The Burning Word

In our final episode of this inbetween series, we explore the surprising close of Augustine's Confessions, which decides to go back to the beginning, to God's work in creation. As we do, we pick up as many threads as possible that has gotten us to this point: what is our identity? Why is it so hard to find? What do we need to navigate the crisis in identity our current culture faces? Augustine will choose to let the words of Scripture speak as he closes his page, yet this is not your Sunday School teacher's interpretation of Genesis. Instead, Augustine shows us how within the creation account, all of Scripture, and indeed all of our story can be found. Thank you for journeying with us through Augustine, and we'll look forward with you to new studies coming soon! Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? This episode, our seventh, we get to some of the deepest questions that humanity has pondered about our own existence. What is memory? What is time? These questions have haunted many of the great thinkers and artists. They press up against our sense of being small and finite. They point to our existence in a universe simultaneously vast and intimately personal all at the same time. They will define us: our memory and our time. Yet they also always seem to escape easy mastery. No wonder a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan has repeatedly turned to time and memory as key concepts in his own exploration of storytelling. No wonder they will become central themes in Augustine's own reflections as he attempts to move beyond his own story into a Confession of what it means to live as a human before God. This episode, I hope to press in to these complex and vast questions asking what it would look like if Christopher Nolan had a chance to discuss identity with St. Augustine. Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? In our sixth episode, we explore Books 8-9 of Augustine's Confessions. This is the big one. The infamous scene. The moment when Augustine, worn out and exhausted with in inner conflict of identity, throws himself in tears in front of a fig tree, only to hear children sing, "Pick up and read!" Much ink has been spilled about this story. Much could be said. But what perhaps most interests us is the fact that it is impossible to understand this scene without all that went before, or even without the fascinating insights Augustine is going to offer in his final book of self-reflection, book 9. As with so much in the Confessions, there is more going on than can sometimes meet the eye. So in this episode we'll be unpacking the many "conversions" of Augustine that led him to this confession, and the deep significance book 9 has to the whole story Augustine has shared thus far. Yet this episode inevitably will ask us each the most personal of questions, that could only be won by Augustine's own personal honesty, "are you ready to confess your own conversion?" Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? In our fifth episode, we explore Books 5-7 of Augustine's Confessions where Augustine finds himself slowly, ever so slowly beginning to turn back to God. Yet the slowness of his turn is a result of the many distractions and delays that he found himself occupied with. I find this comforting. Part of the crisis we experience with identity is that our identity hasn't seemed to arrive yet. We take one step forward only to find ourselves two steps back. We discover something that seems so important to us, only to distractedly turn to focus our energy on something else. Augustine understands this confusion, and he offers us vivid images from his own journey to God: his bewilderment seeing a drunken beggar who is joyously happy. His half-heartedness as he experiences Ambrose's sweeping sermons. His shame as we puts away his common-law wife to prepare to get ahead in marriage. Join us as we continue to navigate the crisis of identity on the road with St. Augustine, even if you, like him, find yourself distracted and delayed. Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? To explore identity requires us to confront ourselves with some difficult questions. Why has my identity so often failed me? Why am I not the person that I want to be? Why does it sometimes seem like my identity is so clear to me, and other times it feels like my identity slips right through my fingers? In books 2-4 of the Confessions, Augustine is going to wrestle with just such questions, as he stares honestly into the face of his own sin. Self-love and loss for Augustine are intricately connected. He cannot be himself because at his core, he only loves himself, and the self he loves doesn't really have any substance at all. These books are heavy, necessary, and intriguing. They don’t quite land their answers but invite you into the story of Augustine’s life and ask questions of your own story. Where have you found yourself wandering in this land of shadows? Where have you seen (or perhaps more accurately felt) your identity fall apart? Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? In this third episode, we finally turn to the text you've been waiting for: The Confessions. Why is this book so important? What was Augustine doing when he composed it? What significance does it have for our identities? This episode we'll be exploring The Confessions Book 1, where Augustine opens up some of the most profound categories of western thought: language, memories and how our identities begin to take shape. Everything from psychology to speech matters in our quest to discover where we began, yet Augustine relentlessly will pull us back to the one who witnessed us even before we could witness ourselves: to God. By taking us to the start, Augustine reveals how difficult it is to truly know ourselves, and yet, also pushes us to see the invitation and the gift that such a journey could hold if we choose to make it with the one who created us. Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this inbetween series, we want to ask some hard hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? In this second episode, we turn to an often proposed solution: maybe if we just get the right Christian practices: the habits, disciplines, and rituals of a good Christian life in place, maybe then we’ll finally get all those good Christian results in solidifying our identity. But is that how Christian practice actually works? John offers a deep dive into recent studies in Practical Theology to set the record straight: liturgy and practices don’t always form the desires they intend and as a result, this can become quite a problem. Many communities, from Catholic to Protestant to Orthodox to Evangelical all find themselves assuring their communities that simply picking up the practices of being a Christian will shape who they are, when in reality we are just as easily compromised by the cultural ebbs and flows as anyone else. So how do we practice rightly? How do we pick up Christian practices that actually last, that truly and deeply form not just our external behaviors but the deeper rhythms of our hearts? Much as episode 01, this question will lead us back to St. Augustine and offer the final preparation before we begin a study of Christian Identity in the Confessions. Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In this in-between series, we want to ask some hard-hitting questions about Christian identity. What is a person's identity? Why are identities so contested? Why is it that my own identity so often seems so hard to find? In this first episode, we set the stage by exploring the story of how we got here. Modern Identity didn't simply fall in our laps. Instead, a number of key thinkers, figures such as Rene Descarte, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud all had a part to play in the challenge of naming your identity today. We'll explore how these thinkers crafted the central markers of what it means to be human in 21st-century Western society, and why ultimately, the identities that these thinkers offer will fail us. Yet this is just the beginning of a road back to your true identity, back to your heart, a road that will eventually introduce us to our guide back to ourselves in St. Augustine. Check out our other studies and resources available at www.burningwordpodcast.com as well as all our print study guides and journals over at https://www.blurb.com/user/jhperrine

