Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1129: Why the Evangelical Church Needs Global Theology: Dr. Stephen Pardue

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Stephen T. Pardue (PhD, Wheaton College) directs the ThM/PhD in Theological Studies and Church History at the Asia Graduate School of Theology and teaches theology at the International Graduate School of Leadership in Manila, Philippines. He is the author of The Mind of Christ: Humility and the Intellect in Early Christian Theology and the co-editor of ten books, including Majority World Theology and Asian Christian Theology. In this conversation, we talk about Steve's latest book: Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

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of Theology in a Raw. My guest, Dr. Steve Pardue received his PhD from Wheaton College, and he currently directs the THM and PhD programs in theological studies and church history at Asia Graduate School of Theology in Manila in the Philippines. He's the author and or editor of several books, including the recently released Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church, which becomes the foundation for our very interesting conversation in this podcast. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Dr. Stephen Perdue. Steve, thanks for tuning in late at night from Manila. Thanks for joining me, man. I'm really excited to talk to you about your new book, Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church.

Before we jump in, though, just give us some background of who you are and how'd you end up in, I guess, academia, but also in the Philippines. Sure. Yeah, I'd love to do that. Thanks so much for having me on the show. It's a delight to be part of what you're doing here in your ministry. So I guess the place to start is to say that I've lived most of my life in the Philippines, but I am an American by passport. And my parents are Americans. They moved to the Philippines when I was two months old to, I guess, what's in Asia, a small town, but was a city of about a million people in the southern Philippines when I was a baby. So they were part of this

growing, well, I guess, a missions movement from the West, but also that intersected and coincided with a booming kind of evangelical flourishing in the Philippines specifically. And that was my kind of introduction to the faith was in these growing and exciting Filipino churches. That was where I was discipled, baptized and came to know Jesus. baptized and came to know Jesus. I was always a curious kid. I think my Sunday school teacher did, I think, try to cast a demon out of me once for asking too many theological questions in Sunday school. But other than that, there was no predictor that theology would be my calling until I went to college, moved back to the US, stumbled into a Greek class that had a lot of openings because it was an 8 a.m. Greek class. And I just fell in love with that

discipline. So it really started in biblical studies for me and took as much of that as I could at Wheaton. And then that led me into the world of theology because I was asking questions that were bigger than what I could usually do in an exodus class. So I wanted to think about how does tradition inform this, how does culture inform how we read not only one text, but a bunch of texts altogether. And so that led me ultimately to do a PhD in together. And so that led me ultimately to do a PhD in systematic theology. And then at the same time, the Lord orchestrated it for us to move back here about 11 years ago. So I had about a 10-year stretch that I lived in the United States. But other than that, this is home. Did you study under Van Hooser? Was he at Wheaton at that time? He was, uh, yeah, my years there, uh, providentially, uh, coincided with his,

which was great. He was only there for, I think three years and I was there for four years and we had the same, pretty much the same. I helped move his books over. Um, and so that was a delight. My supervisor was Dan Trier, um, who's a Van Hooser protege, I guess. And I loved my studies there. Would have stayed, done another PhD if they had let me. It was a lot of fun. Well, that program, the PhD at Wheaton, is very rigorous, right? I mean, I remember when I think I was in seminary when they just first started the program.

And I remember hearing stories of how just rigorous it was. Was it a grind? It was challenging. Yeah, no, definitely stretched me and, you know, brought me to the edge of my abilities in many ways. But delightful. I mean, the way it's structured so that you're in a cohort with people from kind of other disciplines that you're all but you're all working closely and having lunch together and things like that. That was an extremely rich and just fertile environment to learn for three or four years. So when were you there? That was 2008 through 2012.

Okay. Ryan Peterson wasn't there, was he? No, he had. Yeah, he was. He was. He was a few years ahead of me. Okay. So he actually taught one of my MA classes and he was one of the people who helped encourage

me to go on to do a PhD. Oh, really? Yeah. I get to credit or blame him for that. But yeah, then we did end up overlapping in the PhD program for a couple of years. Okay. We were colleagues at Cedarville University. We both came in at the same time.

Good dude. Brian's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He was on the podcast, oh, maybe a year ago or something. So what led you? So this book, Why Evangelical Theology Needs the Global Church. I mean, the title alone. So what led you, so this book, uh, why evangelical theology needs the global church? I mean the title alone. So I just, just to let you know, I, you know, I, I get, uh,

publicists send me lots of requests, you know, pretty much every day. Like, you know, Hey, do you want to have this person on this person on? And, and, uh, um, most of them, I just either, um, I'm not at the moment have time to read the book or I'm just not interested. It might be a great topic. I just personally, you know, but then then this one up and it's usually like a five second like uh no you know and this is like right away i was like oh wait oh no no this is something i'm very interested in we're talking offline years ago i read uh phil jenkins uh the the next christendom yeah it blew it what blew my mind but it also confirmed a lot of things in my mind. His whole idea has been like, gosh, 15 years maybe or 10 years since I read it. Just the growth of global Christianity is far outpacing anything in the West.

I think he even has a line like, by the 2050, the number of like white Christians, white Western Christians won't be non-existent, but it'll just be so small. He goes to like 20% of the global church will be like white Christians to where it won't be like, oh, I didn't know they exist. But like, oh, wow, that's unusual. Kind of like how white Christians think of like everybody else, you know, like they might meet somebody from like India and like, oh, you, that's unusual. Kind of like how white Christians think of everybody else. They might meet somebody from India and like, oh, you're a Christian. You're not Hindu, even though there's millions of Christians. I still remember some of these stats. For every

two missionaries going into Nigeria, five are coming out of Nigeria, are being sent from Nigeria, many of them to america i mean all kinds of stats the the top like 50 biggest churches in the world are not in the united states or um yeah so anyway it's just like wow and actually for me it got me really excited because you know i have been to many other countries i just love love love experiencing and learning from other cultures it's taken me i'm still on a journey i think every western person is on just decolonizing your own thinking you know like it's just it's just fascinating how deeply entrenched our ethnocentrism is you know there's like that top layer that gets

