Gospel Conversations podcast
by Tony Golsby-Smith
Gospel Conversations takes a creative approach to attaining a deeper understanding of the gospel and what it means to us today. Our speakers are not ministers, but range from a diverse community of Christian thinkers who lead their various fields of knowledge in history, design thinking, theology, philosophy, and organisational leadership—among others. Each month we host a live event in Sydney, then publish it as a podcast. gospelconversations.substack.com
Episodes
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Evelyn Underhill and Spiritual Formation
This talk is the next in our ‘Women as thought leaders’ in theology’ series, featuring Australian theologian Robyn Wrigley-Carr speaking about English Anglo-Catholic spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) and her insights into spiritual formation. Underhill is not so well known today, but...
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Breakfast with Jesus: Origen’s three levels of reading Scripture
Well we have finally reached the end of our long, long journey on the Camino (though we are adding an epilogue of four days walking to the sea - Fisterra by the Atlantic). 779kms and 36 days of walking across all kinds of terrain, weather and meeting lots of people on different kinds of journey.…
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Interview with Rev Dr Joanna Collicutt McGrath
This interview, hosted by Leisa Aitken, is part of our series, ‘Women as thought leaders in theology.’ It is with the brilliant and deeply pastoral Oxford based clinical psychologist, Anglican priest and theologian Reverend Dr Joanna Collicutt McGrath. We discuss her recent book, So Longeth my...
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Breakfast with Jesus: Psalm 8 & the Image of God
This is our second Breakfast with Jesus on our Camino walk - now over 600kms into it! This chat was recorded after we had climbed into the Galicia mountains and saw the awe-inspiring views from the high point of the ancient village of O Cebreiro. So it was fitting that we discussed Psalm 8 in…
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Breakfast with Jesus: Walking the Camino
Anne and I are walking the vast Camino path - about 800km from St Jean in France to Santiago in Spain. We thought it would be a good time to revive our ‘Breakfast with Jesus’ channel in Gospel Conversations. And rather than just me doing the talking, we have recorded this as a conversation to try...
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How to read Scripture as a living document
Inspiration and Scripture is a two way process - it includes our reading of scripture not just its delivery through authors. That is the fascinating perspective that Ben Myers offers in this thought provoking interview I did with him recently. It builds on Mark Strom’s recent talk on his journey...
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Theology and Mental Health
This is a talk by our beloved colleague Leisa Aitken. You will be familiar with her work on hope from previous talks. Here is her introduction to the talk. This Talk is adapted from a paper entitled, “Responding to a crisis of hope- Gregory of Nyssa in dialogue with contemporary psychology”...
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Changing ways to read the Bible
In churches around the world, Christians will affirm that ‘the Bible is the word of God’. But what do they mean by this? Whether they realise it or not, they are making a claim about a genre - a certain class of literature that is special and ‘inspired’. But this claim has been a stumbling block...
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AI and the Image of God
A recent (Christian) book puts up the white flag of surrender before the insurgent world of Artificial Intelligence; ‘Intelligence is no longer a quality that marks out human beings from the rest of the world…’ So - machines can think and think better than us? Or can they? And what does this say...
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Do we need a new theory of sin?
Nothing is more foundational to the traditional gospel than a ‘theory of sin’. But for most of us, it is a messy topic that we have not thought about enough. Hence Christianity has all too often suggested a dark anthropology that defines humanity as ‘totally depraved’ or incapable of ‘any good...
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Do Christians withdraw or engage??
This is the third in Ben Myer’s wonderful series on the thinking of the early church fathers. This talk examines their view on the burning question of discipleship - what does it mean to follow Christ in how we live particularly in the public square? Ben’s first talk covered their view of…
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John Behr on Maximus
Welcome to our final conversation with John Behr on Maximus. Alongside this episode you’ll find the handouts John distributed — well worth having open as you listen, as he works through them closely and the text repays careful attention. If you haven’t already, we’d also recommend starting with…
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Maximus - the Mt Everest of Patristic Theology
If you are about to embark on an important meal, it is nice to begin with some antipasto. Well this talk is my ‘antipasto’ for John Behr’s final talk on Maximus, the third of the great Church Fathers whose theology he has summarised for us. This talk is about thirty minutes long, and is my…
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The Creation Gospel - So What & What Next?
