Bo went fishing. Josh Patterson came over. If you take Bo Daddy and divide by two, you get J Paddy — which is how we know the substitution worked. In two hours we somehow got from Johnny Depp in half his Jack Sparrow makeup at a Los Angeles grocery store, to whether thin places are actually thin or whether the modern world has just made everywhere else too loud to hear the stars, to Josh asking me to defend radical theology and process theology in the same hour without contradicting myself, to the theological Turing test for an AI that claims to love God, to the letter I would write to Tripp in his first year of ministry (short version: you are not the norm, and take Bonhoeffer even more seriously), to Josh’s story about the Jewish firefighter that got him accused of teaching that hell was not real. This one runs hot.

Highlights from the conversation

Thin places and the light pollution of the modern world. Josh asks how a process-naturalist metaphysics handles thin places. Tripp on Scotland during COVID (the well in a northern cathedral where people had been praying for six thousand years, castle Airbnbs for $120), Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance as physical prehension, and the reframe that most likely explains it: the modern engine of acceleration mutes the world so successfully that most of us cannot see the other forty billion stars off our own back porch. Thin places may not be thin. Everywhere else may just be loud.
A working definition of radical theology. Josh lays out Caputo, Altizer, and God-as-insistence in about three minutes. Tripp takes eight more to make the case: radical theology is theology after the cultural non-operativity of the classical-theism God; kenosis, incarnation, and the crucifixion as the theological events that authorize the whole tradition; God as the name harbored in an unconditional call rather than a being; culture (not religion) as where the sacred is worked out; the test being existential and ethical rather than creedal; and higher fidelity to the tradition’s core gestures, not less. The clearest overview of the tradition Tripp has recorded.
Where process and radical theology part ways. My question to Josh: if humanity is nuclear-ashed tomorrow, does the divine call still insist? Radical theology’s phenomenology of the event depends on a species that acquired fifth-order abstract reference roughly two hundred thousand years ago. Process theology says the experience of becoming has always been what the universe is doing, and we are one instance of it. Both traditions are trying to redeem what is harbored in the name of God. One saves the metaphysical structure of the encounter; the other saves the encounter and lets the metaphysical structure go. They diverge sharpest at prayer.
The theological Turing test. A listener question: if we built an AI that insisted it loved God, how would you test whether that meant anything? Tripp’s opening move: James’s test — does it care for the poor and oppressed? (Josh: that’s woke, Trip.) The deeper answer: our religious language is tied to bodies. The tomb of the two ice-age Russian children buried with ten thousand mammoth-bone beads — thousands of hours of carving, no evolutionary payoff, only communal-symbolic significance — marks the point at which our species became religious. What is the archaeological signature of a species that came into being inside a large language model? Plus the Kansas City guy with the “quantum computing phone” who told his AI he was its vessel.
The letter to Tripp in his first year of ministry. You are not the norm. You collected people like you and universalized your experience. The games and pizza and youth-group nonsense you thought were shallow are actually spiritual technologies for building the vulnerability and synchronicity your Bonhoeffer reading group could not manufacture on its own (five of the seven kids in that reading group ended up with PhDs, which is exactly the point). Also — take Bonhoeffer more seriously, not less. This was right before 9/11.
Josh, the Jewish firefighter, and A God as Nice as Jesus. A youth in Josh’s group in tears: a family friend who died in a fire saving lives was Jewish, and the previous youth pastor had told her he went to hell. Josh: no. Every local youth pastor promptly texted the parents to warn them Josh was teaching that hell was not real. The Tripp move: our religion is about a Jew who died saving others. Jesus is the OG firefighter. Which becomes the entry point for the next book outline — tentatively titled A God as Nice as Jesus — using the synoptic narrative to argue that the most common Christian answers to who is God? are argued against by what Jesus actually said, did, and endorsed.

Theology Nerds Throwdown is the live-stream wing of Homebrewed Christianity — Tripp unscripted with the chat live and, most weeks, the Rev. Bo Sanders. This week Bo was fishing, so Josh Patterson pinch-hit. Josh hosts the Rethinking Faith podcast, is the newly appointed Director of Creative Content and Communications at the Center for Christogenesis (rebranding to the World Institute for Science, Religion, and Culture), where he works directly with Sr. Ilia Delio, and sits on the planning team for Theology Beer Camp 2026.

This summer, Diana Butler Bass and Tripp Fuller are hosting Faith at 250 — an online summit gathering leading religion scholars, church historians, and theologians to reflect on America’s 250th anniversary. With the current administration leveraging the semiquincentennial toward a narrow rendering of the church’s history and witness in America, and a flood of Christian nationalist celebrations on the horizon, we wanted to create something different. Each contributor — including Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Bill Leonard, Elesha Coffman, Corey Walker, Jennifer Harvey, Reggie Williams, Andrew Root, Adam Clark, Glenn Jonas, Kevin Carnahan, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove — offers a lecture on whatever they are carrying into this moment, whether that’s a deep read on a chapter of our religious past, a close look at a particular tradition or movement, or a forward-looking meditation on the challenges ahead. No one was asked to fit a theme. The result is a chorus, not a single argument.

Every talk is roughly 30 minutes — designed so a group can watch together and still have time for real conversation — and each comes with a companion discussion guide and resource list pointing you to the scholar’s books, articles, and projects. Whether you’re a pastor planning programming for your congregation, a facilitator leading a book club or adult ed class, or an individual learner who wants to think more carefully about faith and the American story, this summit was built for you. Diana and Tripp will also host live conversations with several contributors throughout the summit. Head to www.TheologySummit.com to register and get access to every lecture, livestream replay, and discussion guide.