Maya Angelou once said, “”History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

The discipline of reading and studying history is not to make us feel good. It’s to instruct us so we don’t repeat the same mistakes.

One of the greatest living historians of American Christianity is Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Her book Jesus And John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation explores how American evangelicalism embraced militant masculinity and Christian nationalism. It was released in 2020 and was a worldwide bestseller. It’s not an easy book to ready, but helps to make sense of so much what we’re seeing in America today.

Her new book Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made is another tour de force. It’s a sweeping history about Christian women, but it’s not only for women to read. We break it down in this interview and talk about 19th century holiness evangelicalism, the widespread influence of Hannah Whitall Smith and her book “A Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life”, the marketing machine of American religion, influential women artists in Christian music, why it’s impossible to be apolitical, and why we need to pay attention to stories of spiritual abuse.

Historians are not our enemies, even if they tell us what we don’t want to hear. Be prepared to be surprised, infuriated, challenged, and motivated to work towards a healthier church.

Topics Covered:

• The surprising success of Jesus And John Wayne
• What the critics of J&JW are saying
• Why critiquing evangelical culture is so challenging
• Why Kristin was talking about Doug Wilson before he was national news
• The origins of Live Laugh Love
• Hannah Whitall Smith and her influence on Christian women’s culture
• 19th century holiness evangelicalism and it’s influence today
• The marketing machine of American religion
• Why it’s impossible to be apolitical
• Why what is marketed as biblical is not always biblical
• The fascinating and tragic story of Elizabeth Elliot

Resources Mentioned:

• Show Sponsor: Dwell Bible App
• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Live Laugh Love by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
• Jesus And John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
• All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner

Show Sponsor #1: Dwell Bible

This episode is brought to you by the Dwell Bible app. Did you have big plans to listen to the Bible in a Year in 2026, but life seemed to get in the way? 

Maybe it’s been a few years since you worked through a Bible listening plan, and now you’re feeling the itch to dive back in. Or perhaps this is your first time hearing about a Bible listening plan.

Wherever you find yourself today, Dwell has something special just for you!

Beginning October 1, you can dive into the New Testament in just three months! It’s the perfect way to get back on track or start fresh, by listening to the Bible! It’s never been more easy to fit a Bible plan into your active lifestyle.

You can choose from multiple NT in 90 Day plans like:

• The Genre Plan – which groups books by their theme, taking you through the Gospels, Epistles, and Prophecy in a way that highlights their connections and differences
• The Historical Plan – which takes you through the New Testament as it was likely written, offering a unique historical perspective
• The Straight Thru Plan – which takes you through the traditional order, from the life of Jesus through the growth of the early church

And remember, with Dwell, you’re not just listening—you’re experiencing the Bible. You can choose from a variety of amazing voices, set the perfect background music, and even adjust the speed to match your pace.

To subscribe to a new plan now, head over to dwellbible.com/beyondsunday for 50% off today and so you’re ready to start on October 1st!

Show Sponsor #2: Planning Center

This episode is brought to you by Planning Center, helping you sync all your ministry details across your whole church.

Planning Center has become so essential to how I manage a team, that it’s almost impossible to consider local church ministry without it anymore.

Today, I want to leave you with a PCO pro-tip.

Does this sound like a familiar situation? It’s the end of the week. You’re about to leave the office when you suddenly think: Did all of our volunteers confirm for Sunday? You scroll through the schedule and sure enough—there’s a gap.

Instead of allowing yourself to spiral into a  panic, try this:

In Services, Planning Center has gap alerts. Turn them on, and you’ll get a heads-up days before service if positions are still unfilled or unconfirmed. No more end of the week scrambling.

Speaking of less scrambling, did you know you can access everything you need for rehearsals right from the Service media player on your phone? Lyrics, chord charts, arrangement notes—it’s all right there, so you’re not hunting for files in the middle of hitting those power chords.

To see what else you can do to make your Sundays easier, go to planningcenter.com/blog.

A question I have wrestled with is…what makes the CHURCH different in the midst of our modern culture? What makes our local churches different than what other organizations have to offer?

What happens when our local churches become oriented merely towards pragmatism?

That’s what I talk about with Pastor and Author Brian Zahnd. Brian is the pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO and is no stranger to the Beyond Sunday Podcast. He has a new book called Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things.

This is a conversation about the church. About the Bible. About the sacraments. About wonder, mystery, awe, and what happens when we lose our sense of transcendence.

If you’re a pastor, a worship leader, a Christian artist, or a follower of Jesus…there is something here that will reorient you towards hope and beauty in an age of cynicism, nationalism, and deconstruction. There is another way.  

