Cary has words with Christopher. That would be the utterly delightful Christopher Ash, who has just written a massive four-volume work on the Psalms for Crossway that shows us Christ in the Psalms. You can find it here: https://www.crossway.org/books/the-psalms-hcj-5/
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Cary has words with Ellie Wiener, a young ancient linguist whose bluff was called and she found herself researching a PhD on the Book of Job. Cary wonders if the beginning is so tragic it teeters over into comedy. And when God speaks to Job, is He sarcastic? Ellie has some thoughts.
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Cary has words with Dr Graham Shearer about politics following his talk entitled: “Contemporary Politics and the Crisis of the Spiritual Sense”. Turns out politics is not downstream from culture, as Cary had often assumed. Who knew? Well, Dr Graham knew. He's a Lecturer in Theology at Union Theological College, Belfast, so I guess he would, right?
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Cary and (Rev Ash) Carter have words about the life and times of an extraordinary man: Richard Baxter. He lived from 1615 until 1691, and went from preaching to Parliament on a day of repentance for executing the King - to being imprisoned for being a theological troublemaker. What can we learn from his life, ministry and truly voluminous writings, including The Reformed Pastor. There's an updated and abridged version from Crossway here.
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Cary has words with author, podcaster, failed atheist and former Director of Theos, Elizabeth Oldfield who looks at the seven deadly sins in her new book, Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times.
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What is Protestantism? And why are Protestants reluctant to use the term about themselves? Is it useful anymore? Rhys Laverty should know. He is Editor in Chief at Ad Fontes, Managing Editor at Davenant Press, and Director of Communications at the Davenant Institute. Find him and his work here: https://thenewalbion.substack.com/
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Cooper, Cary and Morgan Locke talk about The State of the Culture, art, entertainment, distraction, addiction and whether dopamine is all that. Plus some EXCITING new jingles...
Referring to this article: https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2024
And mentioning The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt https://amzn.to/44c7PIz
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Cary has words with friend of the show, Randy Newman, author of Questioning Evangelism, Mere Evangelism and a new book about spiritual journey called, Questioning Faith. This is a conversation about how God uses us despite our terrible attempts at evangelism, and how non-believers are often stopped in their tracks by unexpected things. And it turns out there's one book by CS Lewis that neither Cary or Newman can understand or get into. Find out what it is in this episode.
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From November 2022. Cooper and Cary have words about THAT line in the Apostles' Creed. What exactly was Jesus doing between his death and resurrection?
https://journal.rts.edu/article/he-descended-into-hell/
Support the show
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Well, that was 2023. Join James and Barry as they choose their favourite episodes, dive into the C&C mailbag, and talk about their favourite books, films, tv, podcasts, and moments of 2023. Pull up a cocoa, recline by the glowing hearth, and - sure, go ahead - stoke the auld acquaintance, as we see out another year together.
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have extended words about Unidentified Autonomous (or Anomalous, or Aerial) Phenomena - UAPs to their friends. Strange things are being seen in the skies, even by highly trained and highly sceptical USAF fighter pilots, there is video evidence which has been made publicly available, and these things are being discussed at the highest levels of government. What's going on? Why have governments previously wanted to keep quiet about it? And how should Christians think about these things? Is it a threat to historic, biblical Christianity - or confirmation of it?
UAP footage on NBC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nSIKYlm2eE
Declassified UAP footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO_M0hLlJ-Q
Haunted Cosmos podcast: https://www.thehauntedcosmos.com
Medieval X-Files courtesy of the Middle Ages Music YouTube Channel
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Cooper and Cary have words about spiritual revivals with Jonathan Thomas, writer and presenter of the documentary Welsh Awakenings. Jonathan is pastor of Cornerstone Church Abergavenny, and the presenter of All Things Considered on BBC Radio Wales.
Watch the documentary trailer here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/welshawakenings
Jonathan's book, Intentional Interruptions: Learning to be Interrupted the Way God Intended: https://tinyurl.com/2e4nrdam
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have words about the TV juggernaut that is The Chosen. Lots of their friends love it. But James and Barry have... thoughts. Is The Chosen a 2CV - second commandment violation - and if not, is it still worth watching?
Here's the Justin Peters Youtube Video
Cary’s Water into Wine show
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Cooper and Cary have words about power and its abuse with Mark Stirling, former medical doctor and pastor. He's the author of Not So with You: Power and Leadership for the Church.
