Rector’s Cupboard Podcast

Do you have a testimony? If you are familiar with the culture of evangelical church, you will know what is being asked. Maybe you heard someone give their testimony at church, or at camp.

In this context, testimony meant a personal account of your life or background with an emphasis on your conversion to evangelical faith. It was communicated, largely, with the intent and hope that those listening, who had not experienced such a co...

Dr. J. Warren Smith is Professor of Historical Theology at Duke Divinity School. Professor Smith is a great guide in helping us to see hope for the future in listening to voices of hope from the past.

We talk with him about how some sayings, perspectives, and experiences of those who lived many centuries ago can be resonant in the midst of the challenges of our time.

Besides being compelling and interesting, and at times upsetting,...

At least once a season, we speak with David Goa, a spiritual friend and mentor. David is a writer, professor, and theologian and has been a great help to us as we hope to articulate a hopeful vision of faith and theology.

When we speak with David, we tend to ask about life and faith in relation to the current cultural and religious landscape. Given what is happening in the world right now, in this episode David talks about the ongo...

We are pleased to speak with J Alkana about his work in architecture and design. J thoughtfully asks questions of meaning, humanity and faith in relation to the work that he does.

What is vocation? What gives your work meaning?

Various understandings of work in relation to faith historically have often divided work into realms of the sacred and the secular. J speaks with us about inspiration and spiritual hope around his work and o...

The image of a new leaf implies new season, new hope. Elle Pyke, Director of Programs and Innovation at New Leaf Network, helps to navigate people and organizations through some of the significant changes in what it means to be a church with a particular Canadian focus.

You may feel a sense of longing for a time of apparent certainty in what church looked like. Conversely, you may be glad that things as they were have come apart.

R...

There are some truly terrifying Christmas/winter characters out there. Many may have heard of Krampus, a German partner of St. Nick who punishes poorly behaved children, but what about Peruchty, a winter witch who likes to disembowel naughty children?

Santa, also, may fall into these terrifying categories, although in less severe ways. Lumps of coal in stocking, running naughty and nice list, even Jolly St. Nick has taken on the ro...

In recent years, there has been a growing number of people who have moved from one Christian faith tradition to another. Some of the lines within Christian expression have been fairly rigid. This rigidity has even led, in some instances, to the assumption that “those other churches” are not even Christian.

One of the main lines of distinction has been between mainline churches and evangelical churches and now, more than in years pa...

Have you been feeling like things are a little precarious at the moment? If so, you are certainly not alone. For our first Host Only episode of season five, we gather to discuss some of the precarious nature of our current days.

The conversation is not entirely serious, the facial expressions of cats and destructive nature of a local bear come up as well.

Whatever you’re feeling at this point, we hope this conversation provides som...

John Lennox is a mathematician and bioethicist at Oxford University, where he is a Professor of Mathematics. He has spoken internationally and written many books on the intersection of science and philosophy and religion. His latest book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, came out in 2020.

While most of us here at Rector’s Cupboard have had fraught relationship with what has been called “apologetics,” we are...

Around this time last year, we had the distinct pleasure of speaking to musician, author, theologian, and all around wonderful person, Julian Davis Reid. Next week, October 13 and 14 in Vancouver, BC, we are having an in-person conference around the theme of vocation and rest and Julian is our keynote speaker. In honour of that we thought we’d replay this episode from last season. If you’re in the Vancouver area and would like to a...

In the United States and elsewhere, including Canada, large numbers of people are leaving church. A recent book, The Great Dechurching, points out that the movement is the largest religious cultural shift in American history. Many writers, professors, and observers have often used the word “decline” to talk about such a phenomenon. The truth is more nuanced. The church is not in decline in much of the world and where it is declinin...

Rector’s Cupboard is pleased to welcome Brian Zahnd. Brian is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

Brian has been somewhat of a trailblazer in contemporary expressions of hopeful theology. His books, including Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God and Beauty Will Save the World, outline a thoughtful, positive, and beautiful understanding of Christian faith and belief. Brian’s work has informe...

In some religious circles, dialogue or collaboration with people of other faiths is seen as dangerous. In some evangelical contexts, such interfaith consideration may even have been labelled as faithless.

Hopeful Christian theology sees interfaith dialogue as faithful, not faithless. True interfaith dialogue is neither dangerous nor insipid. Rather, in building connections with people of other faiths we can grow in our own faith an...

Ram Dass once famously said, “If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” We came across this quote when David Hayward, known as NakedPastor, quoted it after seeing his own family.

Arthur Boers, our guest on this episode of Rector’s Cupboard, delves deeper into the truth of family of origin than even a week together can afford. Boers’ faith matters a great deal to him. In fact, it has come to define much of...

The second part of our interview with Julia and Jeremiah, sex therapists and hosts of the podcast Sexvangelicals. If you haven’t listened to part one, we encourage you to go back and listen to that before this episode.

In this episode, we spoke with Julia and Jeremiah about how we got to the place where conversations around sexuality are framed around morality and behaviours and some ways of dealing with the grief of what has been ...

In a previous episode of Rector’s Cupboard we were pleased to interview Linda Kay Klein, author of the book Pure on purity culture within the evangelical church. Through Linda, our guests for this episode found Rector’s Cupboard and connected with us. Julia and Jeremiah are sex therapists who work often with people who were raised in high control religious environments. They are also the hosts of the podcast Sexvangelicals.  We ar...

Rector’s Cupboard is part of a larger non-profit that exists to articulate Hopeful Theology. A theologian whose work informs our perspective is Karl Barth. 

This episode delves into the theology of Barth by way of the work of Dr. Marty Folsom. Barth’s writing is extensive, with his major work, “Church Dogmatics” consisting of over 9,000 pages over multiple volumes.  

Many Christians have pushed away from rigid and divisive understa...

If you have been raised in a religious context, you may assume that the way your church, your denomination, conceived of faith was and is the very definition of faith. Obviously, there is a lot that impacts what we believe and how we practice and express that belief.

Dr. Mathew Guest helpfully describes how a particular way of seeing the world (neo-liberalism that defines much of politics and economics in our world) has come to imp...

Rich or poor or somewhere in-between, our sense of security and identity can often have to do with money. Who we are, how we relate to others, and how we feel about our well-being is impacted, for good or ill, by whether we feel we have enough money.  

Mark Petersen has lived much of his life in the world of money and philanthropy. He has also taken up multiple spiritual pilgrimages as a way of asking the big questions of identity ...