The Misplaced Concreteness of a Single Outcome + the God-Podcalypse

FYI… I was on a very large dose of steroids for a month for poison ivy, which made me a bit “more porous and transparent” about my love of hanging out with the BoDaddy. So that’s the energy. I went looking for my camp planning notes this week and instead found the auto-updating document where your questions land — roughly 70 of them tagged TNT — so we spent the hour on those. Bo picked numbers. Josh Patterson, this year’s camp director, joined from planning-team headquarters (his house). What came out is part listener mailbag, part Theology Beer Camp preview, and part accidental therapy session about vocation, youth ministry, and why neither of us ended up with the academic career we pictured. Also: the mom at the gas station blasting vampire erotica loud enough that Haven and his best friend started asking what words meant, Bo’s Powell’s Books sweatshirt theory of finding your people, and a Lord of the Rings draft where Bo gets cast twice depending on his mood. Camp is three weeks out. In-person is sold out. Online is not.

Questions we worked through

For a nervous first-timer coming alone — how do you find your people at Beer Camp? Bo’s answer is the best practical advice in the episode: wear something niche. Not a brand, a dog whistle — a band, a bookstore, a bike shop, something only your people will recognize. Plus the faction sorting, the breakout sessions, and volunteering.
What’s the best idea from Tripp’s Beer Camp notebook that the planning team vetoed — and were they right? The soft-serve machine took three years of no before becoming a banger. The theologian trading cards nobody vetoed, which turned out to be the problem.
If money and logistics were no object, what’s the dream version of next year’s tenth camp? Five Iron Frenzy. Still. Three years running. If you know anyone in the band, Tripp is theoretically against coercion but situationally flexible.
Best cigar conversation of your life — where were you, and who was on the other end? Bo’s is his father describing his first cigar extravaganza like a kid describing record covers. Tripp’s are Miroslav Volf on a Winston-Salem veranda (which is how the Philip Clayton connection got made) and a rooftop at the Seattle School answering Pannenberg questions from Dwight Friesen’s students.
Neither of you ended up with the academic career you pictured. How do you talk about vocation now compared to when you were 25? Bo on vocation as where your deep heart meets the world’s great need, and the freedom of realizing he could do many things but likes this one. Tripp on the misplaced concreteness of a single outcome, and the reframe that finally landed: what part of God’s passion seizes your passion, and what gifts are you cultivating to bring it into the world.
You’re both former youth pastors. What would you formally retract — and what do you honestly miss? Bo retracts the epistemology, not the sexuality content, and makes a real distinction between personal piety and social holiness. Both of them miss the wildness, and the fact that teenagers haven’t been fully formed by the economy yet, so they can read Jesus and think yeah, we should try this.
Which Lord of the Rings characters are each of you? Josh is a Merry/Pippin hybrid. Bo is Tom Bombadil when playful and Glorfindel when locked in — the most powerful elf left in the Third Age, the one you can’t send to Mordor because he’d light up the whole map. Tripp gets Frodo, with a Gandalf caveat from Bo he did not know how to respond to.
Post-apocalyptic prom, ’80s style in the Upside Down: what are you wearing, and who’s your dark horse for prom royalty? Bo is going Miami Vice for reasons he explains and we won’t. His dark horse: James McGrath, who has been asking for an ’80s theme for years.
Opening night karaoke — what are you singing, and what should the other guy be banned from? Tripp had a prophetic dream involving Creed, two Joshes, Nick Polk, and a significant number of bearded millennials having eschatological seizures. Bo lands on the Georgia Satellites and sings a verse of it live.
Favorite Beer Camp moment that never made it onto a podcast. Bo’s is the Peter Thiel rant in the Tolkien session that got partially cut before posting. Tripp’s is the very first camp’s podcaster Airbnb, back when there were maybe eight podcasts in the whole niche — which is where the entire philosophy of camp came from.
What’s your favorite thing that ever went off the rails? The improv theological Rob Bell parody with a 20-foot whiteboard shaped like God’s arrow of salvation, which emerged from a Disciples of Christ baptismal font during the Rocky theme, and which exists only in a Dropbox folder labeled never to be put on the internet.

What’s actually happening at camp this year

No normal talks. Everything is a conversation, structured, with the books read ahead of time. Cornel West and Gary Dorrien — lifelong friends, literal next-door neighbors — on the life and legacy of James Cone, hosted by Adam Clark, who was Cone’s student. Bill Leonard and Diana Butler Bass on the history of religious dissent in America. Sarah Heath with Kristin Kobes Du Mez on Live Laugh Love. Bo hosting Stacey Floyd-Thomas and Craig Boyd on the seven deadly sins, virtue ethics, and American culture — the one Tripp wanted so badly he mailed Bo both books and an extensive guide. Ilia Delio. James McGrath. The Bible Divas recording live. TBC 26 FM, the main stage, broadcasting from an apocalyptic wasteland.

Plus: the faction sorting survey (the Godpodcalypse), a physical passport with prompts and stamps and prizes — built by introverts, for introverts, so you have permission to walk up to the theologian you came to meet — a slushie machine, the opening-night ’80s prom in the Upside Down with Trey Pearson DJing karaoke, and more taps than ever, including a dedicated gluten-free line, non-alcoholic beer, hop water, and nightly mocktails. Vine Street, KC Bier, Casual Animal, Martin City, Cervecería, River Bluff, Stranger Days, Urban Chestnut, Cinder Block, Torn Label, and more.

In-person is sold out. Get the online ticket.

The Bring Your Own Beer edition streams two stages live for every session block, so you can pick your track in real time — including Bo’s seven-deadly-sins conversation on the live podcast stage. Everything else gets recorded, and you get all of it on replay. Same conversations, same room, your own couch, your own fridge.

JOIN OUR OPEN ONLINE CLASS: The Empire Christ Couldn’t Keep

Ever notice how Christian nationalism gets talked about like it’s some bizarre new glitch in the faith? It isn’t — it’s a 2,000-year-old arrangement wearing new clothes, and once you see how the pattern works, you can also spot the Christ who keeps slipping free of it. Join theologian Joerg Rieger and Tripp Fuller for The Christ Empire Couldn’t Keep, a free six-week online class tracing the holy alliances, imperial creeds, and stubborn resistance that have shaped Christianity from Paul to the present. You’ll get six lectures from Joerg, six live Q&As, weekly readings from his book Christ and Empire, and a community of fellow troublemakers thinking it through together. It’s free to join, every session is recorded, and it kicks off Thursday, August 27. Grab your spot at HomebrewedClasses.com.

Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp

This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000others on our Substack – Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com