About Theology on the Way (Why Subscribe?)

Mapping the Road Ahead

Hopes and Dreams

I've thought about starting a podcast for a long time. I started paying close attention to the podcast phenomenon in 2015. I became a fan and follower of numerous shows, but more, I became a student of the medium. I watched and listened with an eye trained especially on the strange fact that long, complex, technical conversations were garnering massive audiences.

How could this be? I was told my entire adult life that the average person doesn't have the attention span for more than twenty minutes of thought-provoking content. Stories, maybe, but not weedy discussions of ideas. Of course, sermons are the point of reference in my world, but the rise of the TED Talk seemed to confirm the truism broadly. Yes, there are exceptions. Tim Keller's famously lengthy, teaching-centered sermons come to mind. But when I made this point a few years ago, a friend responded, "Sure, but you're not Tim Keller." Too true.

Then there is the issue of the level of discourse that so-called regular people will tolerate. Americans, at least, despite elitism in any form, and educational elitism is arguably at the top of the list. Many people seem to be put off by technical vocabulary and conceptual complexity when the topic is something they feel they should be able to understand without those challenges. A hallmark of good communication, then, is supposed to be simplification. Make ideas nontechnical and easily digestible, and you can have an audience.

I've never understood this rule. Every experience of education from grade school on involves learning new words for new things and thinking through increasingly complex ideas. Every job has technical jargon, which people learn readily enough, even in fields that are not their own. Every innovation generates new terminology and new paradigms, which people incorporate with astonishing speed and utility. Every person ponders difficult ideas by integrating a multitude of thoughts and experiences.

Highly technical discussions obviously present barriers to entry, and without the lash of, say, earning a good grade, many people will opt out of the requisite work. Conventional publishing is an easy example. Technical works will never garner the readership of "popular" treatments. By the same token, popular treatments will never offer the same depth of understanding as technical works. The fundamental issue is what people feel they need to understand. To object to readers' judgments on this question is futile.

So why have (some) podcasts disproven the rule? Why can they venture into discussions with experts who speak in lofty terms that thousands upon thousands of listeners happily endure? Why are so many listeners willing to Google new words and re-listen to complex claims? Why do long-form discussions overcome the supposedly short attention spans of these "regular" consumers?

I'm asking this question as a theologian who is often perplexed by the mismatch of conventional wisdom and reality. If regular church people are unwilling or unable to engage with complex theological ideas developed over the course of two thousand years, what is to be done? Pretending that the church's theology is really not that difficult; that reading the Bible is a straight, easy path to understanding; or that the inventions of theologians are unnecessary embellishments on the simple truth of the faith is, in a word, delusional.

By the way, I reject the notion that this is all really about bad teaching practices, as though church folks have always been willing to delve the depths of Christian theology if only preachers and teachers were better at talking about difficult ideas. Obscure language and inadequate explanation are possible failings, alongside many others, but they're not the issue at hand. The question is, why can podcasts do what sermons and Bible classes have not? Why can they breach the barrier between theological depth and listeners' engagement?

In my estimation, there are two essential answers. The first is that the most successful podcasts that deal with ideas do so in a conversational format. The second is that authenticity is the product. A word about each.

I love conversation about ideas. It may be my favorite thing. So I'm making this diagnosis with a clear bias. But I think I'm onto something anyway. Podcasts that do conversation well can get away with a tremendous level of complexity. Listeners are willing to wade through challenging ideas because conversation formats ideas in the most innate mode of human speech. For reasons I do not fully understand—and I would happily listen to an expert explain the phenomenon in a podcast conversation!—the experience of eavesdropping on a technical discussion is seemingly more accessible and less threatening than any other medium of content delivery.

But a caveat is necessary: doing conversation well is a function of authenticity. It has to be a real conversation. Participants have to engage sincerely. Actual dialogue has to ensue. The difference between an interview podcast and a conversation podcast is categorical. That is no small feat because authenticity is rare enough in any human interaction. Add mics and cameras, and the chances are diminishingly small. But when it happens, the product is intoxicating. Whatever the topic, however difficult it may be to come to an understanding, if authenticity results from the conversation, people will pay attention.

My hopes and dreams, therefore, have to do with the potential of this new medium for theological education. That is a term too often reserved for the seminary or the university. Theological education is for the whole church. It’s the essence of every sermon and Bible class. So Theology on the Way is aiming at authentic conversations that can form listeners theologically. For me, there are important qualifiers to add. Theology is a journey of formation. This journey is missional in nature. Missional participation gives rise to vital conversations about God, world, and church. Scriptural interpretation and missional participation exist in a symbiotic relationship. But the essence of the endeavor is this: authentic conversations for theological formation.

