This week we get to talk to the delightful Jennifer C. Martin.

Jennifer C. Martin is a writer, editor, and speaker living in Richmond, VA, with her two partners and two children. She writes, reads, and speaks about religion, politics, polyamory, sexuality, culture, entertainment, and more. When she's not trolling on social media or updating her Substack blog, Dirtbag Christian, she's in the kitchen making baked goods, doing yoga, editing, writing, gaming, gardening, or going to therapy. Raised in the Church of God denomination in a conservative home, she is now a member of the United Church of Christ and a communist.
website: https://jennifercmartin.com/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/notreallyjcm.bsky.social
Substack: https://dirtbagchristian.substack.com/

This week we are talking to my friend Aaron Epperson.
Aaron Epperson is a writer, social services worker, and a lover of Oregon's wild places. He has a BA in Conflict Resolution from Portland State and spent years working in the tech industry before pivoting to social services where he helps families through difficult circumstances.

aaronepperson.com

Bluesky: @tacojolly

This week on All Things Made New, we're talking with Marc Alan Schelske about his new book, Walking Otherward.

Marc Alan Schelske is a happily recovering fundamentalist praying for the restoration of all things. He writes and teaches about spiritual maturity, emotional growth, and the other-centered, co-suffering way of Jesus. He is a small-church pastor nearing thirty years of experience as a big design and technology geek and sometimes musician.

Marc earned a Bachelor's in Theology at Walla Walla University and a Master’s in Theology and Culture at St. Stephen’s University. He is the author of several books, including The Wisdom of Your Heart and Journaling for Spiritual Growth. Marc serves as the teaching elder at Bridge City Community Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, where he lives with his nearly-adult children, Emerson & Lucas, his partner, Christina, as well as an aging mutt, Jackson, and a vindictive once-feral cat named Bellatrix, who demands affection at knife-point twice a day.
Preorder the book here.

Friends, today we goet to talk to Byron Borger.

Before opening the Hearts & Minds Bookstore, Byron worked in college ministry for the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach), working on staff of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in McKeesport, PA, as well as working on various peace and justice issues while being an Associate Director of The Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh. In 1982 he and his wife, Beth, opened Hearts & Minds, an independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA. Besides managing the small town shop, he has served congregations, denominations, and organizations as conference booksellers, has spoken extensively about relating Christian faith to society (and the role of reading) at clergy convocations, colleges, church retreats, and events such as the Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing. He has worked in social change organizations and has written for several print and on-line journals, including Sojourners, Comment and CPJ's Capitol Commentary. They have set up large book displays at conferences for CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts), Evangelicals for Social Action, The Redeemer Center for Faith and Work, Q, Bread for the World, The Christian Legal Society, the C.S. Lewis Institute, and the CCOs annual Jubilee Conference, although most days they labor in the world of small businesses. He has edited a book for college graduates called Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life (Square Halo Books) and has a chapter (about working in retail) in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God (edited by Ned Bustard, published by Square Halo Books.) Byron reviews books regularly at BookNotes, the almost weekly newsletter of Hearts & Minds. (www.heartsandmindsbooks.com.) He attends First Presbyterian Church, York, PA.

This week, we get to talk to a long time internet friend Erin Jeane Warde.

The Rev. Erin Jean Warde (she/her) is an Episcopal priest, spiritual director, recovery coach, and writer. She is the author of Sober Spirituality: The Joy of a Mindful Relationship with Alcohol. She offers a course, Discerning Sobriety, which helps participants bring spiritual practices and mindfulness into their relationship with alcohol. You can explore her offerings around coaching, spiritual direction, and more at www.erinjeanwarde.com. You can explore her Substack, Chaos Land, which is a place where you're loved for your chaos, not despite it. In her free time you can find her watching comedy, thrift or vintage shopping, making new friends, and hanging out with her cats in Nashville.

The Rev. Terry J. Stokes is an anarchist theologian who seeks to foster political and spiritual radicalization through his writing and speaking. He holds degrees from Yale University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and was ordained by Park Avenue Baptist Church. They live on Munsee Lenape land (central NJ) and work with children and youth as a nonprofit director. Their latest book is Jesus and the Abolitionists: How Anarchist Christianity Empowers the People. He/they.
Jesus and the Abolitionists

terryjstokes.com

Friends, this week we get to talk to a new friend and theologian, Stephen D. Morrison.

Stephen D. Morrison is a prolific American writer, ecumenical theologian, novelist, and literary critic. He is best known for the Plain English Series (Karl Barth in Plain English), which examines the work of modern theologians from the perspective of an amateur.

He is the author of fourteen books, including his latest, All Riches Come From Injustice. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, Ketlin.
https://www.sdmorrison.org/

Friends, this time we get to talk to a new friend, W. Scott McAndless.

W. Scott McAndless is an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He lives and works in Cambridge, Ontario in Canada.

About a decade ago, Scott wrote and published the book “Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee,” which offered a new interpretation of the nativity story as told in the Gospel of Luke. As a part of promoting this book he started up a podcast. During the first season he told stories based on Luke’s nativity but he enjoyed that so much that he continued to retell Bible stores drawn from all over the book. The Retelling the Bible podcast is now in its eighth season and offers a rather unique collection of Bible stories, many of which you have likely never heard of before – like, for example, the stories of Rizpah or Sheerah warrior princess. It also includes many better known stories, but they are told in such a way to help you to see them in a new light.

Website: https:⁠ https://retellingthebible.wordpress.com/