It's our annual themes episode! We talk about our themes for the year, and reflect on how last year's themes worked out. And Joe has received an encouraging birthday card. Church notice: we're taking a brief break, so the next podcast will be in two week's time.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Episode 279: Focus and … er… something else
• Sort Your Life Out

We discuss how culture shapes art, and especially, how the culture of the time affects the Bible. How do the cultural norms and assumptions affect the text? Can we give power to the powerless within the story? And what about our own cultural lenses? We touch on creating our own sacred texts and ask the crucial question: can we still watch Carry On Films? Also Nick has had a dream. A very worrying dream, as it happens.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Milton Jones
• Carry On Films
• ‘Notoriously cruel’: should we cancel Picasso? Collectors, artists, critics and curators decide
• Road Dahl - statement
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Merchant of Venice
• Baruch son of Neriah

Or not. Because in this episode we delve into some follow-up to last episode's interview with Danielle Strickland. How can we address some of the deep, ingrained attitudes which affect all of us? What does this mean for ideas of femininity and masculinity? And how do we respond to loss of power and prestige without lashing out? Also the boys have had a business meeting in a place called Upham. No, really.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• The Brushmakers Arms, Upham
• Rebecca Solnit - Meditations in an Emergency
• Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me
• Catherine Cowell, Finding God's Feminine Side: and working out how we lost it in the first place
• Rylan: How to Be a Man

This week, Joe interviews author and speaker Danielle Strickland, about patriarchy – the male-centring and male-ordering of the world. They discuss the challenges of calling it out, the heretical concept of the male-ness of God, and the way in which patriarchal thinking and theology affects the world and the church. Most importantly, they talk about some practical things we can all do to make a difference.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Danielle Strickland - Website
• The Other Side of Hope
• Better Together: How Women and Men Can Heal the Divide and Work Together to Transform the Future
• The Liberating Truth - How Jesus Empowers Women
• baremarriage.com
• Christians for biblical equality
• Deep and Wide Academy

More on metaphors. We talk more about the idea of Jesus as 'Lord', and discuss how changes in culture, society or even technology might change our understanding of long-standing human metaphors. Also we talk about ritual and sacraments and how so many of them are simply heightened versions of everyday human activities. Meanwhile, Nick's preaching has some unexpectedly dramatic consequences and Joe thinks everyone should wear a tiara.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man
• Sacraments of the Catholic Church
• Sacrament
• Japanese tea ceremony

Happy Candlemas to one and all. In this episode we talk a lot about baptism: what is it, where did it come from and does it still matter? And did Nick really write a book on it without realising? Also we have more on the neurodiverse approaches to church, we touch on different ways of understanding justice, and we think about whether laying down your life for others means denying who you truly are. Finally, we have a worship song about Worthing and we launch the mystical experience helpline.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Candlemas
• Erin Burdett, With All Your Mind: Autism and the Church
• 'I want to love God with all my mind, but as an autistic Christian, my brain works differently to yours'
• Brains faggots
• Tapioca
• Is it Worthing? - song

Lots of interesting feedback this week, including more reflections on worship songs, our calling to attend to our own 'small' world, the difficulties of Bible translation (and food translation come to that) and why, for the Goths, Jesus was head of the household. Also we talk about neurodiversity and churches. How can we attend to different ways of thinking and different learning styles? Must one size fit all? Oh, and lots of TV watching homework because, as Joe says, 'Life's too short to not watch a lot of TV'.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the Inauguration service
• Severance
• Faggot (food)
• Burn's Night
• The War of the Worlds - Jeff Wayne's Musical Version - Full Musical
• Eddie Lang- recordings
• Eddie Lang
• Ted Lasso
• The Detectorists
• Danielle Strickland
• Nick Page's Blog: Reflections on episode 315
• Nick Page, And Now Let's Move Into A Time Of Nonsense
• Clive James, Poetry Notebook

Joe has forgotten how to count and Nick is bewildered by a worship song. We discuss whether the metaphors we use are helpful, how God is always 'in translation' and what we can do to avoid reinforcing unhelpful patriarchal systems. Also, we touch again on the subject of judgment, and think about relationship, restoration and reading the Bible more in sorrow than in fury.

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• Contact the podcast through your email machine
• Mid-faith Crisis Facebook Page
• Nick's Blog

Mentioned in this episode:

• Severance
• Ted Lasso
• Nick Page, Revelation Road
• Wyvill Monument
• Episode 253: Mothering Father – an interview with Lacey Finn Borgo