Camp is less than a week away. Bo is calling in from the camper in his Idaho driveway, unshowered after a few days of replacing floors, and announcing that Jesus might be our only hope. As the guy with the high Christology, I’m going to enjoy reminding him of that. I tried out some of my camp talk material on him: “softcore idolatry,” a list of the habits mainline churches use to accommodate the status quo, and some branding options for the gap in the creed between “born of a virgin” and “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Then we got to your questions: voting as prayer, political despair, what’s worth keeping, and whether Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. Along the way we may have invented a new segment: process exegesis of ’90s CCM songs.
What we get into
- Christology from above, below, and within. I explain how methodology and conclusions are different things. Bo says his Christology changes depending on whether he’s being a pastor, an academic, or just himself. He says that, as a charismatic at heart, what matters to him is recognizing the Spirit of Christ, and that the Mormon in the room sounded more Christlike than the pastor who would only help Christians.
- Softcore idolatry. I list the accommodations: wedding the flag and the cross, blessing imperial might, trivializing the cross, personalizing sin, ordaining inherited injustice, and equating Christianity with the American dream. Bo makes his case against “underwear piety.” I tell the story of the clergy letter that prompted King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the signers who later repented, not because of the letter but because they watched Christians march with him.
- Branding the gap in the creed. Is it the Freudian comma, the Galilean gap, or “the comma where Jesus lived”? Bo reads Whitehead’s line that “the church gave unto God the attributes which exclusively belonged to Caesar.”
- Your questions:
- Is the upside-down kingdom a reversal of the world, or the world finally seen right side up?
- Is voting a form of prayer? (Bo argues it is: prayer to the powers that be.)
- Is political despair a spiritual problem, a theological problem, or a perfectly reasonable response?
- What practice, hymn, or doctrine would you fight to keep? (Bo says nothing, except beer.)
- Was Jesus an apocalyptic prophet, and does that make him more relevant in 2026 or less? (Plus a short rant about preterism as the nerdy version of inerrancy.)
- Process exegesis of ’90s CCM. “Every Move I Make” turns out to be evolutionary panentheism. Then Bo sets me up with Twila Paris’s “God Is in Control,” and we reclaim “no power beside” for the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside.
- AI personhood. I explain why asking Pope Leo to bless AI personhood is a category mistake, and why a careful reading of Whitehead wouldn’t get you there either.
See you in Kansas City
Theology Beer Camp is next week, October 8–10 in Kansas City. In-person tickets are sold out, but you can still join online at theologybeer.camp to watch the livestreams and get the recordings. Here’s the inside tip: on Friday morning, during the usual TNT time slot (Central time), skip the main stage and head to the live podcast stage. Bo will be hosting a Theology Nerd Throwdown with womanist ethicist Stacey Floyd-Thomas and Catholic philosopher and Tolkien scholar Craig Boyd, who have both written about the virtues and the seven deadly sins. There will be a game version of Au contraire, mon frère. I’ve already sent Bo my talking points, and he’s already promised to ignore them.
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
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