It’s our 100th episode! We celebrate this milestone with a lively conversation with our first guest speakers, two innovative spiritual thinkers who helped us launch the first Radical Love Live event 5 years ago. We welcome back author, minister, and post-Christian thinker Maria Francesca French and scholar, author, theologian, and minister John Thatamanil to revisit the first topics we took on at the beginning of this project—Crisis and Change—and to check in on how our world and the state of faith has changed since we first spoke.

In this episode we delve into such topics as how we continue to search for meaning and purpose in a post-truth world, how humans often find something to worship even in the absence of God, and how the power of imagination and story can help us find that which is true as we face each new day.

Maria Francesca French is the author of Safer than the Known Way: A Post-Christian Journey and Reconfiguring: A Collection of Post-Christian and Theologies (Quoir Publishing). She has spent her career in theological education as both professor and administrator, holding two MAs and a DMin. Maria has worked in innovative church contexts, planting, and denominational leadership focused on the intersections of faith and culture. Offering new forums for faith engagement and theological imagination that are viable and sustainable for an uncertain future, exploring Radical Theology and post-theist thought for the present and future of faith.

Dr John Thatamanil is Associate Professor of Theology and World Religions at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He is the author of Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity (Fordham University Press) and
The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament; An East–West Conversation (Fortress). He teaches a wide variety of courses in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religious diversity, Hindu-Christian dialogue, the theology of Paul Tillich, theory of religion, and process theology. He is committed to the work of comparative theology―theology that learns from and with a variety of traditions. A central question that drives his work is “How can Christian communities come to see religious diversity as a promise rather than as a problem?”

🎙️ Welcome to Radical Love Live with Kelly Wilson and Mark Dilcom! In this episode, we sit down with indie-folk musician Blair Coyle, whose deep baritone voice and poetic storytelling reflect a profound journey of faith, deconstruction, and redemption.

🌟 Highlights:

Kelly and Mark share their hopes and reflections for the new year.
Blair opens up about his spiritual background, his time as a missionary, and the personal struggles that led him to question his faith.
A candid discussion on the impacts of purity culture, evangelical traditions, and the freedom found in redefining belief systems.
Blair’s music and how it bridges his journey from faith to doubt and ultimately, self-acceptance.
🎵 Featured Tracks: Carousel and Winds of October.

📅 Don’t miss our upcoming 100th Episode Celebration, featuring special guests and surprises!

💬 Join the conversation: What are your thoughts on navigating faith and spirituality in today’s world? Drop a comment below and let us know!

🔗 Connect with Blair Coyle:
Blair’s Official Website | Instagram

📢 Subscribe for more stories that inspire radical love and change.

Charlotte Dalwood has written a fantastic new book, Until at Dawn We Wake, (Now Available from Quoir publishing) which takes us on a revealing, bold, raw journey through the experience of psychosis, gender dysphoria, and Christian faith. In this bold, honest conversation, Charlotte shares her journey with us and how it has urged her to reexamine creation, sin, and redemption. We cover a wide range of territory, including disability theory, anti-carceral politics, feminism, and how our theology might be shaped by the ongoing abuse crisis plaguing American churches.

Charlotte Dalwood a commentator on Canadian constitutional law, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, and religion. Her monthly column for Rabble.ca appears on the third Monday of each month. She also regularly writes for Xtra Magazine, and her work has appeared in in CBC News, Religion Dispatches, and Sojourners. Until At Dawn We Wake is her first book. Charlotte’s scholarly research spans the fields of law, religion, and contemporary critical theory. She also blogs at The Ends of Justice about administrative and constitutional law.

Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly believes it can! Join us for this groundbreaking discussion about doubling down on the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as forces for good in our nation and the world. In the dark aftermath of the January 2020 storming of the US Capitol, Epperly was inspired to fly to his writing desk to lay out a sweeping vision for healing the American spirit. Far from shying away from Christian teaching as the source of revival in the US, he dives in deep into the prophetic iconoclasm and system-shaking theology of progressive Christianity, and makes the case for reclaiming our relationship with Jesus as a mystic, healer, and prophet.

Rev. Bruce Epperly PhD, is a multi-talented theologian, minister, professor, and author of over 80 books, including his latest, “Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet.” He is a pioneer in progressive Christianity and process/open and relational theology. He regularly speaks in person and on Zoom at conferences, seminars, churches and classes studying his books, and urgent topics of society, culture, politics, and faith. He also continues to teach as Adjunct Faculty at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. From his website: “I believe that we are all mystics, and that there is a mystic in you. Each of us, whether we are spiritual, religious, agnostic, seeking, struggling with belief, is on a holy adventure.

[Part 2 of 2] M.E. Young has led a varied and abundant life, with so much wildness and experience we needed two episodes to even begin to scratch the...

[Part 1 of 2] M.E. Young has led a varied and abundant life, with so much wildness and experience we needed two episodes to even begin to scratch the surface. Through this lively conversation we cover a range of lessons she has learned through her spiritual journey, including her vocation as a Catholic Missionary Sister and Music Minister who challenged traditional conventions, her controversial service as a Family Planning Clinic Administrator, her awakening to her true sexuality that transformed her idea of sacred desires, and her creative and healing work as a writer, visual artist, shaman, and integrative massage therapist.

M.E. Young is the author of the newly released book, Naked Seeds: One Woman’s Journey to Unearth What Was Silenced, which contains her seventy-plus year curation of songs, poems, sermons, and stories that she has collected along the way. As she describes her mission as helping “women and men give voice to personal truths that the religious patriarchy has silenced in the past.” She enjoys encouraging others on their healing journey and would enjoy connecting with you on her website at www.MeYoungCreator.com.

An eye-opening (and sometimes blunt) conversation about one woman’s discovery that not everything she learned about God and Sex growing up was necessarily what Jesus said, OR how things are done in the big city. We are grateful to Mattie Jo Cowsert, author of the new book God, Sex, and Rich People (Quoir Publishing), for taking the time to share her story with us, “shamelessly oversharing” about how she kept laughing and learning (even through some of the worst times) as her purity culture façade came undone and she found her authentic self underneath.

Mattie Jo was a pastor’s kid and proud purity ring wearer before she moved to New York City and experienced an unexpected worldview and identity implosion. Her popular blog God, Sex, and Rich People exposed the sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious realities of a young female EXvangelical navigating the diversity of the Big Apple, working for the 1%, and trying to have good sex without hating herself in the city that never sleeps (and never stops sleeping around). Mattie Jo has appeared on The New Evangelicals Podcast, IndoctriNation, and Talkin’ Politics and Religion without Killin Each Other, among many others. She was invited by author Linda Kay Klein to join the Voices and Faces + Breakfree Together collaboration writing cohort on Religious Trauma, one of only ten individuals across the US to be selected.