In this talk I give an overview of our upcoming topics for the year. The ‘creation gospel’ is exciting - but what are the ‘so what's’? This is the theme we want to explore together in 2026, and in this short talk I give a snapshot of our agenda and topics. The monthly talks will come in…
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John Behr on Gregory's Stunning Vision of Humanity and the Divine
Welcome to 2026 and as promised here is John Behr’s talk on Gregory of Nyssa and his view of what it means to be a human being. I gave an extended introduction to this talk at the end of year, and sorry there has been a lapse of time between that and this talk I was introducing…. a thing called...
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A New Conception of Humanity: Introducing Gregory of Nyssa
This is an introduction that became a stand alone little talk. Why? Because John’s talk on Gregory at our conference was mind- bending - but hard to follow. No fault of John’s - he was trying to condense two profound thinkers (Plato and Gregory) into a one hour talk! So I worked hard to…
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John Behr - Why didn't God create us perfect?
This is our second talk in John Behr’s series on the Church Fathers. This talk outlines the ‘wild’ world of how Irenaeus of Lyon (around 170 AD) saw the Gospel - not as a rescue mission but as a plan for humanity to share in the ‘uncreated’ life of God. In case you don’t know already, Irenaeus…
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John Behr - Was Adam created 'perfect'?
I can remember lots of times when Christians have speculated about whether salvation means returning to the ‘perfect’ state of Adam before the Fall - or do we go one better and somehow improve on the first Adam? This talk by John Behr demolishes that whole worldview…. It is the first in a series…
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David Bentley Hart on his Revolutionary Translation of Romans 5:12
As promised here is the concluding section of my conversation with David exploring the meaning of the word ‘sin’. In this conclusion we do a deep dive into the text of Romans 5:12 - a pivotal verse for the concept of ‘original sin’ - and David explains how his completely different translation...
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David Bentley Hart on 'Original sin' Part 1
“Original sin” is - apparently - one of the bedrock doctrines of Christianity. But what exactly does it mean? This is how I began this discussion with David. Our main focus was Romans 5 and in particular verse 12 - the main ‘proof text’ for the doctrine of original sin. But before we got down…
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Macrina: The Forgotten Woman Who Helped Shape Early Christian Theology
One of the critiques of Christian theology is that it has been largely framed by men - and thus is susceptible to masculine views of God and humanity. I can only speculate on this, but I have often privately thought that behind the Cappadocian Fathers’ generous theology lay the influence of…
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John Behr on the 'mind blowing' theology of the Church Fathers
Fr John Behr’s visit to Australia is just over a month away. I interviewed him recently to get a foretaste of what he will be talking to us about. John is clearly a major thought leader in modern theology. I got a taste of this recently from a post I read by Brad Jersak. Brad had just been to a...
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David Bentley Hart on the real meaning of 'sin'
What exactly does the word ‘harmatia’ (usually translated as ‘sin’) mean in the New Testament? This is where my conversation with David begins in this podcast. I asked him this question because when he was in Australia, David told me that he was uncomfortable using the modern word ‘sin’ to...
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The Patristic model of growth; we are 'mini Christs'...
Ben’s talks on the Patristic model of atonement led to the obvious question - what about their views on growth? This is the first of two talks by Ben on this topic. In this talk he focuses on the individual and morality and in the next talk he focuses on society and politics and how they viewed...
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Power, patriarchy and the cross
Well … this interview was unexpected. David Artman runs a podcast (Grace Saves All) dedicated to the topic of universal salvation. But he is very disturbed by the rise of Trump and what he sees as the ‘first stage of facism’ taking root in his country. So he wanted to interview me - to get an...
