Context Matters

What can the church learn from embracing wine and engaging the vocation of being a vintner? After all, God is often called a vintner throughout the Old and New Testaments. Dr. Gisela Kreglinger-Smith…

What makes people gravitate towards diverse places or towards white places? Is the church being mindful of the narratives they choose to tell? Dr. Leong brings in the ideas of Bob Ekblad who talks of…

From the studies of urban environments to the church's responsibility to engage in reconciliation, Dr. Leong's book Race and Place is a must read. This week we discuss Dr. Leong's history and how it …

How well do we know our history? The stories we tell influence who we perceive to be the primary contributors to the Christian faith. Dr. Vince Bantu does an excellent job convincing us we should be …

Dr. Bantu grew up in a racially segregated St. Louis. His neighborhood was "the hood" (as he says), but he went to school in an affluent area. The church they went to was nearby, but it was over the …

This week we start by addressing a question a listener sent in to Dr. Kalantzis about the Eucharist and Ecclesiology. Then we get into who the early church mothers are and what we lose by not preserv…

The early church theologians were pastors who wrote to address the context of their local congregations. Some of their writings were lost and have been recently rediscovered. What can we know about t…

Join the Patreon powerhouse team at: https://www.patreon.com/cyndiparker

Father Andrew's website with connections to all his books and podcasts is found at: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/asd/

Book on …

Can stages, rock bands, and moving lights usher us into the sacred? Many of you on social media said no, although you recognized your upbringing in such places. Do we value the theological teachings …

Join the Patreon Team! HERE!  

Father Paul Drozdowski's website: https://www.pd-icons.com

David Dry's website: https://www.daviddry.com

Explore the "Jordanville" style icons and maybe get one for yourse…

Join the Patreon Team! HERE!  

Father Paul's website: https://www.pd-icons.com

Join the Patreon Team! HERE!  

Watch a short video on Our Lady of Guadalupe HERE

See Frederica's Website HERE 

Mary as the Early Christians Knew Her book

Join the Patreon Team! HERE!  

See Frederica's Website HERE 

Mary as the Early Christians Knew Her book

Read the Protoevangelion of James HERE

This week I am joined by Mom and Dad Parker, Kendra, Shanna, and Brian as we all look back at the first season of Context Matters. What stories drew us in and which lessons keep us coming back for mo…

Join part 2 in the conversation with Dr. Riedel through the complex history of the early church councils that were responsible for establishing the basic tenets of the Christian faith. The first seve…

What happened to push Christianity from persecution to endorsement by the Roman Empire? This week Dr. Meredith Riedel explains the events that led up to the necessity of convening a church council ma…

How did we end up with the Bible that we read? Dr. Derek Cooper introduces us to the complexity of this sacred text. We think of the Bible as one singular book that was given to the church, but we fo…

We start our conversation discussing how Paul introduced his gentile and God-fearing audience to Jewish scriptures, and how he dealt with the clash between power, status, and identity that was presen…

 As we continue this series that follow the Christian story as it developed in Jewish context and then spreads to a gentile context before severing itself from its original roots, we leave the land o…

We talk about many of Dr. Notley’s works with great scholars. You can find these links below.

The translation of David Flusser’s work: The Sage from Galilee

Anson Rainey and Steven Notley: The Sacred B…