In this episode of The Tentative Apologist Podcast we sit down with screenwriter, producer and film director Kevin Miller. Kevin is perhaps best known as the screenwriter for the 2008 documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” and as director of the 2012 documentary “Hellbound?” (You can see my review for “Hellbound?” here.) “Hellbound?” (which is now available […]
Archives for September 2013
“God or Godless” is reviewed in Faith Today
In Canada “Faith Today” is the flagship evangelical magazine, equivalent to “Christianity Today” in the United States. The September/October edition featured a review of “God or Godless” which I’ve included below.
17. Randal asks “Does Heaven Need a Makeover?”
In this episode of The Tentative Apologist Podcast I break with my usual practice of an interview / conversation. Instead, I’m featuring a talk I delivered at the OnWord Conference at Steele Heights Baptist Church in Edmonton, AB on September 28, 2013 titled “Does Heaven Need a Makeover?” In this talk I argue that common objections to heaven […]
What hath zombies to do with theology? An interview with Clay Morgan
In this interview I sit down with culture savvy monster aficionado Clay Morgan. Clay is a professor, blogger, podcaster, and author of the book Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, Reborn (Abingdon Press, 2012). You can visit Clay online at http://claywrites.com/ * * * RR: Clay, thanks for joining us. When I first saw the title of your […]
Bruno Mars on beauty and happiness: An exercise in taking vacuous pop lyrics seriously
The other day I was doing some work when a song came on the radio. Since I’m blissfully unaware of the latest stars in pop music, I hadn’t previously heard of the artist (Bruno Mars) or the song (“Treasure”). It turns out that Mr. Mars is a popular artist these days. So now I’m in […]
16. Gordon T. Smith on Christian conversion
In this episode of The Tentative Apologist Podcast we get to sit down with one of the foremost theologians in Canada, Gordon T. Smith. Dr. Smith is President of Ambrose University College and Seminary in Calgary where he also teaches as Professor of Systematic and Spiritual Theology. Over the years Dr. Smith has worn many […]
Mark Roncace, Provocateur
Yesterday I published a review of Mark Roncace’s book Raw Revelation. Roncace promptly replied via email and by his permission I’m printing that reply here followed by some comments of my own. Let’s start by hearing from Mark Roncace: “Couple of thoughts: In general, I think your critiques are essentially on target. You write, “I […]
How raw the revelation? A review of Mark Roncace’s “Raw Revelation”
Mark Roncace, Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2012). Mark Roncace believes Christians have been “cooking the good book” for way too long. What he means is that they read it selectively, they avoid the plain meaning of texts, they seek a safe, compliant, and easily digestible spiritual meal. […]
Quantum Gravity? Wow
What more can I say? This video speaks for itself. Prepare for an unparalleled musical revue of quantum gravity. And ask yourself how talented and intelligent someone has to be to (a) understand all the gibberish in the video, (b) come up with the lyrics of the video that relay the gibberish, (c) arrange the […]
Evangelistic tracts so bad that they’re good
I grew up in a fundamentalist-evangelical Christian subculture that understood evangelism to consist of small pieces of folded paper that you handed out to unsuspecting passerby or planted strategically in public washrooms. I speak, of course, of the hallowed tract, a short, pithy statement of Christian conviction. The truth is, however, that people are bombarded with literally […]
From pious Christian to German atheist in ten easy steps
In preparation for a one week modular course I’m teaching in theology I came across this cartoon in my notes. It sounds like a “B” horror film: “The Descent of the Modernists”! Bwa-ha-ha! Let’s make some observations. First, the steps are all out of order. If you’ve already taken the step of denying there are […]
Randal’s book on Heaven is now in stock at Amazon.com!
15. Was Jesus an anarchist? An interview with the Pirate Pastor
In the four short months since I started this podcast I’ve had the privilege of interviewing many interesting people including pastors and physicists, philosophers and theologians. But this is the first time I ever had the opportunity to interview a Christian who also identifies as an anarchist. Shawn Birss is pastor of Look to the […]
Putting Away Childish Things: A Review
Marcus J. Borg, Putting Away Childish Things: A Novel of Modern Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2010). I have long been a fan of what one might best call “theological fiction”, that is narratives that raise profound theological questions and pose intriguing theological analyses. The best works in this area are by theologically informed novelists: witness Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Graham Greene’s The End […]
