The Progressive Christians Podcast

In this episode, we examine the connection between faith, justice, and the American carceral system with Dr. Andrew Kinks, author of "White Property, Black Trespass." Dr. Kinks discusses the religious, social, and political roots of mass incarceration and how Christian ideas of sin, salvation, and hell have contributed to mass criminalization in the U.S. We finish our conversation by exploring the spiritual and biblical foundations of abolition, the role of religion in justice, practical ways to challenge the carceral system, and how Christians can imagine a world beyond prisons.  

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The L...

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Dr. James Dobson’s death triggered an onslaught of social, digital, and print media reflections. While some mourned his death, most of the reflections were about the traumatic impact of their parents following his advice, which encouraged practices such as corporal punishment and queer “conversion therapy.” In this episode we explore the legacy of James Dobson, Focus On The Family, and how a generation of children raised under Dobson-like rules are fin...

Have you ever wondered what motivates someone to become a Christian Nationalist and what it takes to recognize you're not truly practicing the teachings of Jesus and to leave high-control religion? Then this episode is just for you! We were joined by April Ajoy, author of Star Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith, for a compelling discussion about her book, her role in the Amazon documentary Shiny, Happy People, and how we can help guide people who are questioning out of Christian Nationalism.

Click on the link below to learn more about April's...

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We're the love your neighbor kind of Christians, not the storm the capitol kind. So, if you're curious about what a socially and politically progressive Christianity looks like, this podcast is for you! In each episode, we discuss politics, pop culture, and anything else we find interesting from the perspective of progressive Christianity.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church.

Cynthia Erivo's portrayal of Jesus in "Jesus Christ Superstar" at the Hollywood Bowl has been widely praised as powerful, transcendent, and unsurprisingly criticized by religious conservatives. How could a woman, and especially a Black queer woman, play the role of Jesus? Julia, Rev. Blair, and Everest were in attendance on opening night. In this episode, we discuss Erivo’s performance, the role of art in unsettling assumptions and critiquing power, and what it means to see the spark of the Divine in all of us. We end the episode by celebrating the one-year anniversary of our podcast.

Th...

Are you struggling to reconcile your faith with the headlines about the human-made famine that is causing the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza? You're not alone. All people of good conscience should feel unease. When Jesus wept, it was for the suffering of all humanity. What if we applied that same deep empathy to the heartbreaking crisis unfolding right now? In this episode, we are joined by Rev. Dr. Timothy Murphy, the senior pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to discuss the war in Gaza, his hunger strike to raise awareness about the famine, and...

What is biblical or traditional marriage, and how have Christian understandings of marriage been shaped by economics, politics, and faith? In this week's episode, we explore the rise of the Trad-Wife phenomenon and shed light on the propaganda that pushes this image of family life as normative. We conclude by re-examining our sacred texts to craft a vision of partnership that honors the sacred worth of human beings and the progressive values of relationality and freedom, without abandoning our faith.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist...

Has Christianity lost its positive public perception? The season premiere of South Park revealed a lot about our current political and religious climate. Their portrayal of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount exposes the hypocrisy that an increasing number of non-religious people see within our tradition. In this week's episode, we discuss the declining public image of Christianity, the role evangelical, conservative, and mainline churches have played in speeding up that decline, and what Christians can do to start changing that perception one relationship at a time.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a wo...

What if the person you elected president to save the country from a global cabal of child sex-traffickers actually was a part of the cabal? At first glance, this question sounds strange. However, when you consider that a 2022 poll by PRRI revealed that 1 in 5 people and 1 in 4 Republicans believe the QAnon conspiracy theory that the government, media, and financial sector are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation, then things begin to make a bit more sense. In this episode, we explore why the Epstein files matter to conservative Christians, how they...

If you thought the world was ending, how would you spend the last days of your life? While this may be a theoretical question that many of us can use to help discern what we believe are the most essential things in our lives, it is also a very pragmatic question for others. In this episode, we discuss how the eschatological belief in the Rapture has informed our governments' response to the Guadalupe River flood and how they are recruiting people to join ICE.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community...