Topics Covered:

• The alternative to Christian Nationalism and endless deconstruction
• How evangelicalism forsook mystery and embraced empiricism
• How the Christian Right and the Christian Left co-opt Christ for political ends
• Good vs bad apologetics
• A spiritual vs a literal reading of the text of Holy Scripture
• The value of trying on different interpretive lenses when it comes to Scripture
• Recapturing mystery

Resources Mentioned

• Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• Unseen Existences by Brian Zahnd
• Make Your Home In This Luminous Dark by James K.A. Smith
• Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV
• Crucified and Resurrected by Ingolf Dalferth

Show Sponsor: Planning Center

This episode is brought to you by Planning Center, helping you sync all your ministry details across your whole church.

Planning Center has become so essential to how I manage a team, that it’s almost impossible to consider local church ministry without it anymore.

Today, I want to leave you with a PCO pro-tip.

Does this sound like a familiar situation? It’s the end of the week. You’re about to leave the office when you suddenly think: Did all of our volunteers confirm for Sunday? You scroll through the schedule and sure enough—there’s a gap.

Instead of allowing yourself to spiral into a  panic, try this:

In Services, Planning Center has gap alerts. Turn them on, and you’ll get a heads-up days before service if positions are still unfilled or unconfirmed. No more end of the week scrambling.

Speaking of less scrambling, did you know you can access everything you need for rehearsals right from the Service media player on your phone? Lyrics, chord charts, arrangement notes—it’s all right there, so you’re not hunting for files in the middle of hitting those power chords.

To see what else you can do to make your Sundays easier, go to planningcenter.com/blog.

[Read more…]

I think so many of us are longing for a faith that meets us right where we are. A faith that we can practice in school car line. At work. On a hospital bed. During a pandemic. A faith that is not merely escapism or triumphalism but a real faith in Christ that works not for the benefits it gives us, but for the ways it opens us up to the mystery of God. A faith that leaves room for questions, doubts, and one in which we don’t have to perform to perfection.

That’s why I love the writing of Tish Harrison Warren. Listen to these book titles: Liturgy of the Ordinary. Prayer In The Night. And her most recent, What Grows in Wearly Lands: On Christian Resilience. Tish formerly wrote a weekly newsletter about faith for The New York Times. She serves as the C.S. Lewis Theological Write-in-residence at Truett Seminary’s Anglican Episcopal House of Studies. She is a senior fellow with the Trinity Forum and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church.

In this conversation we talk about Christian resilience, what we can learn from the first thousand years of church history, the writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and Tish’s spiritual journey from the Southern Baptist Church to the PCA to now becoming a priest in the Anglican Church.

[Read more…]

Not all spiritual formation is created equal. Just because you read your Bible, pray, and go to church every Sunday does not mean you are being renewed – as Colossians 3:10 says – in the image and knowledge of your creator.

A very good litmus test for us as followers of Jesus is…do we look like Jesus? Do we love what Jesus loved? Do we love whom Jesus loved? Do we speak as Jesus spoke? Do we embody what Jesus lived and died for?

That has been the historical definition of a Christian for generations: little Christs. 

With the rise of Christian nationalism in our present day, many outside the church look at Christianity in America and wonder, what does it actually mean to be a Christian?

One of my favorite books in the last year was Making it Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism And The Black Church with Dr. Drew G.I. Hart. So I wanted to bring him on the show to talk about the history of anabaptism. The history of the black church. And what we can learn about following Jesus today.

Drew is an author, speaker, and professor of theology at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. With a decade of pastoral experience, Drew is a leading voice in Christian ethics, black theology, and anabaptism.

Topics Covered:

• Drew’s upbringing in “Black evangelicalism”
• The difference between “Black Evangelicalism” and “Black Liberation Theology”
• The history of Anabaptism, its victories and vices
• The multicultural reality of Anabaptism globally
• The Christendom mindset and its influence today
• The history of colonial conquest in America and the birth of the Black Church
• How The Black Church balances out Anabaptism
• What went wrong with Christopher Columbus and his spiritual formation
• Why liberation theology is often resisted
• The Black Lives Matter movement and why it is so often resisted

Resources Mentioned:

• Show Sponsor: Planning Center
• Making it Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism And The Black Church by Drew Hart

Show Sponsor: Planning Center

This episode is brought to you by Planning Center, helping you sync all your ministry details across your whole church.

Planning Center has become so essential to how I manage a team, that it’s almost impossible to consider local church ministry without it anymore.

Today, I want to leave you with a PCO pro-tip.

Does this sound like a familiar situation? It’s the end of the week. You’re about to leave the office when you suddenly think: Did all of our volunteers confirm for Sunday? You scroll through the schedule and sure enough—there’s a gap.

Instead of allowing yourself to spiral into a  panic, try this:

In Services, Planning Center has gap alerts. Turn them on, and you’ll get a heads-up days before service if positions are still unfilled or unconfirmed. No more end of the week scrambling.

Speaking of less scrambling, did you know you can access everything you need for rehearsals right from the Service media player on your phone? Lyrics, chord charts, arrangement notes—it’s all right there, so you’re not hunting for files in the middle of hitting those power chords.

To see what else you can do to make your Sundays easier, go to planningcenter.com/blog.