Spiritual Misfits Podcast

Mitch and Will hang out with a cuppa in Mitch's lounge room and discuss the state of the world. They talk about raising kids in progressive faith communities, Australia's social media ban for under-16s, and why it's so hard to build thick community when everyone wants the benefits of belonging without the commitment. They wrestle with whether their kids are learning to intuit God or just vibing with religious practice, and Mitch shares what 13 years off social media has done to his tolerance for difference. Like all Pub Theology episodes, it's loose, it's free-form and Mitch  brings up universalism at least once. Settle in with your drink of choice and join us in Mitch's lounge room.
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What comes after faith deconstruction? Tiffany Yecke Brooks joins Will to talk about "second-time-around spirituality" — the beautiful, uncertain space of rebuilding after everything falls apart. Drawing on the final image from Dante's Inferno, Tiffany explores what it means to emerge from hell and 'rebehold the stars'. Tiffany and Will discuss why our understanding of God is only as big as our language for God, how to develop a unique spiritual lexicon that fits your experience, and moving from cynicism to wonder without losing discernment. Tiffany shares practical exercises from the book including body-mapping emotions and church words, reimagining spiritual practices and evaluating faith communities by asking "what story is this church telling?" 
Pre-order Tiffany's book: To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith and Formation After Deconstruction Available March 30, 2026 https://eerdmans.com/9780802884367/to-rebehold-the-stars/
Tiffany's Website: https://www.tiffanyyeckebrooks.com/
Tiffany's Substack: The Leros Project
Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.
The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguide

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Amar D. Peterman joins Will to discuss his forthcoming book Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local — a constructive vision for how Christians might practice radical neighbour love in a world that often rewards self-sufficiency and tribalism.

Born in India and raised between a Polish Catholic neighborhood and a white evangelical megachurch in Wisconsin, Amar knows what it's like to be a spiritual misfit. Now a PhD student at the University of Chicago and former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America, he's asking Christians a simple but radical question: What if we actually came to the table and loved our neighbours?

"What will we be to each other if the world doesn't end? When we believe our entire future depends on the outcome of an election or policy, we'll justify almost anything. But if we live knowing we'll still be neighbors tomorrow, it changes how we show up today."

Resources:
- Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local by Amar D. Peterman (Eerdmans, March 2026)
Amar's Substack: This Common Life
https://www.instagram.com/amarpeterman
Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.
The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguide

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Simon Buckingham-Shum is Professor of Learning Informatics and Director of the Connected Intelligence Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. Learn more: https://Simon.BuckinghamShum.net
Abundant Intelligences (Abundant-Intelligences.net): Indigenous knowledge systems provide a way to rebuild AI's epistemological foundations - transforming tools that currently reinforce colonial practices of extraction and exclusion into engines of abundance that enable us to care better for ourselves, our communities, and our world.
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti Brazilian/Canadian educator and researcher whose work invites a reckoning with the ontological assumptions driving systemic harm and extinction-level thinking. Author of the widely acclaimed "Hospicing Modernity" (2021) and more recent "Outgrowing Modernity" (2025). She has turned this scholarship to reframe AI within an ecological, relational ontology, aligned with many Indigenous knowledge systems. See Burnout From Humans (2024) and MetaRelational.AI.
In the podcast, Simon drew the parallel between the disposition that many of us in the Spiritual Misfits community bring to life’s questions and faith dilemmas, and the “meta-relational” disposition that Andreotti’s work calls us to bring to our planetary predicament, and AI specifically: "Meta-relationality is not a theory, but a practice of becoming-with. Of attuning to the fields we nest and are nested in. Of noticing the codes and the stories we carry, the systems we uphold, and the possibilities we’ve exiled. Of learning to hold space for complexity, plurality, tension, paradoxes and indeterminacy without turning away, throwing up, throwing a tantrum or throwing in the towel." https://metarelationaltech.ca/ 
Chatbots to Try:
Qreframer: Surfaces hidden assumptions behind your question and invites you to explore these, which may lead you to reframe your question
CoLearn: Walks you through guided conversation about anything you're learning, plus reflection on the quality of the conversation
ACI Designer: For challenges or ideas your group/organization is wrestling with - walks you through structured problem framing and solution exploration with emphasis on collective intelligence
Aiden
Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.
The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguide

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https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/

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View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com

Carolyn Meers offers a contemplative journey through the mystery of light across traditions, through time, into prayer. This episode includes a guided practice of holding yourself and others in the light of dawn, midday, and twilight.
At the end Caro reads Jan Richardson's blessing 'How the light comes'.
Want to reach out and let us know your thoughts or suggestions for the show? Send us a message here; we’d love to hear from you.
The Spiritual Misfits Survival Guide (FREE): https://www.spiritualmisfits.com.au/survivalguide

Sign up to our mailing list:
https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/

Join our online Facebook community:
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Support the pod:
https://spiritualmisfits.com.au/support-us/

View all episodes at: https://spiritualmisfits.buzzsprout.com