Nomad Podcast

Every now and then we like to interview a fellow podcaster who, like us, is creating a space for an open and honest exploration of the Christian faith. And Justin Brierley is one such person. For over a decade he’s been producing Unbelievable?, on which he moderates conversations between Christians and people from other faiths […]

In many ways, Nomad has been quite an intellectual journey. And as much as we love some good old fashioned theological cut-and-thrust, we’ve increasingly aware that if this journey is going to be sustainable, it’s got to be an holistic one. So each month we’ll be producing Nomad Devotionals, through which we’ll be experimenting with readings, prayers, liturgies and songs. […]

What actually is prayer? What happens when we do it? What difference can it make, if any, to the events and circumstances we find ourselves in? Should we expect to sense God in prayer, or perhaps even hear him communicate to us? And if so, why do so few of us ever seem to have […]

Greg Boyd is back on the show! This time he’s tackling the thorny issue of violence in the Old Testament. How is it, for example, that the God revealed in Jesus loves his enemies and lays down his life for them, when the God we see in the Old Testament seems to routinely kill his enemies? What […]

This podcast comes to you from Nomad’s first offline Gathering. We had a great weekend of food, drink, conversation, music and meditation. We also interviewed Mark Vernon. Mark was an Anglican priest but developed deep doubts about the faith. His subsequent journey took him through atheism, to agnosticism, through ancient Greek philosophy, to a Christian […]

We recently invited the beloved listener to Nottingham for Nomad’s first offline get-together. It was a splendid weekend of conversation, interviews, music, food and drink. And we recorded some of it for you. First up is a Q&A we did on the Friday night, where David Benjamin Blower asked us about the Nomad story and […]

We recently attended the Creature Conference, put on by Sarx. We spent the day pondering the question ‘Is Christianity Good News for Animals?’ Animal welfare used to be seen as an important expression of the gospel for leaders such as Spurgeon, Wesley, C. S. Lewis and many others. But more recently it seems to have dropped […]

We thought it was about time we had a fresh look at the central symbol of our faith, the cross. So we headed off to Tom Wright’s house to asked him how the cross launched Jesus’s revolution, and why after 2000 year does it often look like the revolution is struggling to transform the world. […]

For those of us who have been through some kind of faith deconstruction, spiritual practices often take on a new significance, as we seek to connect with God without what often feels like restrictive doctrinal and organisational frameworks. Scottish theologian and activist Alastair McIntosh recently wrote Poacher’s Pilgrimage about a soulful journey he took across the Islands of the […]

We’ve been wanting to do an episode on money for a while now, so when the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby put pen to paper and wrote his first book – Dethroning Mammon– all about the dangers of money, we seized upon the opportunity and headed off for Lambeth Palace. We asked the Archbishop what his life experience has taught him […]

In both Liverpool and Bradford, Barbara Glasson has drawn together communities that have provided safe, honest, authentic spaces for the poor, marginalised, disillusioned, and people from other faiths and none. As well as being a spiritual home for these people, she believes they have an important message for the mainstream church. So we ask Barbara how she […]

Priest, poet and feminist theologian, Rachel Mann is a trans-woman. From an early age she had a profound sense that her body didn’t reflect her gender. After a long, frustrating and painful journey she emerged into the woman she is today. We ask Rachel to look back over this transition and reflect on what it means to […]

What are 21st Century educated, questioning Christians supposed to make of the Devil and evil spirits? Are they literal spiritual beings who spend their time trying to lure us into sinful acts? Or should we see them as metaphors for social injustices that we need to confront? We ask professor of psychology, author and blogger Richard Beck. Interview begins at 6m […]

Sally Smith joins us for the third part of our series on the migrant crisis. In this episode we hear about the fascinating and inspiring story that emerged when Sally opened the doors of her dying church to asylum seekers and refugees. She’s seen large numbers come to faith, she’s reunited mothers with their children, […]

Our regular listeners will remember our Welcome the Stranger refugee special where we looked at the crisis through the eyes of a Syrian refugee and a refugee charity worker. The aim was to raise awareness and money through the sale of David Benjamin Blower‘s album Welcome the Stranger. On this week’s podcast, we’re looking at the crisis through the eyes of […]

Gungor – a multi-grammy nominated Christian band – were the toast of the evangelical worship scene. That is until it became clear that Michael was having significant doubts about his faith. This did not go down well among evangelicals, to say the least. So we talk with Michael and his wife Lisa about the impact this […]

Brian McLaren has a knack for articulating what many of us are feeling. For a decade he has been the voice of those Christians who are concerned about, for example, the Church’s overemphasis on doctrinal belief, its lack of inclusivity, and its lack of concern for the many global issues we are facing. In his latest book – The […]

Mark Yaconelli is – among many other things – a storyteller. Such is his belief in the power of stories that he founded The Hearth, a gathering of local people who simply share their own stories. Mark has seen this simple gathering profoundly impact his local community. So we ask Mark why it is that stories can […]

Kester Brewin was founder of one the UK’s most creative and innovative alternative worship communities, Vaux. He went onto write The Complex Christ, a critically acclaimed book calling for an emerging Church. But over the following years he began to realise that Christianity was just another means of trying to escape his childhood pain. Tune into the […]

Christianity can be quite a disembodied faith. Muslim’s have prayer positions, Hindu’s have yoga, Buddhists have Tai-Chi, whereas Christians tend to pray with little more than a bowed head. We ask theologian Paula Gooder why Christians have separated the spiritual from the physical, and what damage this has done for the faith. And we ask how our […]