pulled off really quickly and then you realize like an onion, there's so many just things are embedded in you. Anyway, all that to say, I was very fascinated to read your book and I've began it. I didn't get very far before the interview, but I'm, it's, so you're taking more of a, I mean, like Jenkins is looking at kind of the historical phenomenon of Christianity, but you're looking at, you know looking at the need for theological discipleship. I don't think you use that word, but for us to be more just in tune with global theology. I'll toss it over to you since you wrote it. Tell us a bit about the book and what led you to wanting to write it. Yeah, no, that's great. And actually, I would say your experience is probably similar to a lot of us, where the

that Philip Jenkins book, which I think, yeah, about 20 years ago, was sort of the first glimpse of like, oh, my goodness, this really interesting thing is happening. And then if you're like me, it's like, then suddenly, about five or 10 years later, it's like it's it's all anyone's talking about. Right. Because it is like the big story of the 20th century, especially that, you know, from 1910 to 2010, the major shift in the center of gravity of Christianity. And there are all kinds of ways to slice and dice the numbers. But, you know, the bottom line is far more Christians now live in Latin America and Asia and Africa than in North America and Europe. You know, it's not even close. And that was not what someone would have expected 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. And the trends are all, the lines are all sort of continuing, right?

And the trends are all, the lines are all sort of continuing, right? An increase in those majority world continents and a decrease in Europe and North America, or at best, a holding steady. So that's all super interesting. And yes, Philip Jenkins is, you know, I think he's a sociologist and historian, you know, kind of journalistic historian type. And he did a great job kind of helping us all to see that. The question it raises for me or that it raised for me as I was doing a PhD in systematic theology, I knew I wanted to go back to Asia somewhere and ultimately landed back in the Philippines. And just raising this question like, okay, what does this mean for us in the field of theology? And just raising this question, like, OK, what does this mean for us in the field of theology? Because if you looked at what we had, the books that were on the market, the books that were being used, even in those Asian seminaries that I was looking at teaching at, they were nearly universally still the same books that were being used in North American schools, often a little, a few years behind, right? They were going for whatever was cheap and easily available and really what people liked and trusted. When I started teaching, I actually first taught a class at Wheaton of, full of, you know, bright eyed undergrads who

were kind of curious about Christian, you know, it was an introduction to Christian thought class. And I would kind of mention now and then, like, you know, if you really want to see where Christian theology is going, you should look at majority world theologians and look at their voices. And, you know, to their credit, some of them would say, great, point us to them. And it would, it's actually pretty challenging. So this was back in 2011, right, around then. There were just not very many books on the market that had majority world voices featuring heavily. So you could point them to an article here, a book there. But that sort of led me on this journey. So it started with collaborating with a couple of other scholars to try to get books to the market that actually had majority world voices in them. So we started a book series called the Majority World Theology Series that was published with Erdmann's and then Langham Literature co-published it. it. And that culminated in this book called Majority World Theology. That was really awesome.

I learned a ton. I enjoyed it. And we kind of tried to meet that need in an initial way. However, I think I realized at some point along the line that I had missed a step, because I think those books were getting some reception, people were hearing them and excited if they had tuned in when they read Philip Jenkins, and if they also were convinced that the changing face of Christianity should impact our theological literature. But there was actually a lot of skepticism or even just uncertainty about, will this affect our theological literature? Should it? And that was the question this book tries to answer, is to say, okay, let's talk directly about that. I'm arguing, yes, it should. Not maybe in all of the most dramatic ways that you might initially expect or think, but in

really important ways nonetheless, and that there are evangelical reasons to do that. It's not political correctness. It's not just, you know, yay for diversity. It's actually the gospel itself and the biblical text itself that should drive us to attend to that changing reality of the church today. You do a great job setting up some of the skeptical questions early in the book. You have a quote here. I think this is from an ETS conference or something where somebody raised a question. And this is the quote from the person asking the question, you know, he says, African theology, Asian theology, Latin American theology, aren't these all cultural, aren't all these cultural theologies just relativism?

Why can't we just do pure theology? Or on the previous page, you've got a quote a little more aggressive maybe from, I think it was John MacArthur. Let me see where it was. Oh yeah. The contextualization of the gospel today has infected the church with the spirit of the age. The world now sets the agenda for the church. I mean, he's basically saying this whole idea of contextual theology, looking at theological reflection from different ethnicities, different parts of the globe. All, you know, that all that's just, you know, on the brink of syncretism, if not full on syncretism. So what's your response? I mean, what's your response to that? Like, because, you know, I can see a lot of people

saying, well, I don't think I agree with that, but I don't know how to respond to that. Or maybe some people are like, yeah, those are, I have the same thought. Like, don't we all just read the Bible and like, it's all read the Bible and it's God's truth? And if you do the right kind of exegesis, then you'll get the truth. And there is no Asian truth or African truth or American truth. There's just the truth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, I actually think this is a fantastic question. Most of the time. Sometimes it can be raised, I think, in bad faith. But I think most of the time. Sometimes it can be raised, I think, in bad faith. But I think most of the time it is actually a good faith effort to try to figure out, wait, so what difference does culture

make? Because I think there is, especially in the evangelical tradition, an instinct that theology is a little bit like science. We're trying to make sure we make contact with a thing out there, you know, reality. And we want to make sure we don't just turn the microscope back on ourselves and see, you know, project our own voices, wishes, you know, onto God or onto the scripture. And so evangelicals have this instinct, I guess the best version of it is, we want to see Jesus and not ourselves. And so there is, I think, a healthy question there. And so what I try to walk through is, I think the first thing to realize is Jesus and God, so God himself, when he chooses to reveal himself to us, how does he do it? Well, he does it in and through culture. He doesn't

try to supersede it, try to jump over the boundaries of human language and customs. He does it in like deeply cultural ways, right? So like the book of Genesis, you have, he, you know, appears to Abraham as a smoking pot passing between two, you know, the halves of an animal. It doesn't get more deeply culturally embedded than that. He is choosing to make that connection with his creatures through these cultural modes and tools. And of course, the incarnation is a culmination of that. God himself dwells with us, speaks with an accent, has parochial kind of interests and kinship connections and things like that, which is a little mind-blowing, and it's the scandal of particularity. But all of that to say, if God himself doesn't shy away from engaging us through culture, maybe we should not be so quick to dismiss it as purely an enemy and should be