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Hope and Hell; how I came to a larger vision of redemption
As promised here is the talk that I gave last Sunday at the St James Institute in Sydney. It was well received, and I was surprised by the audience and their reaction. Most were older people - not young radicals - and they were clearly bothered by this doctrine of hell but had no alternative ways...
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Beyond 'easy grace': Universalism and the Call to Discipleship
One of the main objections to universalism is that it opens the door for spiritual laziness. It is the easy way out. Why bother with the hard work of discipleship if everybody gets saved and there are no consequences for bad behaviour? Ilaria confronts this challenge in her final interview with...
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Is hell a pagan concept?
The answer is ‘yes’ - hell was a concept deeply ingrained in the pagan mind. And that is the surprising landscape that Ilaria opens up for us in this next episode in Robin Parry’s interviews with her on apokatastasis. In this interview, Robin asks her about a recent accusation that belief in...
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The breathtaking Patristic vision of resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15
If the scripture is like a land of hills and valleys, then 1 Corinthians 15: 22-28 was the Mount Everest of the terrain. Or so thought Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, according to Ilaria Ramelli. In this short nugget of a talk Ilaria explains with her typically profound mix of big picture and…
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Robin Parry's journey to universal salvation
After a slow start we are ready to get going in Gospel Conversations for 2026. We will kick off with this fascinating interview I did with Robin Parry about his personal journal to universal salvation. Robin has led the vanguard for universal salvation since the publication of his landmark book…
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A Christmas gift from Sarah on teaching and the incarnation
This is our last podcast for the year and it is almost Christmas. It is a short piece by our daughter Sarah which has just been published on the ABC website - in the Religion and Ethics section. Here is the link...
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Different journeys to universal salvation
Welcome to our next Gospel Conversations podcast and apologies that there has been a bit of a lag. We try to keep up a regular feed but life intervenes as I am sure you all would know… grandparenting and sickness etc. Anyway here we are. This is a little unplanned diversion from our Ilaria…
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Ilaria tapes #2
This is the second of our tapes of Robin Parry’s interviews with Ilaria Ramelli in 2019 on behalf of Gospel Conversations. It focuses on the book that she had just then published, “A Larger Hope;Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich.” She does not summarise the book…
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The Ilaria Ramelli tapes
Ilaria Ramelli is a formidable pocket rocket of a thinker. She famously wrote the breakthrough defence of the doctrine of ‘apokatastasis’ or universal salvation in her massive 900 page tome ‘The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis’. Her book was a breakthrough because she exploded the myth that...
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The patristic view of atonement part 2
We have all been waiting for Ben to continue our journey into the amazing Patristic model of the atonement. Here it is. The single phrase that struck me most in this discussion was the ‘friendly God’ - or the ‘philanthropic God’ as the church fathers named their view of God. This is such a…
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Patristic view of atonement?
This is a talk that I have wanted to bring to Gospel Conversations for ages. Ben Myers is the Director of the Graduate Research School at Alpha Crucis - the large Pentecostal college/university in Sydney. He has a deep background in literature (his PhD was on Milton) and also a rich grasp of the...
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Maximus and participation; What does 'We become gods' mean?
This Camino talk captures a great conversation on our walk that began with a great question. Great questions are often the pathway to growth – and this is because they usually lift the lid on a topic that we really don’t understand, but skip over with cliches to cover our ignorance up. Anne is…
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The two way door to reality
Here is the second part of my talk on Jesus as the Two way Door. The first talk opened up the whole landscape of reality that the Christian message opens up – not just the ‘religious’ experience but the whole experience of how we approach life. I went back to Maximus and his picture of how…
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Jesus as the two-way door - BwJ 26
We are starting up a new series in Breakfast with Jesus based on conversations that Anne and I enjoyed as we walked some of the famous El Camino trail recently. Let me say that I do not use the word ‘conversation’ lightly. Anne has been my thought partner all our lives together – and in a really...