In our final episode, we want to get into the heart of the bible's description and summary of love. What is love really? How do we think about love? What is best that love can be? In the closing chapter of the Song of Songs we receive one of the finest pieces of love poetry the world has ever seen and are given some insight into what this search for intimacy has really been all about. If you've enjoyed this series, you can find more available at our website, along with a companion study, and you can sign up to our newsletter or subscribe to stay in touch with new studies as they become available, all over at: www.burningwordpodcast.com

In our fifth episode on the Song of Songs, we explore what it means to live in a culture where the bottom line of sex is simply whether or not we consent. The Song of Songs paints a radically different picture of covenantal belonging as the lover declares "I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine." What would it take to live in that kind of belonging in our search for intimacy? What would it look like to experience that kind of belonging with God? Join us for episode five and be sure to check out companion study and videos, available at our website: www.burningwordpodcast.com

In episode 04, we want to return to a theology of beauty, and specifically go after the culture we find ourselves in that so often turns to an "objectifying gaze" of beauty. Beauty becomes something we try to seize and possess. But what if the Song of Songs is offering us a vision of how to redeem the gaze of love? What we find in all the strangeness and glory of a culture that is different to our own, is the feature of a wasf in the Song of Songs that depicts a steady, intentional adoration of one beloved to another. Is it possible that just such a vision is what God beholds us with? Is it possible that such a vision could be learned and embraced in our own love? If we are going to find intimacy, we will need to redeem the gaze of love. Check out our videos and companion study, available over at www.burningwordpodcast.com

So far we've spoken rather postively about our search for intimacy, but anyone who has tried to love knows that love is not only a positve search. Sometimes there are terrors in the night. In this episode we explore the fears that drive us away from love as we look at Song of Song 3 & 5, as the lover finders herself lost in looking for the beloved. Be sure to check out our accompanying videos and companion print study available at: www.burningwordpodcast.com

Have you ever wondered where beauty comes from and why it matters so much to sex, our relationships, our social media presence, and to God? This episode we explore Song of Songs chapter 2 and the opening salvo, "I am a rose of Sharon" as a call to press in to beauty as one of our deep needs, etched on the human heart in order that we look for its true source in God. Be sure to check out all our studies and our companion print study available at our website www.burningwordpodcast.com

In our first episode, we set up the conversation on sex by looking at all its complexities, confusion and abuses, before asking "what vision does the Song of Songs want to offer us when it comes to sex, God and intimacy?" Is it possible that there's more to sex than we've been led to believe? Is it possible that sex actually has something to do with our even deeper desire for God? Check out all our latest episodes and companion study by heading to our website www.burningwordpodcast.com

In our fifth episode on Revelation and the Politics of Jesus, we're going to look at what Charles Taylor calls the "age of anxiety" and how we are motivated, and at times even controlled by the politics of fear. How are Christians call to respond to such politics? What does it look like to both trust God and protest the injustices around us? As we open up Revelation 8-11, we're to find that prayer and protesting brings together the prayer of the saints gather around the thrones, the seven trumpets, and the two witnesses, that culminates in a powerful practice we can share in today, as we each seek to live the politics of Jesus in our cities and communities. Be sure to check out our companion bible study, available at our website: www.burningwordpodcast.com

In our fourth episode of our study of Revelation, we're going to look at Revelation 6-8 as begin to get into some of the bizarre and contested texts on judgement. Yet the question of judgement, leads us to God's vision for his people. What does it mean to hold these texts, while living in our highly contested partisan world of politics? How do we navigate the constant assaults, character assassinations, virtue signaling and cancel culture that accompanies our present political discourse? Do these texts of judgement offer us any vision of guidance for the people of God to follow the politics of Jesus in a highly contested partisan world? While these images may seem strange, they open our eyes to the world God is forming, intervening with, and redirecting, even as they cause us to pause over how we interact with our perceived enemies in this world. Check out our companion study available at www.burningwordpodcast.com/store and journey with us as we continue Revelation and the Politics of Jesus.