considerate of, you know, how is this actually maybe part of God's design for how we are supposed to talk about him, worship him, et cetera. So that's sort of the first step in the argument. I've often, you know, I guess pointed out, you know, that while God's, while the truth is, you know, absolute objective, our ability to access that truth is deeply fallible. I'm not saying it's always wrong or usually wrong even, but like it's, you know, we're using human, our human minds to access that objective truth. Um, and so we do have our, you know, various lenses on our, our, our, our, our background, our baggage, the many things we bring to the text as in our attempt to access the truth, which is why we need to put our

individual interpretations in conversation with, with people of different, um, with other, with different backgrounds, you know, um, In fact, I tell people, you know, one of the most dangerous things you can do is just read the Bible by yourself, you know, like, don't put that in conversation with other people that don't look like you, don't act like you, don't speak like you, that, you know, have very different, maybe their own lenses that they're bringing to the text. It doesn't mean theirs is more right than yours. It just means that we need to put these different interpretations in conversation with each other. So, yeah, I mean, just to say, you actually see this unfolding in the New Testament where, right, there could be an

opportunity here for the church, this new people of God that God has, you know, or whatever, renewed, however you want to think about the church in Israel. But this new work that God is doing, you might expect that it will sort of take a turn towards some kind of monoculture, right? So to create some new Israel with its own very distinctive language, culture, customs, right? The same way that Judaism, you know, had this singular cultural identity in certain ways. Although of course, you know, diaspora, all that things, things shift, but instead it turns the total opposite direction. And by God's design, Pentecost is this moment where Babel is not reversed into a sort of everyone now speaks one language.

We're all going to have perfect communication because of that. Instead, it moves in this direction that's kind of surprising in the biblical story, but fitting, which is that the diversity of languages and cultures is maintained, but is perfected. And so there is this opportunity for a multicultural people for the first time, really in the history of humanity, a people from every tribe and tongue really being gathered into one. And then in Revelation 7, you see, even in redemption, even in the glorified state, that diversity persists. People are still worshiping in languages and cultures of their own, even as they unify around the Lamb. So, I think the New Testament just kind of subverts that idea that to be true to God and to speak truly theologically, we have to somehow, you know, get as much distance as we can from culture and do pure theology.

That just isn't a biblical idea. It's actually something that evangelicals inherit from other places. When people say, I've heard this before, and it's now it's hard not to be cynical. So I'll try not to be cynical in the air. But like, oh, African theology, Asian theology, I don't do like white american theology and i'm like no you actually do like it's like the it's like the fish swimming around the pool or the pool is in the pond yeah saying what's all this water stuff i don't know you know never heard of it i mean and you've you've i mean you have the advantage of having experienced deeply both cultures.

Do you feel like sometimes you're trying to describe water to a fish sometimes? I mean, when you hear people say, well, we don't, all you people are doing this kind of contextual theology, but I'm not, I'm just doing pure theology here in, you know, Chicago, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's definitely some of that. I think it's good to, I think it's good to approach that again with a spirit of joyful engagement rather than frustration. And one of the things that actually helps me with that is to see that this is not uniquely actually white American or anything. This is actually true of a lot of people in a lot of places. So I've had in classes here in Manila, where we have students from all over Asia come,

I've had like a Chinese student, I think my third year here, who we had this really interesting exchange throughout the semester where I was sort of helping students try to think through, how does your culture influence your theological perspective? And he was saying, well, it tells me like whatever Chinese culture says, I should do the opposite because to follow Jesus is actually to cast off this old way of life that was oppressive and difficult and terrible for me. And actually, so the more I follow Jesus, I'm becoming more like him and less Chinese, right? And that he, I mean, he articulated it very bluntly. But that instinct is very common for a lot of first generation or second generation Christians around the majority world, because, you know, it makes sense. Right. In some ways, you're escaping from this thing and you're trying to sort of get away from it. Now, in the end, I think I want him over. And in the end, I think what you have to say is actually to become a better follower of Jesus is actually to become a better version of the Chinese person or the Ghanaian person or the whatever. Name your culture, subculture, tribe.

I think that's how Christianity works. It perfects rather than abolishes culture, which is not to say there won't be points. There will be points where it says nope to your culture. But it's easy to do that as a first generation Christian or as someone who is in the dominant cultural position, where you tend to bet that you even have a cultural lens at all. And that is the challenge for most North Americans, I think, in this conversation. Yeah, that's good. I love how graciously, like even, you know, you set up some of these quotes and stuff. And I'm like reading this stuff. I'm like a little bit like oh come on like you know like getting inside the questioner and like ah but your response was so gracious it was very pastoral and thoughtful i

was in fact i even wrote down on page you know you set it up with some of these quotes on page 14 on page 15 you respond to some of these objections and you do such a good job steel manning it like and i even wrote like good job steel man like Like you really like honor the pushback. You even look at, you know, oh yeah, you quote Charles Hodge and others. Oh yeah, you quote three different Western older theologians, Hodge, Lewisbury, Schaeffer, and Carl Henry, who have very different theological conclusions on many things. And yet they're all saying, oh oh we're just doing this scientific you know like two plus two equals four and if you do the right exegesis boom boom boom you'll the right answer will spit out they're all having the same method and coming to radically well quite different theological conclusions so i thought that was yeah yeah no i thought uh i really enjoyed doing that

uh and i i do you know i think this is something you, I think, embody well in this podcast is trying to be gracious, even with views that we were pretty sure are wrong. Yeah. But really trying to get inside them and understand like, okay, why are they wrong? And in this case, yeah, it was, it is really interesting to see these three guys, all of them have this very positivistic view of theology that's like, of course, like, and one of them even calls it like, the theologian is the super scientist. This is the most objective of all the sciences. And yet, using that same method, they all get to really different places where they

would condemn each other. So it tells you there's something else going on there. Man, yeah, it's a, I mean, a lot of it has to do with just our kind of post-enlightenment hermeneutic. I think you could trace it back to Francis Bacon, right? Who had kind of our interpretive methods or whatever. And it just became very scientific. Again, you just add up the... You do your word study, you do your syntax, you do your...

