If you are a theology nerd, like me, there is no better podcast out there right now than Homebrewed Christianity. It’s awesome for all the right reasons:
- Killer Guests. Each week they interview a guest, usually someone who has recently released a book (but not always). Their past guests have included: Andrew Root, N.T. Wright (yes, I said that correctly), Richard Rohr, Harvey Cox, Philip Clayton, Walter Brueggemann, Terence Fretheim, John Cobb, John Dominic Crossan, John Caputo, and many more. And even the people you haven’t heard of that they dig up are usually spectacular.
- Quality interviews. The interviews are usually above-average quality, asking insightful and interesting questions that don’t just allow the authors to rehash their books all over again.
- It’s done by two average guys with a Skype account. This is one of the coolest things, in my opinion. Tripp Fuller is a youth minister and PhD student, and Chad Crawford works for a nonprofit organization. And yet they get these great scholars and theologians to do these interviews with them. It is a sign of the times–the little guys are outdoing the big organizations and corporations.
- They realize they are two average guys with a Skype account and don’t take themselves too seriously. I love listening to the introductions of every episode because of the banter between Tripp and Chad. You get the feeling they would be cool to hang out with.
They are pretty big proponents of process theology and have a disproportionate number of process theologians on their show, but I think that’s okay. I’ve learned a lot about process theology by listening to their show that I haven’t heard elsewhere. Even if you don’t agree with it, you can learn about it.
So, if you don’t already listen to the show, I think you should. They have 81 episodes thus far, so there is plenty of material to get you started. Go listen to a few and I think you’ll be hooked.
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I can tell you from experience they are great folks to be hanging out with. Became friends with them while they were in divinity school and attended both of their ordination services. Even at my age, they are some of my teachers and I love them both. You cannot go wrong in listening to them. Homebrewed Christianity is wonderful.
I’ve enjoyed their podcast for a while. They should do a fundraising drive to get higher quality equipment so they sound great. I’ve recently come across some podcasts that use really high quality recording and sound compression devices/software & it makes a WORLD of difference.
I agree. The new Caputo podcast was especially difficult to hear for me. I might even donate to that.
I like the idea of possibly getting new and improved Northern and Southern California podcasting studios.
We do get a little bit from Amazon when people buy books, but so far we’re just covering cost of hosting. We’ve discussed a donate button at some point and if we do all of it would certainly go to improving the quality of the site and podcast. Some of it is just learning how to enhance the sound using the tools we have. We’re always on the look out for someone who knows what they’re doing to volunteer to do sound editing for us!
Thanks again for the post Matt and suggestion Adam.
Downloading a bunch of their podcasts right now, thanks for the reference.
Sweet, now they have at least one new listener, thanks to me. I feel like I have done my deaconly duties.