The podcast is the centerpiece of Theology on the Way. Nonetheless, writing is an indelible component of my approach to theological education. As many authors can attest, writing is a process of discovery through which writers work out their thoughts. Conversation is too, but writing is a unique means of distillation and articulation. It affords opportunities that a podcast cannot. The rest of the Theology on the Way Substack is, therefore, a critical part of the work I am undertaking in the hope of fostering formative theological conversations.

Fear and Trembling

I'm seriously excited to launch the podcast and the Substack, but I do so with trepidation. These feelings are quite personal, but I want to share them.

When I communicated with a circle of close friends about whether to begin this journey, I put it this way:

I have written and published for many years as a casual blogger, a serious thinker, and lately a bona fide scholar. I've written about what I thought, what I cared about, and what I wanted to say. I've written in the way I felt like writing, sometimes tritely, sometimes formally, sometimes readably, sometimes ponderously, but never with an interest in garnering a consistent audience, much less pursuing an agenda like the one I have in mind now. I have never focused my efforts through the question of what I might offer as a theological educator. That is about to change.

For me, theological education is a matter of vocation. The long journey of my own formal education has been passionate and joyful. When I started down that road, I didn't realize where it would lead, but somewhere along the way it became clear that I am called to teach. As I learned to play the game of scholarship, I fell in love with the rigor and challenge of pursuing understanding. At the same time, as my capacity to write in an academic idiom increased, I felt less capable of translating my work into writing that was interesting or even very readable for a broader audience. Apart from writing sermons, my attempts to do so became scarce.

In part, the way my mind naturally works out ideas and the kind of thoroughgoing argumentation that justifies scholarly claims fit hand-in-glove. It has always been challenging for me to find the most economical way to explain something because it always seems better to marshal as much insight as possible. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur has a famous saying: "Explain more in order to understand better." Not for nothing, he has become my undisputed favorite interpretation theorist.

In part, I'm frequently in an argument with myself about whether what I find interesting is really of interest to others—or should be—and whether making that case is itself the nature of popular writing. Should I just talk about what excites me and let an audience coalesce around shared interest, or should I seek to tailor my work for the audience that I'm always implicitly talking to (the church!), accepting that they're only going to engage on their own terms?

And in part, I just prefer a style of writing (and conversation, for that matter) that isn't for everyone—maybe for most. I like long sentences and dense paragraphs. I like an author to work an idea all the way through. I like recursive, interweaving lines of argumentation that culminate in a tapestry of insight. This mode of discourse is natural for me, and adopting a different style requires the kind of self-editing that results in a feeling of, well, inauthenticity.

All that to say, there are plenty of insecurities accompanying this launch. Nothing novel there. But you can rightly expect that much of the work ahead is about finding a voice and an audience. This too is a process of discovery along the way. Fearful I may be, but I'm committed to the journey.

What Paid Subscription Is For

Theology on the Way represents a shift from blogging as an occasional hobby to producing content consistently and at a much higher volume. This is, in other words, the beginning of a small business that must turn a profit to be sustainable. I work part-time in local ministry, and I teach some as an adjunct seminary instructor, but Theology on the Way is meant to be a means of turning what I have to offer as a theologian and writer into the balance of an adequate income. My ambition is to gain the financial freedom to produce as much outstanding content as possible.

The podcast will eventually produce various streams of ad revenue, but the core of my business plan is to "sell" subscriptions. Substack is the cutting edge of independent online publishing. It provides the option to put select content behind a paywall while making other content free for everyone. In other words, paid subscribers have special access to premium content, but they are also supporting the entire endeavor.

So what do I have to offer? Why should you pay for a subscription?

1. On Mondays (beginning next week), I'll publish limited-access essays on a range of topics. These will be pieces that require more work and offer a greater depth of analysis or explanation than open-access essays. For example, the first essay, "Reading Reading While Black While White" will digest and critique Esau McCaulley's important book on African American biblical interpretation. In addition to timely book reviews, the lineup includes "for everyone"-style explainer articles on theological methods (missional theology, theological interpretation) and particular doctrines (participation in God, Zionism), interpretive essays on biblical texts, previews of my print publications, and reflections on the process of theological work.

2. On Wednesdays, a new podcast episode will drop. Eventually, I will add limited-access episodes.

3. On Fridays, I'll publish open-access essays in a more editorial style. The current series "Is Silence Violence? Or, Knowing When (Not) to Shut Up" is indicative. I'll ruminate on more culturally "live" issues, address interesting questions that arise from podcast episodes, and generally attempt to offer theologically well-formed opinions on matters of interest to a broad readership.

In the most consumerist sense, paying for a subscription is about getting the premium content. I aim to make that more than worth the investment. But I hope that readers will be happy to support the work as a whole. If that happens—if I get the chance to open the throttle instead of seeking some other gainful employment—then I will seize the opportunity to create useful resources and facilitate meaningful conversations with deep gratitude and a sense of serious responsibility. I do not take for granted a single dollar of support, and I can hardly express my desire to put the gifts I've been given to work for as many as they might benefit.