I remember seminary, I mean, it was very, and it wasn't unhelpful. I think there's something like the approach wasn't wrong. I think there was maybe an expected outcome that was maybe a little woodenly naive, you know, but we would do all kinds of just very you know breaking down paul's sentence and and almost just erasing it from any kind of artistic you know any kind of like her you just like you know what i mean like it just became so yeah i felt like i was dissecting a frog or something you know and like yeah and i'm like i don't know it's got to be more even then i was like i don't know is this is, would we do this with like a love letter? Like break it down and, you know, like, I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see really that hunger for truth, for objectivity, right? And I think in the evangelical context, I mean, in the case of Chafer, Hodge, and Henry, in all three cases, they really are striving after some certainty, some stability in the face of this massive social upheaval. Right. Especially, you know, especially the case for Henry. Yeah.

That social upheaval and kind of instability in the world of theology. that social upheaval and kind of instability in the world of theology. And I guess, let me just even put it, you know, steelman it even a little further, which is to say, I actually think like if you go on in the book and you see the overview of how did contextual theology start, you know, really post-Vatican II Roman Catholics start really diving deep into here because of some of the directives in Vatican II. They really sort of lead the way. Mainline Protestants about a decade later in the 70s really start moving strong in this direction.

And evangelicals all this time are like hanging back, hanging back. Now, during this time, we're doing missions like crazy. Translation. Now, during this time, we're doing missions like crazy translation. And in a way, we're kind of we're pioneers in contextualization because we're trying to get the gospel and the Bible into every language. But that's really a one way process. It's like we're trying to get the original text into a place where you understand it, wherever you are as a modern reader. a place where you understand it wherever you are as a modern reader, which, by the way, turned out to be really important. You know, so Laman Sama, this Ghanaian scholar, has pointed out that whether evangelical missionaries realize it or not, that was the most empowering thing they could do for the majority world church.

Because once you have the Bible in your language, you can actually do a lot of the theologizing yourself. You don't have to keep depending on these outside forces. But in the meantime, in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant world, these contextual theologies were developing. And to be honest, they have not always panned out super well. There has been, well, and at least in the sense that most churches on the ground in Africa, Asia, Latin America have largely rejected the contextual theologies that were sort of, that came up out of the academic world in Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant academia. So I think evangelicals have some good reasons. And the reason they'll reject them is that largely those theologies do take a relativistic view of truth.

And they do absolutize culture in a way that makes it definitely kind of authoritative over scripture. Some of them will actually say that explicitly. And whereas the places where the church is growing in the majority world church, they tend to have a really high view of scripture. And so they look at these theologies and they say, well, I see some of my culture there, but I don't see my faith.

I don't see Jesus. I don't see the Bible. So that's where I think evangelicals actually have something unique to give because of our fierce concern to protect the gospel, but also our deep connections with this majority world church. You used the example of liberation theology. I did not know this. We're like on an academic level, you know, these scholars coming out of Latin America, you know, champion liberation theology and you have a pretty brilliant quote here from, um, I forget the author, but he said, while liberation theology opted for the poor, the poor opted for Pentecostalism. That this, that this, you know, academic thing that live up here just never really caught root

among the populace. Uh, that I did not, I did not know that. Um, do you have another example? Yeah, no, I mean, I would say that's the most, uh, that that's the most glaring example, but there are all kinds of them. Um, and yeah, just to explain that a little more. So for, for the listeners, like liberation theology is, uh, you know, originates as this movement that kind of originally does have some alignment with Marxism, but it comes in various forms, like some more Marxist and some not that Marxist at all. But it comes out of this recognition of scriptures, the way they would say it, it's preferential option for the poor, God's preferential option for the poor as revealed

in scripture. And what's interesting there is, yeah, liberation theology is sort of this movement in solidarity with the poor in Latin America originally, but it gets exported to Asia and Africa. In Asia, especially you have kind of permutations of it in most Asian countries. kind of permutations of it in most Asian countries. And yeah, it just is not something that in most of the churches in those nations, people resonate with. And it's because it tends to have, it tends to demote scripture, it tends to have a low view of revelation, and focus almost exclusively on social action. Now, the good news story there is that the evangelical appropriation of that theology that came out of sort of evangelicals in Latin America and this Latin American fraternity, Rene Padilla and others, they actually took that idea and made it more biblical. And it actually has penetrated the global church pretty dramatically. So, at this point, most evangelicals in North America, as well as globally, would acknowledge

that, yeah, the gospel has deep implications for how we use our wealth, how we organize ourselves as a society, and the cause of justice. Actually, for most Christians our age and younger, that's obvious now. But when Padilla and others were making that argument in global evangelical communities, it was super difficult. They got a lot of opposition because people still thought, I don't know about this. This feels like Marxism. But because they pushed through that and because they actually made it more biblical, it actually succeeds and ends up really helping the church read scripture better and be a better presence in their world politically, socially, et cetera. I was going to ask you if there were some more evangelical forms of liberation theology that didn't maybe come with maybe some more liberal theology that's just not going to

land on the global church. So that's – because there are certain things of liberation theology that I'm like, man, this is really helpful. These are blind spots, filling in blind spots that I have on the centr know, the centrality of the Exodus and, you know, yeah, God's, you know, heart for the poor and so on. So holistic mission or integral mission becomes sort of the evangelical version of liberation theology. That's a little simplistic, but that's often the phrase that gets used instead. And, and yeah, you will see, you know, a document in the book, most major Christian organizations now acknowledge that that is an element of scripture and the gospel, which is awesome.

And that's really where, that's actually a perfect example of how when evangelicals join that contextual theology conversation, they can actually bring it to life and make it work in a way that is more effective and more powerful and connects more deeply with the actual church on the ground rather than just the sort of theoretical church of academia. What would you say, this might be, it's not completely unrelated, but it just came to me as you're talking. What would another skeptic might say you know look at kind of global theology and say i don't know isn't it just kind of inundated with word of faith health and wealth you know heart you know is there any like real

gospel here or like or or even you know dim it down a little bit you still have like this wild pentecostalism not not raising your hands in church or believing in sign gifts, but just some of the more crazy stuff. Is this the billions of global Christians around the globe? Is this really the kind of Christianity we want to celebrate? What would you say to... Because Pentecostalism is obviously very um widespread yeah by far the fastest growing and i think yeah at least one of the biggest if not the biggest

evangelical movement um yeah i think that's a good question uh i would say i mean my initial question is if the if the questioner is from north america then i also would want to ask like is north american evangelicalism the thing that we want to like, given some of the travails of the North American evangelical church right now. So I think that, but that actually highlights well, you know, the situation around the globe is similar to how it is in North America, which is yeah. Is there a lot of sick, sick theology out there? Like, yes. And not sick in the good way. Uh, is there a lot of kind of bad health in the, in the evangelical

church? Absolutely. Um, and that applies in, you know, name your country. Um, but, uh, is there also a lot of like really amazing gospel stuff happening? Yes. And overall, it's a good news story. God is genuinely at work. These are genuinely, you know, churches that are seeing lives transformed, communities transformed, and that are lifting high the gospel and the name of Jesus. You know, part of what I try to get across in the book is that there can be an idealizing of the global church that I want to sort of help people move away from.