A few weeks ago, at a Bible study on Capitol Hill titled “God’s Design for a Societal Safety Net,” political conservative and Christian pastor Ralph Drollinger argued that the New Testament never discusses governments helping people. He told the Senators that helping the truly needy is for individuals, then families, then the church, but not the government. With this, he morally justified the suffering of millions as a consequence of passing Trump’s new spending bill. In this episode, we discuss how the bill will impact healthcare and immigration, and we explain how the biblical argument used to justify...

Modern society tells us that we should constantly reinvent ourselves to stay interesting and that we should do whatever it takes to get wherever we want to go. In her book, Here: A Spirituality of Staying in a Culture of Leaving, Lydia Sohn argues for the opposite: stay. Stay and cultivate the immense potential and beauty that currently lies dormant within your circumstances. In this episode, we sit down with Lydia and discuss her book, the necessity of speaking to audiences across faith and spiritual traditions, and how sometimes stability requires a particular type of leaving.

The...

In part one of our episode, we discuss the No Kings Marches across the country, the detainment of NYC Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander by ICE, and the political assassinations of two Minnesota State Representatives. In part two (19:00), we are joined by Jonas Williams, an undergraduate student at UCLA who has been researching the masculinity crisis for a film project. In our conversation with Jonas, we explore why young men are increasingly isolated, depressed, and angry at a time when wealth, economic, and political power are still held mainly in the hands of, you guessed it, men. We covered a...

No one enjoys being labeled immature, particularly when it comes to our faith journey. However, Paul the Apostle reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthian church that we ought to mature in our Christian faith, recognizing that we currently know God only partially and will ultimately come to know God fully after we transition from this life to whatever is next.

In this episode, we explore two different approaches to assessing our faith journeys and discuss how spiritual “arrested development” can help us understand the current resurgence of White Christian Nationalism.

The Progressive Chri...

While LA is not the war zone that Fox News would have you believe, what we are experiencing in our community is not normal. In this episode, Rev. Dr. Carter, Westley, and Everest discuss the immigration raids and protests that have erupted across Los Angeles County, share our thoughts on why Trump is doing this right now, and describe what a progressive Christian response could look like.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you have an idea for the show or want to connect...

“The American Government gives the most help to those who need it the least. This is the true nature of our welfare state, and it has far-reaching implications, not only for our bank accounts and poverty levels but also for our psychology and civic spirit.” This quote from Matthew Desmond’s book, Poverty, by America, is a hard truth, but it is true.

It is certainly not the story we tell ourselves, and it is definitely not the narrative that the writers of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act would have us believe. Most Christians recognize that how we s...

How do you know when it is time to walk away and retire? The last eight members of Congress to die in office were Democrats. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a trailblazer, and yet her decision to continue serving on the Supreme Court until her death in September of 2020 is a part of her legacy that can’t be overlooked. In this episode, we discuss ageism and how it is keeping young people out of both politics and the church.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If...

Many progressives often find themselves in communities where very few, if any, of their peers identify as religious, let alone as Christians. In America, many people associate the word “Christian” with the type of theological and political conservatism that has theologically justified historic harms against every minority group in our country. Yet, we have chosen to identify ourselves as Progressive Christians, making the word “Christian” deeply significant to our understanding of who we are. In this episode, we explain why we still refer to ourselves as Christians and explore why others, who don’t seem committed to acting Christ-like, still see...

We want to hear from you! If you have a question you’d like us to discuss on the pod, please email us at progressivechristians@theloftla.org. 

There is a lot of talk about fascism in politics today, but what is fascism, and how, if at all, does it impact our faith? In this episode, Everest, Westley, and Rev. Dr. Carter discuss what fascism is, the role conservative Christianity is playing in supporting it in America, and how a progressive Christian vision of community can help us resist the lure of fascist thinking.

The Progressive Chr...

We have a new email address and we want to hear from you!

If you have a question you’d love for us to discuss on the pod, please email us at progressivechristians@theloftla.org. 

How do you hold onto hope when everything feels like, or actually is, falling apart? Given the state of US politics and the global lurch to the political right, how, if at all, are you holding onto hope? In this episode, we begin with a conversation about the Roman Catholic conclave and share our thoughts about what we hope for in a...