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How order not sin frames Genesis Pt 2 - With John Walton
Here is the second part of my conversation with John Walton on how order not sin frames the book of Genesis – including the Fall. In this talk John gets more specific about the order spectrum of order, non-order and disorder. ‘Sin’ is obviously an important word, and central to the Christian...
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How order not sin frames Genesis
We continue our reposting of some gems from our past library of talks. This episode is highly significant partly because of the big idea but also because it is John Walton who espouses it. John as you know is a legendary Bible scholar and author, and is the major voice for putting the OT back…
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Five ways to reframe the gospel - Exodus in the gospel part 4
In this final talk, I summarise five profound ways that the Exodus narrative reframes and stretches the traditional gospel of Penal Substitution. My aim was to leave us with a metaphor that can rival the evocative power of the Penal model not just critique it systematically. In my experience, the...
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Drama and the humble God - Exodus in the gospel pt 3
Here is the third talk in our journey through Exodus as an analogy of redemption. In this talk we explore Exodus through the lens of drama. Of course, the whole Bible is in essence a drama in that it is a narrative or story grounded in events rather than abstract ideas. So we have to discern the...
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Salvation as re-creation - Exodus in the gospel part 2
Welcome back to Gospel Conversations. So on with the Exodus journey as we 'cross the river and start to generate some new paradigms for the gospel. I like the term 'paradigm' as it does explain what we are trying to do rather well. A paradigm is a way of looking at something or a way of arranging...
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The Gospel according to Exodus
Welcome to a new series called ‘What is the Gospel?’ It builds on the ‘Cross and Creation’ talks that Andrew and I gave. Those talks explored difficulties in the traditional ‘Penal Substitution Model’ but in a sense they left us with a void – what alternative image(s) can replace the Penal model....
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BwJ 25 -What is glory?
Well, we have finished the trilogy of Iain Provan’s talks on creation and it provides a nice foundation for all of our thinking in Gospel Conversations. In this next podcast I pick up the Breakfast with Jesus journey through Ezekiel that Anne and I enjoyed so much. You will see a lot of…
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What is Creation? with Iain Provan
Here is the third and final of our reboots from Iain Provan’s epic 2011 series on the Old Testament Reloaded – “What is Creation?”. In this talk Iain concludes his magnificent trilogy of talks positioning the vast Mosaic vision of God and reality in contrast to the prevailing Ancient Near Eastern...
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Was Dawkins right about the angry God? with Ian Provan
This episode is a repost of a talk by Iain Provan from his epic series on the ‘Old Testament Reloaded’ in 2011. Originally titled ‘Who is God?’ we have renamed it ‘Was Dawkins right about the angry God?’ because that is fundamentally what Iain concentrates on. It is a wonderful talk that is...
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Ezekiel's wider vision of the temple - Breakfast with Jesus
Tadionally we treat salvation as an individual event, but Ezekiel has a far wider scope. He sees the object of salvation is the whole cosmos not just individuals, and he sees the cosmos as the temple of God. Get full access to Gospel Conversations at gospelconversations.substack.com/subscribe
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How Moses disrupted the Ancient Near Eastern World - with Iain Provan
Welcome to Gospel Conversations We have an amazing backlog of great talks from great speakers and thinkers going back over a decade. So we've decided to republish some of them to supplement our ongoing offerings. We're going to begin with some seminal talks by Ian Proven. Ian is one of the…
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About this show
Gospel Conversations takes a creative approach to attaining a deeper understanding of the gospel and what it means to us today. Our speakers are not ministers, but range from a diverse community of Christian thinkers who lead their various fields of knowledge in history, design thinking, theology, philosophy, and organisational leadership—among others. Each month we host a live event in Sydney, then publish it as a podcast.
gospelconversations.substack.com
Hosted by
Tony Golsby-Smith
Categories