Restorative Faith Podcast Season 4 is Out Now!
- Alexander Lang
- Jul 1
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Today marks the release of the fourth season of the Restorative Faith Podcast. For those not familiar with the podcast, I focus on issues that are causing people to leave the church. Each season of the podcast focuses on a specific theme and each episode excavates a topic related to that theme. The themes we have tackled so far are as follows:
Season 1: Evil
Season 2: Sexuality
Season 3: Discrimination
With Season 4, we are now tackling another big theme that has impacted the church’s survival—Science. Ever since Copernicus and Galileo made observations about our solar system that undercut the geocentric model of the universe (the belief that the sun, moon and stars revolve around the earth as opposed to the heliocentric model where the earth revolves around the sun), there has been bad blood between the scientific community who makes observations about our universe and those in charge of the church.
When I started working on this season three years ago, I could have never imagined our current political climate where science would find itself under such intense attack. Indeed, the modern disdain for scientific pursuit is a direct result of the historical conflagration between science and evangelicals. Given that 8 in 10 white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, it's not surprising that the administration is waging war by pulling funding for scientific inquiry.
This season is very of the moment in the sense that we cover the history of this conflict over the last 150 years, beginning with Charles Darwin in the first two episodes. However, we eventually move into other areas of inquiry, even demonstrating how science and Christianity overlap in unexpected ways. Below is a list of the episodes and a short description of the topics they cover.
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What to Expect (Episode Previews)
Episode 1: Survival of the Fittest
We had the privilege to interview the Pulitzer Prize winning author Dr. Edward Larson about the history of Charles Darwin. Not surprisingly, Dr. Larson does a masterful job of walking listeners through the tangled web of connections that eventually resulted in the science of evolution becoming an existential threat to the belief system of conservative Christians whose faith relies on a literal reading of scripture.
Episode 2: Glacial Shift
We tackle the science of climate change, which has become one of the key issues defining the evangelical mindset. What is so fascinating about the evangelical denial of climate change is that these are the same Christians who are often obsessed with talking about the end of the world via the apocalypse. We explore why the eschatology of Jesus’ second coming has supplanted the abundant evidence of ecological collapse happening right in front of their eyes.
Episode 3: Illusions of Freedom
We shift gears by focusing on the science of free will. One of the most pressing issues driving people away from the church is the belief that God controls our lives and plans for our suffering. Through an incredible interview with Mike Genna, a prominent musician from the 1980s who spiraled into drug addiction after tragedy, we unravel the psychology of addiction, the physics of choice, and the theology of suffering.
Episode 4: Mundane Miracles
We examine the science of disease and healing, which has a complicated history dating back thousands of years. There are numerous examples in the New Testament of Jesus miraculously curing sickness through faith healings. Yet, modern scientific discovery has revealed that many of our ailments can often be attributed to viruses, bacteria, genetics and cancer. Moreover, we have developed numerous pharmaceuticals that aid in our recovery from these afflictions. Therefore, the modern person is left with the question: What role does faith and belief play in our recovery when modern medicine has so effectively targeted the problem?
Episode 5: Resurrected Memory
We delve into the science of memory and interrogate the degree to which the recollection of the disciples can be trusted when recounting events like Jesus’ resurrection. Through the research of the famous psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, we explore her experiments around the fallibility of memory and how that intersects with the research of Dr. Dale Allison, the foremost scholar on the historicity of the resurrection depicted in the New Testament.
Episode 6: The Tunnel of Light
We explore the science surrounding consciousness and afterlife by contemplating the scientific plausibility of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). We interview Dr. Eben Alexander III, author of the book Proof of Heaven, who experienced an incredible NDE when he went into coma due to an infection with bacterial meningitis. Dr. Alexander’s NDE is paired with the research of astrophysicist Dr. Gregory Matloff, who has demonstrated mathematically that stars throughout our galaxy exhibit conscious behavior; and Dr. Avi Loeb of Harvard who is the leading figure on the existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe.
What Took so Long…Again?
As you can see from some of the guests mentioned above, we have some heavy hitters in this season. It’s for this reason that the podcast took longer than expected. Convincing scientists to offer their expertise for a religious podcast is not an easy sell. To give you a sense of how hard it could be, I’ll use the example of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus.
Her experiments on memory are critical for the resurrection episode, but when I emailed her, Dr. Loftus said she was busy with the semester and that I should reach back out in June, which was 4 months away. I set a reminder in my calendar and sent her a follow-up email. Because of my persistence, she agreed, but she couldn’t do the interview for another two months. Ultimately, I had to wait six months to get an interview with her. When I finally sat down with her, she was still a bit confused as to why I wanted her expertise. It was only after hearing the episode edited together that she wrote me and said, “The episode is very good!”
This was the pattern with many of the Season 4 interviews. There were months of lag-time between contacts and actual interviews. On top of this, I spent all of 2023 preparing for the release of my second book Restorative Beauty, so it was only after this was published that I could fully focus my efforts on the podcast beginning in 2024.
Another issue was finding compelling human-interest stories. Normally, human-interest stories are the easiest aspect of the episode for me to procure. This season proved to be extremely difficult. After getting the first episode’s human-interest story nailed down quickly, the others became arduous. You would not believe how many people I contacted to find someone who believed that climate change was a hoax and then reversed their perspective. Thankfully, Rebekah Anderson was the key to finding many of the human-interest stories for this season. She would scour the internet, searching for stories, reading books and making connections.
In the end, what resulted is an incredible season that covers the conflict between science and Christianity is a way that I can say with absolute certainty has never been done before. We believe you will find each episode informative, thought-provoking and inspiring. If you don’t walk away from this season having rethought some of your previously held positions, then you weren’t listening!
What’s in Store for Season 5?
When I set out to create this podcast, I always envisioned 5 seasons. For the fifth and final season of Restorative Faith, we are focusing on the theme of forgiveness and its role in driving people away from the church. Although forgiveness might seem like an odd topic, something I discovered during my time as a pastor is that forgiveness is an issue that many people struggle with both inside the church and among secular society.
Within the Christian faith, we are told that you cannot have love without forgiveness. Indeed, we find in Matthew’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” (Mt. 18:21-22) The essential idea in Jesus’ answer is you are to forgive more times than you can count.
There’s even an exhortation from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that God’s forgiveness is contingent upon your forgiveness of others: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Mt. 6:14-15)
But as much as we are expected to forgive, this can be easier said than done. How do you forgive when someone breaks your trust so deeply you feel you can’t recover? How do you forgive when the other person shows no repentance for their actions? How do you forgive extreme crimes like abuse, rape, and even murder? How do you forgive the institution telling you to forgive when that institution is responsible for causing you harm? Equally important is the question of how we forgive ourselves when our choices create pain and suffering in other people’s lives?
If you click on Season 5 of the podcast, you will find a list of some of the stories we would like to tell. If you, or someone you know, has a story that fits into the topics we are researching, please fill out the form and provide some details of what the story involves. Upon reviewing your submission, if we feel it fits into the narrative of a particular episode, we will contact you to obtain more information about the story and your availability to be interviewed.
Thank you for listening and for your support of Restorative Faith!
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