We have a new email address and we want to hear from you! If you have a question you’d love for us to discuss on the pod please email us at progressivechristians@theloftla.org. In addition to our weekly episodes, we hope to publish 1-2 short episodes per month that will be dedicated to answering listener questions about theology, politics, church, parenting, pop culture, or anything else that you’d like our opinion on.

What is a progressive Christian response to meeting the needs of intellectually disabled children? It’s pretty much the opposite of what Robert...

We are entangled in systems full of wicked problems that we cannot solve on our own. For Dr. Copeland, sin is the most appropriate theological language for naming what has gone wrong in the world and for beginning to repair those wrongs, despite modern resistance to the use of sin-talk. In this episode, we discuss sin, suffering, and the problem of evil with Dr. Copeland, whose new book, Entangled Being: Unoriginal Sin and Wicked Problems offers a vision of how we might imagine and build a future where we continue to re-solve our society's most wicked problems.

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“Authoritarian parenting—especially the evangelical variety—isn’t just abuse. It’s training. It teaches kids that love = fear. That power = safety. That obedience is the highest virtue, and questioning authority gets you a backhand and a one-way ticket to Hell,” writes journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. In this episode we discuss the psychological consequences of authoritarian parenting and how it can help us understand why some can view Trumps immigration policies, lies, and his abuse of power as a type of “love.”

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church...

How do progressive Christians interpret Christ’s life, death, and resurection as reconciling human beings to God? What are the theological implications of conservative Christians viewing Trump as a “messiah” figure? In this episode, we discuss the historical approaches that Christians have used to interpret Jesus’ role in mediating salvation for human beings. We also discuss the dangers of conflating specific political outcomes (i.e., Trump was saved from assassination due to God’s providence) with theologies of salvation.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you hav...

In our polarized culture, it has become increasingly difficult to talk across political or religious differences. Yet we know that in order to get people to see the merits of—or even begin to practice—progressive Christianity, we must speak to them and invite them to do so. In this episode, we are joined by Malynda Hale to discuss her approach to talking to religious and political conservatives.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you have an idea for the show or want to conn...

In this pop culture minisode, Rev. Blair, Juila, and Westley discuss aspects of arts and culture rattling in their brains this week. We offer our recommendations for what to watch and listen to and close with some more serious reflection on the challenges and opportunities of being in a relationship with emerging generations.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you have an idea for the show or want to connect with us, please email us at theloft@theloftla.org.

Links f...

Why was Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident of the US arrested, and why has his arrest led to hundres of protests across the country? What does it have to do with Project Esther, a policy created by the Heritage Foundation (the same foundation that created Project 2025) to curb speech that critiques Isreal and the US policy on Palestinian civil rights? In today’s episode, we discuss the weaponization of deportations as a tool to police speech and its relationship to Christian Nationalism. 

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood Uni...

A significant percentage of Trump supporters are conservative Christians, and in this episode we ask - how can they support him despite all of his lies? Using Trump’s joint address to Congress as a starting point, we examine the current conservative movement’s moral flexibility around what is “technically true” and what “feels true.” We end our conversation on a high note by discussing some good news from each podcast co-host.

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you have an idea for the show or want...

Failing to bother to love is the scriptural concept of sin Jesus teaches in the gospels. In this episode, we build on this concept of sin and discuss why moral injury can make it difficult for progressive Christians to talk about sin constructively. We then discuss our theology of sin in light of President Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the defunding of USAID. 

The Progressive Christians Podcast is a ministry of The Loft, a worship community of Westwood United Methodist Church. If you have an idea for the show or want to connect wit...

Christians should not believe in the bible, they should believe in the living God attested by the bible.

This statement used to be reflect an orthodox (i.e., traditional) approach to the bible, but now belief in the bible is often a litmus text for how serious a Christians faith is. In this episode, we describe some of the problematic approaches to the bible, notably the biblicist approach and the belief that the bible is inerrant. We then describe a progressive Christian's approach to the bible and the importance of reclaiming the bible from those who use...

Can you be queer and Christian? Does gender and sexuality even matter with respect to your theological beliefs? In today’s episode we address the surprisingly recent disagreement about whether Christianity can accept the full participation of persons in same-sex relationships and persons whose gender identity does not match the one assigned at birth by medical authorities. We were grateful to be joined by special guest Everest Harvey. If you’d like to connect with Everest about starting a Queer Group at your place of worship, please email them at everest@westwoodumc.org.