You know, this is not like, I don't know, this is pretty cringy, but I think in the old days, there was this idea of like the noble savage right this is the the uh the idea that western anthropologists kind of propagated initially as a way to try to help people to be more generous with uh non-western civilizations to say like look how noble they are and how and and, and, and in people like Rousseau, it actually like grows into this full fledged, well, no, this is how we should really be. We should just be, um, you know, people out in pure nature. And that's really where, and actually you go live in anywhere like that and you find, well, no, um, it's like, they have problems too, right? Uh,

they have, uh, you know, divorce and people harming their children and wives. And that's the reality everywhere. So same thing with the global church. It's not monolithic. It's not some dream scenario where if we just listen to these five majority world theologians, then everything will be cool. It's actually really messy, in fact, right? So even within Asia, which is a big continent, but we have all the time

among our colleagues and kind of the evangelical thinkers in this region, strong disagreements about how to understand the gospel, how to apply the gospel, how does the gospel inform the way we interact with ancestors, right? Those are hard arguments and they're not all solved. And so it's not as simple as go to the global church or the Asian church and learn how to solve your problems, enlarge your circle of conversation, broaden your horizons, and you will actually be a much better theologian. You'll be able to do much better work.

And this applies, I think to biblical studies as well, because you're going to see things that you were missing. You're going to recognize you were making hobby horses out of things that actually are not that significant. But maybe just kind of in the generation that you grew up in, in your culture, that really got prioritized. So it has that just leavening and broadening effect, but it's not a magic bullet. Hey friends, I wanted to let you know that for the next week, we have an amazing opportunity

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We'll be announcing winners on November 20th. So get your post up by November 19th at the latest. Again, remember to tag it. Hashtag Exiles24. We're excited to see what you share. So here's a genuine question I have. I've tried to represent like potential pushbacks wherever, but here's one that I have. From my perception, okay, I'll just, let me state it up front and then I'll maybe unpack it a little bit. But like, from my perception, it seems like a

lot of the theology in the global church, as I've experienced it, traveled around, talked to people and so on, seems to be very conservative. And I say that, I do say that in a, almost in an unhealthy way, you know, uh, you, I mean, you know, you know, the work I do in sexuality and one of the biggest problems I've encountered with global church leaders contacting me is like, everything is all about pray the gay away. It's all about ex-gay, you know, the whole idea that somebody can be like attracted to the same sex and still be following Jesus is categorically just rejected in a lot of places, you know, or, or, um, again, in my experience, and maybe my perception is off, but it seems like there is, you know, we, we talk about a lot of, you know, misogyny in the American church. I'm like, go overseas, man.

And there's still some very deeply patriarchal kind of forms of how women are treated, both in the culture and in the church. I mean, stuff that would make your head spin, you know? So is my perception that there is an unhealthy form of theological conservatism that is very widespread in the global church? And should I be concerned about that? Or is that just another one of my colonial kind of like, things I need to, you know, like, maybe they're more right and we're more wrong. You know, maybe I'm absorbed in my Western progressive values more than I realize I have. And I'm sure you, yeah, would love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. And I'm just trying to think about the best way to answer it. I mean, because I think the short answer is it depends. Should you be worried? Maybe. But so I think, yeah, let's start with the, there is an unhealthy way to ask that question, I think, which is, it is kind of a just new version of colonialism that says, well, clearly the West is sort of on this ineluctable path toward, you know, the perfect, whatever, sexual ethic, theological conclusions, et cetera. You know, we've been on this path and we're already up here and you guys are just behind. And so our job is to just sort of let you know, yes, I know you think that, uh, you know, the biblical sexual ethic, uh, still applies today, but actually we've figured

out better. And so please, you know, hear us. Right. Um, like obviously I'm putting that in an intentionally exaggerated condescending way, but honestly, I've heard statements almost. Yeah. Yeah, no, that happens both from the left and the right. Uh, like, so, uh, you know, it happens with much more frequency than you would expect. Um, because people don't realize like, Oh, I'm just doing basically the same thing we did like a hundred, 200 years ago when we were, you know, civilizing civilizing cultures um and it's just you know under another name it's not by force but it is by sort of it is by force of cultural power not by the sword right so that definitely like let's stay away from there uh that that's territory i think we definitely shouldn't go um i think it's fair to ask questions about,

you know, basically, I would say most majority world Christians and theologians don't want to necessarily be the overlords of the evangelical global church. They want to be partners. They just want to be at the same table and to have the same ability, not only to answer the questions, but also to set the agenda. And that is really important because actually there is a way that North American theology and just writers and kind of that. So one of the things I came across as I've been sort of talking about the book is about 10%, 11% of the world's Christians live in North America. But about really like when you look at the market of books, right? What is setting the agenda? Who is setting the agenda? It's like maybe 90% North Americans

who are both writing and buying those books. I think a healthy way to approach that is develop those relationships and ask those questions. Say like, hang on, what about this? Like, have you considered that? That's perfectly legitimate. That's fine. And, you know, the idea of the book is that theology should be an exercise that is characterized by Catholicity, which really does mean a genuine kind of back and forth between the church of all places and also across time. And so, you know, we do it respectfully, we do it kindly, we do it with, you know, where there's especially a history of colonialism, we should do it with a lot of awareness of, am I sort of just perpetuating that? But I think the worst thing we can do is actually freeze up and say, I'm afraid of saying something offensive, so I'm not going to ask or engage at all, which is, I think, far more common in the circles that I've kind of run in to be paralyzed by that, which is a loss, right?