Mark's book: Not So With You (Amazon UK)
Not So With You (Amazon US)
The spate of recent scandals of power abuse by leaders within the evangelical world suggests something is wrong in our churches. When a leader misuses power, they have misunderstood and misrepresented God and the gospel. This volume addresses the key underlying issue of what a biblical and healthy use of power in the church actually looks like. Authors from a variety of Christian backgrounds and traditions help frame a biblical and theological understanding and practice of power use, describe what it looks like when things go wrong (and how to recognize the signs), and suggest how the contemporary church can and must do better in this area. This book is a rigorously grounded biblical challenge to much contemporary practice. It is a call to reformation.
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have words about the shift from "being anxious" to "having anxiety". What does anxiety have to do with idols? What are the reasons behind the current "anxiety epidemic"? Is anxiety a condition that ought to be pathologised? Is looking back at historic "trauma" always a helpful way to improve mental health? And how does our new identity in Christ change things?
References
The Student Health Crisis Is A Myth https://unherd.com/2023/09/the-student-mental-health-crisis-is-a-myth/
Why Do Teenage Girls Feel Unsafe? https://unherd.com/thepost/why-do-so-many-teenage-girls-feel-unsafe/
Humans Are More Resilient Than You Think (podcast about "trauma") https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-are-more-resilient-than-you-think/id1570872415?i=1000547660535
Common Questions About Mental Illness (podcast with David Murray)
https://www.crossway.org/articles/podcast-answering-common-questions-about-mental-illness-david-murray/
Jon Haidt's Substack, After Babel: https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/
Jon Haidt's article about the decline in mental health since 2013, and how colleges have been performing "*reverse cognitive behavioral therapy": https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have extended words with Thomas Umstattd (@ThomasUmstattd) about writing. In 2009, Thomas started AuthorTechTips.com, a website to help authors use the web to promote their books. In 2014, Thomas’s blog post Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed went viral and reached over a million people in just a few weeks. As a podcaster, he hosts the Novel Marketing Podcast, and the Christian Publishing Show.
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry discuss the art of listening. What does the Bible have to say about it? And how does it relate to anger? Are we bad at listening because it's a selfless thing to do? After all, there's no "I" in "LISTENING" is there? Oh wait.
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Cooper and Cary have words with Matt Fuller, pastor of Christ Church Mayfair in London - yup, the most expensive one on the British Monopoly board. Matt is the author of Reclaiming Masculinity: Seven Biblical Principles for Being the Man God Wants You to Be. (Cary has known Matt for 25 years and is fine with the fact that Matt did not dedicate this book to him, but went with two other guys instead...)
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Has the church become a battleground for personal preferences? Is the holy communion of believers threatened by our own biases and individualistic tendencies? Cooper & Cary have words about disagreements and disputes in the church, and how to handle them.
In Philippians 4, Paul pleads with Euodia and Syntyche to "agree in the Lord". How do we do that? What does that even mean? And should there be times when we simply can't "agree to disagree"?
Philippians 4
https://earlychurchhistory.org/beliefs-2/paul-barnabas-split-over-mark/
https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2022/03/conflicts-over-lesser-matters/
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/7-steps-to-conflict-resolution/
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Cooper and Cary have words with Ros Clarke, author of the new book Human: Made and Remade in the Image of God. She writes, "If we want to understand what it means to be truly human, we need to listen to God rather than look inside ourselves”. Why do people prefer to look inside themselves, and what is better about listening to God instead? And how did writing this book change how Ros felt about herself?
Ros' Book: https://ivpbooks.com/human-930
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have words about what unbelievers really believe. Tara Isabella Burton has written a stimulating book called Strange Rites about people in the States who identify as "spiritual but not religious". She argues that America is not "secular" at all, but "spiritually self-focused".
Does that explain why people currently seem so willing to believe in phenomena such as ghosts, UFOs, and all things "woooooo"? And does it explain why the hyper-rational arguments of the new atheists seem not to have won the day?
Review of Strange Rites: https://www.solas-cpc.org/book-review-strange-rites-new-religions-for-a-godless-world/
Article by Tara Isabella Burton about post-rationalists: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/rational-magic
Uncanny radio show: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0010x7c
Guardian article on the growth of religious belief in recent years: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-growing-and-what-happens-next
Terrifying AI generated woman, LOAB: https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/13/loab-ai-generated-horror/
Paul Kingsnorth's spooky article on AI, The Universal: https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/the-universal
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Cooper and Cary have extended words with Matthew Fisher about the Bebington Quadrilateral and the definition of evangelical. They also get into whether or not the evangelical focus on a person's "conversion" is a healthy one. Barry's "conversion experience" was quite a dramatic one - but to what extent should we presume that kind of thing is normative?