Links we mentioned in this...

In today’s episode we discuss the dangerous and inhumane treatment of undocumented immigrants under the Trump administration. We were grateful to be joined by the Rev. Dr. Britta Meiers Carlson, whose research focuses on the church's engagement with the US immigration system.

Rev. Dr. Meiers Carlson is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Practical Theology at the University of the South and an ordained pastor within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Links mentioned in this episode:

https://afsc.org/tag/sanctuary-everywhere?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA8Lu9BhA8EiwAag16by4gqSzBGfGBL57eN8VK3eS...

At the National Prayer Breakfast President Trump announced that he was creating a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in the government and in institutions that receive federal funding. In this episode we discuss Trump’s remarks during the prayer breakfast and the eradicating anti-Christian bias executive order.

Surprise bonus episode! There is a lot going on right now that deserves our attention, and we can’t get through it all in a one-hour podcast. For the next few weeks, we will be dropping a few bonus episodes to keep up with the news! 

Links mentioned...

We read (a lot) of it so you wouldn’t have to. In this episode, we discuss the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the 900-page document that Trump “had nothing to do with” but accurately describes almost everything that his administration has been doing during his first few weeks in office. We examine the four pillars that inform their political ideology, how these pillars are rooted in half-truths and outright lies, and how Trump is using the executive branch to subvert congressional power to implement his agenda. 

We planned on covering more than we were able to get to in thi...

“Without women we don’t have Jesus. We don’t have Christianity. We don’t have any of it,” writes Claire McKeever-Burgett, theologian and author of “Blessed Are The Women: Naming and Reclaiming Women’s Stories from the Gospels.” In this episode we speak with Claire about her amazing book, what inspired her to write it, and the importance of women’s stories in the story of Christianity. Claire’s newest book, "In The Beginning Were The Women: Matriarchs, Mystics, Wise Women, and Warriors in the Hebrew Bible", will be available on October 21, 2025. 

You can learn more about Claire’s work o...

It is not worse than we thought—it is exactly what we thought it would be! During our conversation, which felt a bit like our post-election analysis, we examined the first few days of the Trump presidency and discussed how progressive Christians might respond and resist. We also discussed former president Joe Biden’s legacy and what’s going on with TikTok and Meta. 

In this episode, Rev. Dr. Carter mentions creating a Discord server as a way to cultivate community for Progressive Christians to meet, learn, and grow together. Is that something you all might be interes...

In today’s episode we discuss the impact of the LA fires on our community and dissect the conservative conspiracy theories about the origin of the fires and how they have been handled. We then discuss the legacy of President Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist and the first Evangelical president of the United States. We compare and contrast his progressive evangelicalism with what we see in the MAGA movement today. A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was announced while we were recording, and we touched on it briefly and plan to cover it in more detail in the co...

Los Angeles is suffering from a historical fire. Thankfully, Julia, Westley, Rev. Blair, and Dr. Carter are safe, but we are thinking about and actively working on ways to support our local community. If you are interested in supporting, please check out the links below.

In this episode, Rev. Dr. Carter is solo, recording from San Diego, where he and his family have evacuated from the Pallisades and Sunset fires. He discusses the difficulties that lie ahead for their community and what the root causes of the fire really are, and what they are not (hint: it...

Evangelism is a word you rarely hear in progressive Christian spaces. In this episode, we discuss why that is the case (hint: trauma) and what a progressive Christian vision of evangelism could look like.

This episode is part of our Progressive Christianity 101 “What Is” series. At least one episode per month will examine topics from within the Christian tradition from a progressive Christian perspective.

Authors and books we referenced in the episode

Merry Christmas! In this "minisode," the Progressive Christians podcast crew discusses our favorite Christmas traditions. We close the show discussing how grateful we are for each other and for y'all, our amazing listeners.  Our goal is to create a platform for Progressive Christians to discuss topics that are important to us in a way that reflects the radical love that we see in our tradition. It is exciting to see this come to fruition!

And while we celebrate the growth of our community we know that there is much work to be done. The next few years w...