That's a loss for everybody if we're not having those arguments. on or you're afraid to push back that actually is a it it suggests that they don't have the agency or an intelligency to kind of engage in a vigorous conversation it's all it's very the soft paternalism of low expectations i think is the way is there it's like what like in the west like what i think like white more liberal types do that with people of color or with women or whatever. Like, you know, they will never push back. You know, it's like, well, no, that's actually very insulting. You wouldn't ask.

You would with your white friends, you know, ask a hard question or say, I don't know if I buy that. What about this? But if it's somebody who's not white, you don't do that. A footnote to my question is, well, yeah, you know, the global church is very much more conservative because that's imported. Or sorry, exported. That's a result of Western missionary expansion, instilling all these very, you know, conservative values, theological beliefs and everything, dispensationalism and whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah. And so this is, how would you respond to that?

younger, whatever, you know? Um, and so this is, how would you respond to that? Cause I think I can see, and in my experience, I'm just thinking of a few different countries I've been to where, when I talk to Christian leaders, like, yeah, they're reading, you know, Wayne Grudem's system of ideology and they're reading, you know, they're still like, as you pointed out, all the literature and theological education still is very kind of conservative Western. As you pointed out, a lot of the literature and theological education still is very kind of conservative Western. So how would you respond to that? Is this just a result of, you know, Americans exporting their conservative theology? Yeah.

I mean, that's a really good question. And again, I'm going to say, like, it's a little complicated. Unquestionably, there are places where that's happening. And sometimes it's happening. So there's probably a spectrum of like explicit, like where sometimes it's a North American entity, a denominational entity or something else, or just a donor who is saying like, hey, you got to teach this stuff or else the money stops. That happens. And that's there. the money stops that happens uh and that's there um there are also sort of more implicit uh expressions of it that are more like it's not that uncommon i guess for you know a missionary uh entity or like a denominational entity to to just basically send the the message softly

like look this is really the right way to do it, is this exact dispensational chart. And this is what you need to teach. But so that's there. All right. But I would say that isn't a reason to sort of write off all of the majority world churches, theological conservatism. For one thing, there are lots of places, you know, in most places where there's kind of at least a 40, 50 year history of the church, you have indigenous movements, you know, people who have grown up in that church and are reading, thinking, getting educated in a variety of places,

they do have agency and they are kind of choosing ideas and not just adopting ones that were forced upon them. One of the ways you can see this is you see really a huge variety, right? Like you don't see the majority world church again, kind of monolithically moving in one direction, even on social issues where you will see some trends toward conservatism. You'll also see the majority world church sort of arguing for things, even conservative majority world churches, arguing for things that code leftward in the North American context.

Can you give an example? Yeah. So, like, for example, let's think about women in ministry, for example. Lots of these really conservative Pentecostal churches that we were talking about earlier. High view of scripture. High view of scripture, high view of revelation, often a pretty strict kind of doctrinal kind of commitments. Very often in those cases, whether for cultural reasons or other things, there are a lot more open about women in leadership

roles within the church. What are some other examples? I mean, lots of conservative Christians in Asia think it's natural and expected that the church should have some interest in trying to pursue equity within communities, right? Now, in the US right now, especially, that's like- Equity is like an F word. White hot fire on the left side, right? It's like, if you say anything about that, well, you're a socialist. That just doesn't code the same way everywhere in the world. And we shouldn't expect it to. The categories of North American politics haven't dropped out of the sky. They're really actually weird conglomerations of values that have all gotten stuck together, and they

don't stick together the same way elsewhere. I was a few years ago, did some friends in Nepal, and one region is down towards the border. Most people, when they go to Nepal, it's Kathmandu and they don't venture outside. It's extremely hard to travel around Nepal. So like one of the cities we go to, have you been in Nepal? I have not. No, we have a lot of Nepali students at our school. I know. Yeah. They all, they all got the pastors that I know there. A lot of them went to Manila, I think at your school, right? Is that. Oh really? Okay. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Yeah.

Cause you teach it. Is there, is there many different seminaries or is there like, is yours kind of the main? There are a bunch of seminaries here, but we, we have, uh, I know we've had a very strong relationship with the Nepali evangelical church. So it's very, very possible. Yeah. So it's hard to like the drive. I mean, so there, there's this death road from Kathmandu to the South, like the lowlands, like Hototas, one of the main cities we go to. I'm going to say as a crow flies. One time we took a plane and I kid you not, it took like 18 minutes to get from Kathmandu to this place. Driving, it takes six hours. I mean, you're on a road clinging to the side of a mountain that should

only hold one car like there's there's no no business that two cars need and there's like cars passing each other you know two cars whipping around i mean it is you're clipping mirrors you're hanging it's the scariest thing ever done i mean just go go into youtube and like just type in like the death road to hotota uh so so we you know so my uh friends down in hotota so outside of where most westerners go you're you're in the jungle you're you're in traditional like very majority world you know living context and he's like i want you to can you do a youth conference? I'm like, I, I almost want to say, I, you know what, I don't know. Like, I don't know anything about what you're, you guys are dealing with.

I don't, I don't have the experience of contextualizing this. Like I'm not going to do some like, you know, West coast, Hume Lake youth. You know, that's just not, he's like, no, no, we, we want you to address homosexuality, abortion, and sex outside of marriage. Cause these are the issues that all of our youth are asking about. And I mean, we were in this building that wasn't even fully built yet. I mean, out in the middle of nowhere. And I kid you not, there was like 250 youth. They came from these little villages. And I'm like, what is going on? I'm going through

a translator. And then we did a Q&A time. And I kid you not, almost all of the questions that the youth were asking, almost identical to the same kind of questions that younger people in the U.S. are asking. I think the older generation that was there, they were a little nervous because I'm trying to give nuance. And, you know, I know my audience is very, very conservative. So I'm, you know, I'm leaning heavy on conservative rhetoric with homosexuality, but also trying to like, you know, some baby steps, like, you know, I think we should also love gay people and, you know, you know, like, and that was kind of, you know, challenging for some of the older people sitting in, but the youth were like, no, yeah, you know, I have some gay friends and, you know, like, um, so anyway, all that to say, I was, I was just really shocked at, um, well, for one, the generational differences and some

