Nomad Podcast

We recently attended the Creature Conference, put on by Sarx. We spent the day pondering the question ‘Is Christianity Good News for Animals?’ Animal welfare used to be seen as an important expression of the gospel for leaders such as Spurgeon, Wesley, C. S. Lewis and many others. But more recently it seems to have dropped […]

We thought it was about time we had a fresh look at the central symbol of our faith, the cross. So we headed off to Tom Wright’s house to asked him how the cross launched Jesus’s revolution, and why after 2000 year does it often look like the revolution is struggling to transform the world. […]

For those of us who have been through some kind of faith deconstruction, spiritual practices often take on a new significance, as we seek to connect with God without what often feels like restrictive doctrinal and organisational frameworks. Scottish theologian and activist Alastair McIntosh recently wrote Poacher’s Pilgrimage about a soulful journey he took across the Islands of the […]

We’ve been wanting to do an episode on money for a while now, so when the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby put pen to paper and wrote his first book – Dethroning Mammon– all about the dangers of money, we seized upon the opportunity and headed off for Lambeth Palace. We asked the Archbishop what his life experience has taught him […]

In both Liverpool and Bradford, Barbara Glasson has drawn together communities that have provided safe, honest, authentic spaces for the poor, marginalised, disillusioned, and people from other faiths and none. As well as being a spiritual home for these people, she believes they have an important message for the mainstream church. So we ask Barbara how she […]

Priest, poet and feminist theologian, Rachel Mann is a trans-woman. From an early age she had a profound sense that her body didn’t reflect her gender. After a long, frustrating and painful journey she emerged into the woman she is today. We ask Rachel to look back over this transition and reflect on what it means to […]

What are 21st Century educated, questioning Christians supposed to make of the Devil and evil spirits? Are they literal spiritual beings who spend their time trying to lure us into sinful acts? Or should we see them as metaphors for social injustices that we need to confront? We ask professor of psychology, author and blogger Richard Beck. Interview begins at 6m […]

Sally Smith joins us for the third part of our series on the migrant crisis. In this episode we hear about the fascinating and inspiring story that emerged when Sally opened the doors of her dying church to asylum seekers and refugees. She’s seen large numbers come to faith, she’s reunited mothers with their children, […]

Our regular listeners will remember our Welcome the Stranger refugee special where we looked at the crisis through the eyes of a Syrian refugee and a refugee charity worker. The aim was to raise awareness and money through the sale of David Benjamin Blower‘s album Welcome the Stranger. On this week’s podcast, we’re looking at the crisis through the eyes of […]

Gungor – a multi-grammy nominated Christian band – were the toast of the evangelical worship scene. That is until it became clear that Michael was having significant doubts about his faith. This did not go down well among evangelicals, to say the least. So we talk with Michael and his wife Lisa about the impact this […]

Brian McLaren has a knack for articulating what many of us are feeling. For a decade he has been the voice of those Christians who are concerned about, for example, the Church’s overemphasis on doctrinal belief, its lack of inclusivity, and its lack of concern for the many global issues we are facing. In his latest book – The […]

Mark Yaconelli is – among many other things – a storyteller. Such is his belief in the power of stories that he founded The Hearth, a gathering of local people who simply share their own stories. Mark has seen this simple gathering profoundly impact his local community. So we ask Mark why it is that stories can […]

Kester Brewin was founder of one the UK’s most creative and innovative alternative worship communities, Vaux. He went onto write The Complex Christ, a critically acclaimed book calling for an emerging Church. But over the following years he began to realise that Christianity was just another means of trying to escape his childhood pain. Tune into the […]

Christianity can be quite a disembodied faith. Muslim’s have prayer positions, Hindu’s have yoga, Buddhists have Tai-Chi, whereas Christians tend to pray with little more than a bowed head. We ask theologian Paula Gooder why Christians have separated the spiritual from the physical, and what damage this has done for the faith. And we ask how our […]

Mindfulness has exploded in popularity over recent years, with seemingly every other community centre, school, health service and therapist offering it. But what benefit, if any, does it offer the follower of Jesus? Author, speaker and retreat leader, Brian Draper, believes it has a vital role in Christian spirituality, but only as a doorway to something […]

With the dust just beginning to settle after Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, we thought we’d take the opportunity to look at our relationship with politics. Was Jesus political? Should Christians engage in party politics, or should they be a prophetic voice from the margins? We bring these, and many other questions to political […]

Is faith based purely on belief, and a strong faith holding to those beliefs with certainty? If so, what happens when our beliefs evolve and shift? Prof. Peter Enns  believes that we’ve misunderstood the nature of faith, and it is actually trust rather than certainty that lays at it’s heart. And it is this trust that can […]

The question ‘who is God?’ used to be the starting point for religious reflection, but increasingly spiritual seekers are concerning themselves with the question ‘where is God?’. We ask historian, religious commentator and author Diana Butler Bass about her faith journey and how her shift from a vertical to a horizontal theology dramatically reshaped her faith […]

Why in our multicultural society is the Church still predominantly led by, and our theology predominantly written by, white men? We head to Birmingham to meet up with one of the UK’s leading black theologians, Anthony Reddie. We ask him if the Church is racist and if so what we can do about it? And, what difference […]

We have a humanitarian disaster unfolding on our doorstep. Many of us feel frustrated at our government’s half-hearted response, yet we feel overwhelmed and powerless to do anything ourselves. In this episode we hear the story of Adel Hamad, a Syrian refugee who made the trip to the UK. We then hear from Naomi Jemmett, […]