Makerspace

This week our guest is Dean Ashenden, a former teacher, researcher, political advisor, and veteran observer of the Australian school system and the author of Unbeaching the Whale. Dean’s work cuts through the political noise to examine the structural bones of our education system. He’s a regular contributor to mainstream publications and one of the sharpest minds in the country when it comes to the politics of the classroom.
This conversation is a challenging one, as Dean presents us with big questions to ask of Australia’s education system, and the inequalities present within it.

Our first guest this season is a returning guest, Chris Watkin, author of Biblical Critical Theory and more recently, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity. Chris speaks into a variety of areas, one of them being AI. He’s launching a course on the underlying philosophy of this, so we jump on to talk through some of the contours of the content. We go big picture here, not so much about how to use AI, but asking the questions that need to be addressed before we do.

This week I’m joined by Jessica J. Schroeder, who has published a chapter recently about The Cult of Perfection and beauty standards.
In this conversation I chatted to her about her ideas In it, and we discuss the pressures of appearance culture, and how Scripture redefines what it really means to be perfect and beautiful. We also tackled the complicated space of feminist theology and a little plug for more women to get involved in theology itself..
https://jessicajschroeder.substack.com

This week we welcome Dr Travis Stevick, a theologian, author, and ordained elder in the the Global Methodist Church. Travis earned his doctorate from the University of St. Andrews and has spent years bridge-building between the local church and systematic theology. He is the author of Encountering Reality,, a work that explores how we engage with truth at the intersection of theology and science.
What Travis and I are trying to do in this technical conversation, is pinpoint what difference Jesus makes to knowledge and how we know things. We’re constantly coming back to the idea that language can only go so far, and that means we need humility with our ideas. We also keep coming back to the fact that the incarnation changes everything because it is God making truth known to us, not just giving us facts to believe. We’re drawing on Scottish Reformed theologian, TF Torrance for this stuff. I hope that if this sort of thinking is important to you, you’ll find thinking through this connective work helpful.
https://travisstevick.substack.com

This week I got to speak with Canadian theologian and prominent author, Dr Sylvia Keesmaat. Sylvia is a biblical scholar, obtaining her doctorate at Oxford University, studying with N.T. Wright. She is a professor of biblical studies and hermeneutics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Sylvia is the co-author, with her husband, Brian Walsh, of the popular books Romans Disarmed and Colossians Remixed, both books highlighting how the gospel challenges dominating powers and invites alternative, justice‑oriented ways of life both in the first century and today.
In this conversation we talk about her work that centres around hearing Paul’s letters in their socio-political terms, about his anti-Empire language and what that means for us today. We also talk about hope and lament, and how we need to be forming communities that are grounded in the place they’re in, as well in important teachings.