Nomad Podcast

Dave Andrews has lived and worked in intentional communities with marginalised groups of people in Australia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. Through these experiences he developed a passion for seeing Christians and Muslims learning together what it means to follow Jesus. To this end, he proposes that we all observe the Jihad of Jesus. We caught […]

The recent image of a drowned child washed up on a Turkish beach brought the refugee crisis into sharp focus. So to help us better understand the complexities of the situation and how best to respond, we’ve asked Dave Smith to send us a reflection. Dave is the founder of the Boaz Trust, a charity that houses, […]

The idea of beauty has shaped Joanna Jepson‘s life and ministry. Born with a jaw defect she was mercilessly bullied through her childhood and into adulthood. But after successful surgery she then had to figure out how her internal self related to her new external self. She then went on to issue a legal challenge against the […]

10 years ago Marina Cantacuzino began to interview people who had suffered all sorts of trauma, abuse and wrongdoing, but who instead of choosing vengeance chose forgiveness. It’s easy as Christians to think that we’ve cornered the market on forgiveness, but listening to these stories from people from a range of faith traditions and none is […]

Robert Song is a professor in the department of Theology and Religion at Durham Uni. He recently wrote ‘Covenant and Calling’, in which he challenges traditional ideas of marriage, having children and celibacy and proposes a whole new category of relationship, called ‘covenant partnerships’. And he reaches these conclusions not by looking to Genesis, or pulling out […]

Nomad started out with a group of people wanting to explore new forms of church, so after six years we thought it was about time to explore this idea again. Kelly Bean grew up in traditional church and never questioned its practices or structure. But over time she began to realise that the house group she led felt […]

Jewish blogger, Robert Cohen is back on the show, sharing with us lessons from his faith journey. So if you’re interested in knowing more about the connection between faith, ancestry and land, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, interfaith marriage, what a Jew makes of church, and what a true prophet looks like, then this is the episode for […]

Eve Tushnet is a freelance writer and blogger. And she’s gay, Catholic and celibate. So we asked Eve to tell us the story of how she went from atheist lesbian, to Catholic and celibate. And what she learnt about love, friendship and what it means to commit to the Church. Image provided by Eve Tushnet. Used […]

With yet another terrorist atrocity in the news – this time leading to the deaths of at least 38 people in Tunisia – people are again asking, ‘Is Islam inherently violent?’ We ask Carl Medearis, an international expert is Muslim-Christian relations who has lived, worked, and traveled in the Middle East for the last 30 years, […]

Tom Wright is unquestionably one of the most influential NT scholars of our generation. It’s hard to overestimate the influence he has had on the Church’s understanding of Jesus and Paul. But what makes this great man tick? We asked you what you’d like to know about the man behind the theology. As a result, we ended up […]

It’s quite popular these days to refer to yourself as an activist. But Alastair McIntosh is the real thing. Not only is he a respected academic and writer, but he’s taken on major corporations, and won! Why? Because he believes that much of the modern world is threatening our sense of place, which is so vital for human […]

In this episode we talk to Rachel Held Evans about her journey from a conservative evangelical faith, through a period of wrestling with questions, doubt, cynicism and despair, to the emergence of a new kind of faith. And we discuss the trials and tribulations of embarking on this journey under the gaze of social media. Image provided by HarperCollins. […]

[Science] Mike McHargue describes himself as a Christian turned atheist turned follower of Jesus. That’s right, Mike was a fully-fledged conservative evangelical Christian, but then he read the whole Bible and his faith crumbled away. He then found himself in the rather awkward position of being in Church leadership while no longer believing in God! […]

What on earth are we meant to do with those passages in the Bible where God commands genocide, the stoning to death of rebellious children or poems about dashing the heads of babies on rocks?! Well, according to theologian, author and artist, Derek Flood, the answer is pretty straight forward, we just read the Bible like […]

Another General Election is upon us. Levels of apathy and disillusionment are at an all time high, and popular figures like Russell Brand are urging us to have no part in what he sees as a corrupt system. So the question we’re wrestling with is: Why Bother Voting? To help answer this we’ve turned to […]

The Rapture is a curious doctrine, as it’s not in the Bible, anywhere! But let’s pretend it’s real, and you missed it! How would you survive the collapse of civilisation? Lewis Dartnell‘s day job is to search for life on Mars, but for fun he wrote The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch. It may […]

Jesus told us to love our enemies. But surely not the monstrous soldiers of Isis? With an almost constant stream of stories of burnings, beheadings, and mass slaughter, what could love possible look like in this context, and what good would it do?! Rick Love is President of Peace Catalyst International, and Associate Director of the […]

Mike Stygal is a shaman (i.e. he whips himself up into an altered state of consciousness in order to hang out in the spirit world). He also happens to be the president of the Pagan Federation. Oh, and he’s married to a Christian. So he seems like the right guy to talk to about what Christians […]

Apparently, Britain is set to become the first country to have three parent babies! It’s all to do with genetically modifying an embryo to prevent certain inherited diseases. But as with many scientific advances folks like us are left worrying about the scientific and ethical implications. Professor Denis Alexander is the Emeritus Director of the Faraday […]

Dave Tomlinson is effortlessly interesting and seems to effortlessly attract interesting people. He mentors the leaders of the now global atheist church, he took the funerals of two of the countries most notorious criminals, and his church is so cool even Bono turns up from time to time. But what we find even more interesting […]