Theology

a podcast so epic I’m writing a book about it

Back in the spring I wrote a series of devotionals for Our Bible App, a daily devotional platform for progressive and liberation-minded Christians. I’ve loved the concept of OBA since I very first heard about it, and was thrilled when OBA’s founder, Crystal Cheatham, asked me to write for them. One of my seminary class discussions inspired me to do a five-day series on the book of Ruth, and I hope you’ll download the app and look it up. If apps and backlit screens just aren’t your thing, keep your eye on here and my Twitter feed for some exciting news.

Sometimes, Crystal interviews a devotional writer for her podcast, Lord Have Mercy, and my interview with her went up about a month ago– I got an e-mail from someone this week who found my writing through Crystal’s podcast, and I realized that in the busyness of my summer I had totally missed it going live!

So, if podcasts are your jam, you can find my episode here: “Samantha Field: Re-Reading Ruth.” I played it from that link using Chrome on my smartphone and it worked great, but I’m sure Lord Have Mercy is available anywhere you like to find your podcasts. If it helps to find it, it’s the September 26 upload. We do a deep-dive into how authoritarian churches operate so successfully, how I escaped fundamentalism but kept my faith, what makes the Bible sacred, how we can still find beauty and meaning in cherished Bible stories, and even some advice at the end about how I got over purity culture.

My conversation with Crystal was so wonderful it’s even inspired me to do something I wasn’t sure I’d ever do: I’m writing a memoir looking at how I went from a KJV-only Bible Thumper to a hippie dippe lovey-dovey WE are what makes the Bible sacred, not God progressive Christian. Very conveniently for me, I can actually list out a bunch of anecdotes and vignettes that trace this transformation almost episodically, so putting it all into a book should be …. I don’t want to say “easy” or I’ll jinx myself, but hopefully not too agonizing.

Back to Crystal, OBA, and Lord Have Mercy. OBA recently moved to a magazine-style subscription service, and I cannot recommend it enough. I’ve been reading OBA’s devotionals for a long time now and they are truly doing the Lord’s work and deserve all the monies. I’m going to start up a subscription soon and Crystal is truly one of Twitter’s shining jewels.

Photography by Spare Tomato
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