of that's with the internet, right? I mean, they all have smartphones and everything. And so they're very attuned to kind of Western ways of thinking, but, um, but then, yeah, just, just how globalization has just been sped through the internet and how, yes, there's vast differences in some cases, but also some really striking similarities in how people are thinking. Is my experience there? Is that not uncommon? Oh, yeah. No, that's definitely a reality. And you will encounter these really wild scenarios where, yeah, because of the internet and, you know, especially cell data, people in, you know, the most remote tribal places, kids are often growing up with the same pop culture as a kid in Manhattan, right? And, you know, globalization does do these weird things to

all the dynamics that we're talking about here. I think that's really important to see. And I try to handle this, I think, in chapter four, where I talk about the church is actually more diverse than it's ever been. Like literally, the Christian church has never been as culturally just incredibly diverse, right? If the first century or second or third century church, which was already a global church, right? It was already kind of breaking boundaries. If they could see today, they would be like, whoa. And I think they would be, you know, one of the things that should do is

make us conscious, I guess, of how hard this is going to be, you know, moving into the 21st century is like coordinating, you know, a hundred, 500, a thousand cultures, cultures, subcultures, however you do that. That's tough. That's, you need the spirit of God to do that. But globalization is this also this other weird twist to everything, which is that in some ways, especially on the surface, it makes everybody around the world look more and more similar. So like you're saying, often you will have kind of the same questions getting asked. Now, often though, there is still a deeper level on which I bet those Nepali youth are still operating with a worldview that's really different from their North American counterparts that you're used to talking to. That's where actually I think the

majority of world churches is well positioned to answer those deeper questions in a way that outsiders can't. But that's a great example of actually, you know, look, I'm not, I don't want the North American church to stop printing books, you know, just because they're a tiny minority of of the global population. The work they're doing can be helpful and useful. Right. And globalization actually makes it easier to have those conversations. We want those to be two way conversations as much as possible. Right. Rather than just I think the historical model has been we're going we found all these interesting things about the bible about theology etc let us tell you about them um and we want it to be more like can you tell us what what are you seeing uh what what are you finding there

going back to the resources is there a growing body of literature i guess i would have you know produced in english um that is being produced from majority world leaders? Is that because even like 10 years ago, you said there wasn't much. Is that improving? Hardly any. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's improving. It's slow.

It's slow progress. is we now have, you know, since the 70s, there's been kind of just a blossoming of majority world scholars who are doing PhDs or advanced degrees, the kind of degrees that train you to write. And so that there's reaching a critical mass, especially in many, in certain nations that have kind of, have really invested heavily there. Right now, the reality is those people are almost all overworked. Most of them are deans or secondary presidents because they have a PhD. And so that they're getting put into these leadership roles and not able to, you know, they don't have sabbaticals and they don't have research leave and centers and things like that. And then there's also this problem of the market has to actually adjust to the reality, right? Right now, it's still mostly, I think,

North Americans driving what books get published because they're the main buyers. How do you get, that's my question. It's like, there's a system here where you have a certain consumer base that's consuming a certain series of authors and it's just, it's a machine that just goes round and around. I don't know how, I'm not an economist. I don't know. I mean, this is outside of my pay grade, but I'm like, I don't know how this will ever change really. Yeah.

great but i'm like i don't know how this will ever change really like yeah i mean i think i think uh it it is changing uh even now and i'm aware of a lot of publishing houses are actually even just from an economic incentive perspective saying how do we capture as much of that you know that's a much bigger market ultimately than the north american one um so how do we get there if i would encourage you and all of your listeners to go to Langham literature, just Google that. So Langham is, you know, the foundation that was started by John Stott, and kind of carries on his his legacy. And they have this amazing literature arm that really is doing amazing work. And basically,'re willing to lose money and they have the network already there. So they can sell books in the majority world and they know the authors

because in many cases they, they provided scholarships to a lot of these people who they're, they're one of the major kind of supporters of majority world theology, theological education incredible incredible work happening there and i would say you know go go to their website regularly and just browse their catalog and buy some of their stuff because uh that is where you'll find the i would say the freshest emerging evangelical voices okay Okay. So, and over time, the bigger presses are going to get a hold of it as well. But Langham is really leading the way and it's exciting.

I had another experience. We're talking offline. So I'll just start from the beginning with my audience. Another experience that was a little shocking to me. I was in Lusaka, Zambia, you know, visiting. Oh yeah, we're exploring actually, considering moving there. This was years ago.

This was 10, 15 years ago. Heard about a seminary that was starting there. Had some friends that had been there. So we're like, yeah, let's go check it out. And so went and kind of hung out with a lot of African leaders there. Really neat stuff going on there with the gospel. And I was shocked. One, there was a stark poverty disparity there where the city was remarkably wealthy. You're driving

around Lusaka and you're seeing tons of, not just one or two Mercedes, but like, I mean, busy traffic on the roads, lots of, you know, but then you go on the outskirts and it's just people living in huts. And so really start, I mean, I was expecting disparity, but I didn't, I didn't expect to see so much middle to upper to wealthy classes there. Like not just a few people up on the hill, but it was pretty widespread, you know? And then I show up at church and it's like, yeah, everybody's pulling up and they're, you know, really nice cars. The church building just beautiful and very Western looking. The preaching was very, felt very American. But even beyond that, there was this like community of like John Owen reading, John Piper listening, Reformed people who even talk, you know, very, very, their lingo.

who even talk, you know, very, very, their lingo. I mean, if I closed my eyes, I would think I was in like a young, restless reform, you know, Acts 29, maybe not, you know, but like, like that kind of like very, you know, like reading, I'm there reading like Charles Hodge and all these dead, you know, Dutch theologians like, well, we're, you know, you open your eyes and like, you know, I'm in Africa, but like, what, what happened? How did this get here? Um, and, but I, so I was describing this to you offline and you said that that's not actually

that unusual that, that the kind of, there's like a young restless reform movement kind of buddied up all across the globe. Is that, can you explain that a little bit? How did that happen? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it is, uh, you described it exactly right. There's the, and this is true in many, many places.

So Alexander Chao has done really interesting work documenting this in the underground church in China, this real interest in reform theology and like the, and the deep stuff, like the deep cuts, not, not just the, the kind of stuff everybody talks about. It is, no, it's a phenomenon. It's real. I think, again, you know, like we talked about before, there can be an instinct that says like, oh, this is not legitimately African or Chinese or Filipino, right? That I think I want to really encourage everybody to like, well, take a step back. Think about this. These are people who are like not, they're not unintelligent.

