You can also subscribe to the Calvary podcast on your favorite podcast app.
You can also subscribe to the Calvary podcast on your favorite podcast app.
Dr. Nichols, a native of Memphis, TN, is the organizing pastor of Freedom’s Chapel Christian Church (DOC). Following the death of a childhood friend, Dr. Nichols created A More Excellent Way, Inc., an organization with a mission to help individuals from all walks of life to enter into, engage in, and maintain spiritually healthy relationships while eliminating relationship violence. She is a founding member of MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope) and serves as Inter-Faith Officer for MIFA (Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association). She has been a visiting professor in Gweru, Zimbabwe, a church planter throughout China, and a Holy Land pilgrim. Dr. Nichols’s deepest passions are transformational teaching and working with others to seek justice, love, and mercy.
Rabbi David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Known for his honest engagement with the place of religion in public life, Rabbi Wolpe explores Torah in fresh and faithful ways. Author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times, Wolpe has been named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek and twice named among the 50 most influential Angelinos by LA Magazine. He has taught at a number of universities, including UCLA, Hunter College, Pepperdine, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and has written for numerous prominent news outlets. His next adventure will be serving as a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest. After serving three congregations—two in downtown Atlanta and one in rural Clarkesville, Georgia—she became the first Butman Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College, where she taught until 2017. Since then, she has spoken at events with wonderful names like Wild Goose, Evolving Faith, Awakening Soul, and Gladdening Light, but her favorite gig is being a full-time caretaker of a farm in the foothills of the Appalachians with her husband Ed and very many animals.
Pádraig Ó Tuama’s interests lie in language, violence and religion. Having grown up in a place that has a long history of all three (Ireland, yes, but also Europe) he finds that language might be the most redeeming of all three of these. In language there is the possibility of vulnerability, of surprise, of the creative movement towards something as yet unseen. He is inspired by any artist of words: from Krista Tippett to Lucille Clifton; from Patrick Kavanagh to Emily Dickinson; from Lorna Goodison to Arundhati Roy. Ó Tuama loves words — words that open up the mind, the heart, the life. For instance — poem: a created thing.
The Rev. Canon Borg was not raised in the church and lived outside the US (and a conventional Christian culture) until she was eight. At age 26 she had a compelling experience reading the Gospels. That interaction began an unsettling and transformational journey into Christianity and its traditions. At age 40 Borg was ordained in the Episcopal church, which has remained her spiritual home for 32 years. Her commitment to her faith requires continual rethinking and reimagining what Christianity is and why it matters. She is very concerned about the future of Christianity, particularly American Christianity. Borg’s adult formation has been profoundly shaped by the life and work of her late husband (the scholar Dr. Marcus J. Borg), the South African Bush, the horse, and the work of John D. Caputo. She hosts a monthly virtual gathering called the Second Saturday Conversation that explores Christianity in and for the 21st century.
Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, an intervention program that builds job, life, and relational skills with former gang members. Known for his bestselling book Tattoos on the Heart, Boyle tells stories of shared life that provoke laughter as often as tears. Homeboy Industries has spawned more than 250 partnerships with social enterprises around the globe. Father Boyle travels widely and speaks on the importance of meeting violence with humanity.
Dalia Mogahed is the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, where she leads the organization’s pioneering research and thought leadership programs on American Muslims. With John L. Esposito, she co-authored the book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. President Barack Obama appointed Mogahed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009 and she was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about U.S. engagement with Muslim communities. Her 2016 TED talk was named one of the top TED talks of that year. Mogahed is a frequent expert commentator in global media outlets and international forums. She is also the CEO of Mogahed Consulting.
A national leader in the Episcopal Church, the Rev. Winnie Varghese is known for her inspired writing, teaching, and preaching. Winnie has been a leading voice on issues including mass incarceration; systemic racism; gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ issues; and immigration, among others. She is the 23rd rector of St. Luke’s, Atlanta. Prior to St. Luke’s, Winnie served at Trinity Church Wall Street, St. Mark’s in the Bowery in New York City, and St. Alban’s, Los Angeles. Winnie has also served as the Episcopal Chaplain at both Columbia University and the University of California Los Angeles.
Dr. Brian D. McLaren started his career as a college English teacher, then became a pastor, and then put the two together to become a spiritual writer. He loves the outdoors (fly fishing especially), music (jazz and folk especially), and reading (novels and poetry especially). He has four adult kids and five amazing grandchildren and will show you photos without your permission. His new book, Do I Stay Christian? (St. Martins, 2022) is on Publisher’s Weekly top 20 books of 2022. He and his wife, Grace, just survived Hurricane Ian, and can be found walking the beach, pruning trees in their little mango orchard, and watching tortoises cross the road. He looks forward to returning to Calvary and telling the honest truth (as he sees it) about the future of faith.
The senior rabbi at Temple Israel, Micah Greenstein loves Torah no matter where it comes from. “Torah” in a broad Jewish sense refers to the teachings and wisdom of Judaism, but he treasures insights on goodness, love, justice, shalom, and compassion from every faith tradition and every reflection of God’s unity. What inspires Greenstein most about the Jewish legacy he lives and teaches is that it is not simply a tale of enduring persecution and surviving hate but rather a 4,000-year-old joyful embrace of faith, family, and the blessing that comes with being God’s partner in healing a broken world. A preacher at the Lenten Preaching Series since 2000, Rabbi Greenstein is an integral part of Calvary’s Lenten services.