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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James and Barry have words about parachurch ministries. It's hard to find a popular Christian teacher who doesn't have his or her own parachurch ministry. Then there are campus ministries, youth ministries, evangelism ministries, mercy ministries. Are they God's gift to the church, coming alongside the local church to help them fulfil their mission? Or do they actually keep the church from being what it's supposed to be? This could get awkward, given that Cooper has spent half his life working for parachurch organisations...
Related articles and videos
Pastors Heart
Desiring God
Nine Marks
Wee Flea
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James and Barry outdo themselves by getting their Bavincks in a twist. Thankfully, Dan Strange is on hand to do some untwisting. Just who is J H Bavinck, and why should we care? (NOT to be confused with his better known uncle *Herman* Bavinck - ha ha! as if anyone would be THAT stupid!). What does J H Bavinck have to tell us about missions, cultural engagement, and how to have a civil conversation?
The word of the podcast is "elenctics". That's "elenctics".
Daniel Strange is director of Crosslands Forum and the vice president of The Southgate Fellowship. He is a fellow of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics and is the author of Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock: A Theology of Religions (Zondervan, 2015), Plugged In (The Good Book Company, 2019), and Making Faith Magnetic (The Good Book Company, 2021). He is a contributing editor for Themelios and an elder of Hope Community Church, Gateshead, U.K., which is part of the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches (FIEC).
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
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Does it really matter what we wear, or don't wear? Cooper and Cary have words about nudity and modesty. Does Christian modesty mean all public nudity is forbidden for Christians? What about looking at nudity in a Renaissance painting, or in a movie? How about if it's *reeeeally* tastefully done? Should we avoid nudity primarily because it might encourage lust in others... or is there a more fundamental reason for doing so?
Jason Ward's article on nudity is available in Vol 136/4 of Global Anglican magazine: https://www.churchsociety.org/product/the-global-anglican-vol-136-4/
In this episode, we explore everything from beach attire to Christians at a nudist beach, and even the portrayal of nudity in popular culture like Game of Thrones and Renaissance art.
Join us as we examine the role of nakedness and modesty in Biblical teachings, uncovering the connections between the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and the shame associated with nudity. We'll also consider the historical and cultural significance of garments, from coronations to glorification, and how they relate to our spiritual experiences.
But it's not just about history - we'll also dive into the various perceptions of nudity and modesty across different cultures, discussing how men and women approach these topics in public settings. As we navigate the world of Christian ethics, we'll explore the implications of categories like 'clean' and 'unclean,' and how they relate to our understanding of modesty.
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Encouragement and/or open derision should be addressed here: cooperandcary@gmail.com
Production and music by Cooper & Cary. Opening theme by Beyond Our Galaxy.
#177 Psalms Psalms and More Psalms! w/ Christopher Ash
43:01
#176 Is the Book of Job funny? w/ Ellie Wiener
51:53
#175 Why Politics is NOT downstream from Culture w/ Dr Graham Shearer
52:36
#174 The Rest is Baxter (with Rev Ash Carter)
53:10
#173 Turn Your Life Up To Eleven (With Elizabeth Oldfield)
47:53
#172 Practically Protestant (In Every Way) (With Rhys Laverty)
46:54
#171 Drinking Your Culture Through a Straw (With Nate Morgan Locke)
52:17
#170 Questioning Faith (With Randy Newman)
55:29
REPLAY EASTER SPECIAL: #139 Did Jesus Descend Into Hell?
47:04
#169 Farewell, 2023
50:34
#168 Space Invaders?
53:13
#167 Land Of Revivals (With Jonathan Thomas)
45:59
#166 Should I Watch The Chosen?
43:52
#165 Power And The Church (With Mark Stirling)
49:34
#164 Do Not Be Anxious About Anything?
46:32
#163 Should More Christians Write Novels? (With Thomas Umstattd)
49:37
#162 Quick to Listen, Slow to Have Words
49:50
#161 Man Up Or Man Down? (With Matt Fuller)
46:34
#160 Agree To Disagree?
47:46
#159 Being Human (With Ros Clarke)
45:29
#158 Disorganised Religion
50:36
#157 What Even Is An Evangelical? (With Matthew Fisher)
47:34
#156 Parachurch Or Parasite?
46:51
#155 The Wrong Bavinck (With Daniel Strange)
52:17
#154 No Nudes Is Good Nudes?
48:37