Very intelligent. I was blown away at how we were talking super lapsarianism. We were talking, we were the same kind of very sophisticated seminary. I was with people that weren't even like in seminary, but they're literally reading John Owen. And like, I'm like, oh my word. Yep. So they have found these and they think that they're treasures and they're ready to dive in and use them and make them sort of come to new life and new expression in the African, Chinese, Filipino, wherever church. And that's I think we should look at that and be excited, even if you're not into reformed theology.

Like, because what it means is that's Catholicity at work. That's one part of the church that is far flung, but finding sort of life and gifts, kind of treasures from another part of the church. And that actually tends to make for healthy cross-fertilization and healthy dialogue, right? So I'm generally, you know, I'm happy to see people thinking deeply about the things of God, wherever they are, using whatever tools they find useful. Now, as much as possible, I think we do want the majority world church to keep on bringing those things to new life and new expression and finding new ways forward. In other words, theology isn't always supposed to just be pure repetition. It's supposed to be kind of trying to

meet the moment and the culture at the present with this deep and abiding truth of scripture and the gospel. So there is always new work to do, even if you find that old work really helpful. I had a super fun time earlier this year. I taught a module on Augustine called Reading Augustine in Asia. This was a super interesting, so I had been wanting to do this for a while, and I finally got to do it with students from around the region. And, you know, it's fascinating how many of them found in Augustine, you know, a friendly dialogue partner. And, you know, you think of, you know, now Augustine was African, by the way, right? But you do think of it, he's also a keystone in the Western tradition. No question. And he's bringing, you know, all kinds of assumptions that we don't

share today in, let's say, the Philippines or China today. However, a lot of his world was very similar to the world today in the majority world. In terms of he was living in a world where the spirit world was still very real, as opposed to the secular world where it's only in horror movies that the spirit world gets discussed, where governments were not that effective. And so the church has to figure out how do you step in sometimes and have to act kind of like a government even when you're not? There was, you know, issues of family shame and honor that Augustine is dealing with for himself as well as those in his church. And so actually, I think that's one of the other things is when the majority world church takes up these old resources, they find stuff that the Western church has been ignoring and haven't. You know, you don't see a lot of Augustan scholarship that's focused on those issues. And so they're, they're using it in

fresh ways and seeing it with fresh eyes. Oh, that's helpful. Yeah. So it would be not accurate or it might, might be subtle neocolonialism for, for me to kind of look and say, this just feels very exported. Like this just feels like, uh, this doesn't feel genuinely African. It was my first. And like, but I even had, I'm like, wait a minute, that, that even then this is yeah. 15, 10, 15 years ago, I was like, I don't know. Like, isn't that kind of dehumanizing to not trust their minds to like sort through what is a accurate interpretation or reflection of scripture and what is simply adopting a Western, you know, like that just isn't subtly insulting to the intelligence of people to just say, oh, this is just exported as if they don't have the brainpower to be able to

sort through what is, you know, just Western theology versus, you know, a sound interpretation of scripture. So. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, nothing wrong with asking a question, especially in the context of relationship to say like to your your to your African brother, like, is this meeting the needs of your community? Like, do you feel like it's connecting? I think that's a great question to ask. And even to say like, hey, I have doubts. I have worries. Again, in the context of relationship, that's that's awesome. That's awesome. And I think we need each other in that way, in the same way that hopefully they feel ready to ask you, hey, so all that Bart you're reading, is that working well for you? Et cetera, right? Just saying, for example. Yeah. All right. I have one more question that's a non-theological question. So I have um love for uh tropical islands and i've

i've googled around i've so i've been to um well i've been to tahiti a couple islands there in samoa yeah and uh zanzibar was probably my favorite oh my gosh um yeah absolutely beautiful um and i've googled around i've seen some pretty stunning islands in the philippines okay so do you have any um but i i don't like going to like tourist or like people you know places where everybody like actually during covid i'd book plan this trip to kosamui outside of thailand and um but then i was like it just feels it does feel very touristy i'm like i i want the beauty i want the white sand beaches i want the palm trees um but i i don't want it to be a tourist

trap is there anything like that in the philippines it's kind of less discovered well we've got 7 000 islands pressed ones so uh we can definitely find some for you uh that are literally uninhabited you know just go hang out yeah no um there there are definitely places that are still a little more undiscovered actually more so here than a lot of other places uh the tourism i mean tourism is a big thing for us but given what we have it's not nearly as big as it could be yet. Uh, so there are a lot of, I, I, I read all the time that like, we get ratings all the time of like, this is where to go for the, the next undiscovered place. Um, so I can, I can look around and give you some specific island recommendations that the Western part of the country is probably an ideal place for that.

part of the country is probably an ideal place for that. It used to have pirates and kidnappings and not so much of that anymore. So it's maybe just the right time. That's all part of the experience that I'm looking for though. That's part of it. Yeah, that's right. Do you have surfing probably on the East coast, right? Yeah, surfing is on the East coast mostly. And then a little bit on the West up North, but yeah, Belair is this famous surfing town. I think actually the, the movie apocalypse apocalypse

now was shot there. Belair. How do you spell it? B-A-L-E-R. And there's definitely, uh, it's still a pretty, and there's another place called Siargao, S-I-A-R-G-A-O, that's also super popular with surfers. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to be shopping. Come on over, man.

Yeah. We would love to have – really, we would love to have you. We'll put you to work a little bit, and then you can go enjoy some of those 7,000 islands. I would be all all up for that you know i try travel a lot to speak so i just rack up sky miles so like usually like once a year you know i can go travel anywhere in the world for free basically you know you pay you pay a little fee if you do sky miles so yeah right right right yeah yeah yeah well man it's been i mean i've been dying i've literally for the last few years and we gotta get to the

philippines man so i've actually thought, we got to get to the Philippines, man. So I've actually thought about reaching out to you to invite you to stuff actually, you know, now that we have a connection, I can, I can do that. Yeah. I would love to. I would absolutely love to. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Great. Well, then we'll work on it. Well, thanks so much, Steve, for being on the show. This is a, I could, I could keep talking to you for hours. This is again, a topic that I think just opened up so many other questions and doors. So excited to continue to

read your book and yeah, many blessings on your life and ministry. Thank you so much. It's been a delight. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.