NorrisWitnessing Whiteness: Confronting White Supremacy in the American Church (Oxford University Press)
Further ResourcesReggie L. Williams, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of ResistanceRobin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Beacon Press)Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (Basic Books)Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Fortress Press)
A conversation with Dr. Jennifer McBride, the president of the Bonhoeffer Society and associate dean at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL, and Dr. Kristopher Norris, associate professor of public theology at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. In Part 1 we discuss Bonhoeffer’s life, and how his theological understanding of race developed over time.
Further reading:Books by Dietrich BonhoefferLife Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in CommunityThe Cost of DiscipleshipEthicsLetters and Papers from PrisonCreation and Fall
Books by Dr. Jennifer McBrideThe Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness (Oxford University Press)Radical Discipleship: A Liturgical Politics of the Gospel (Fortress Press)
Books by Dr. Kristopher NorrisWitnessing Whiteness: Confronting White Supremacy in the American Church (Oxford University Press)
Further ResourcesReggie L. Williams, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of ResistanceRobin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Beacon Press)Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (Basic Books)Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Fortress Press)
A conversation with Joss Tillard-Gates, policy director for the Los Angeles office of Enterprise Community Partners, a national non profit that connects people with affordable housing. We talk about what causes homelessness, and about how cities like LA can start rethinking how we meet this crisis.
A conversation with Dr. Christopher Wesley Corbin, executive editor of Earth and Altar magazine, author of The Evangelical Party and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Return to the Church of England (out now with Routledge Press), and canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota. We talk about some of the challenges and new lines of promise facing modern interpretation of the Bible, as well as about how Christian mystical theology from the middle ages might provide a key for starting a new conversation about faith in an age of emerging clinical interest in the healing power of psychedelics.