New Podcast comes to the EMC: The Armchair Anabaptist
Theodidaktos has long been a place where the Evangelical Mennonite Conference (EMC) can interact with theological ideas of many kinds. With time and changes in technology, many within the EMC find themselves not only interacting with theology through written formats, but also by listening to audiobooks and podcasts. With this in mind, the Board of Church Ministries commissioned the creation of a podcast for the EMC from a uniquely Anabaptist perspective. Given that Theodidaktos has long been a place of theological discussion and debate within the conference, it seemed only fitting this be the place for the podcast to begin.
The Armchair Anabaptist is the name of this new podcast, hosted by the editors of Theodidaktos, Kevin Wiebe and Jesse Penner. The format of the podcast is not the typical format when it comes to theological podcasts. Most theology podcasts focus on one guest at a time, or simply have two hosts discussing different topics, with guests only being present periodically. The format for The Armchair Anabaptist is a little bit different—it is a bit experimental but not without being thought through with some fairly educated hypotheses as to what will make this an intriguing and engaging listening experience.
The traditional interview format of having one guest per episode will often gain listeners for particular episodes when the guests have a greater amount of celebrity. So rather than engaging with the podcast because of the topic, they engage with the podcast because of the guest. We certainly want to interview guests that our EMC listeners (and beyond) will find engaging, thought provoking, and, yes, sometimes even provocative. But to give us an alternative perspective, we thought we could somewhat subvert the problematic nature of celebrity culture by the way we structured the podcast.
Rather than centering a single person on each episode, we centred a question or series of questions—and included numerous guests and their variety of perspectives to help us dive deeper into this question. In this way we can broadcast the voices our listeners would want to hear without having to centre our podcast on a single person. This also seemed to be a way to give a nod to the traditional Anabaptist model of “community hermeneutics” where it is through a diverse array of voices that we can better learn to understand the Scriptures. It also helps to present a variety of perspectives, not all of which agree easily with one another. This, we believe, is healthy and provides us with a much richer discussion.
Another podcast that has made waves within the Christian world in recent years is The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. We could debate its merits and pitfalls, the many reasons people loved it or were triggered by it, whether it sparked healthy reflections about self-improvement as the church, or whether it fostered an unhealthy and morbid fascination with a type of post-mortem examination of a failed church. One thing it did reveal, however, is that when content is presented in a particular format, scores of people are willing to engage with what they called “long-form journalism.”
For a long time, there has been concern that people’s attention spans are getting shorter, but this proved that, when presented in a particular fashion, people could in fact pay attention for a long time around one theme. Not only were the episodes long, but the entire season centred around essentially the same topic. While The Armchair Anabaptist does not have the same scope or goal as The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, and is certainly not as sensational, we decided to take the bold step of dedicating the entire first season to exploring a single thread within Anabaptist thought: the life of peace and Jesus’ teachings about loving our enemies. Every episode explores a different angle around this theme, but the entire season will be taking this long-form approach to this topic.
We will be exploring why Jesus connected the idea of loving our enemies to what it means to be children of God, the history of conscientious objectors, the difference between careers in the military and policing, the ways churches have misused Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies, how these difficult teachings apply in sensitive and delicate situations such as abuse or trauma, and much more. The end of each episode also includes a feature song, some even written and recorded by folks within the EMC or with EMC connections.
Another factor in all of this is that we worked well ahead of time so that by the time the first episode went to air, every episode was already finished. This allowed us greater precision in planning the direction of the season and putting the various interviews together in a way that promoted a natural flow. While we jumped into this taking a risk on this entire format, as things came together, we believe the results will speak for themselves. While it meant our listeners did not get a podcast for a while longer as we worked out the details, we strongly believe the end results are worth the wait, as we hope you will hear for yourself.
The richness of the podcast really comes because of the thoughtfulness of our panel of guests, and there is simply no way around this fact. We were blessed to include the voices of Dr. Layton Friesen, Pastor Brian Zahnd, Betty Pries, Dr. Terry Hiebert, Dr. Greg Boyd, Dr. Carol Penner, Dr. Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, Pastor Cyndy Warkentin, Pastor Cameron McKenzie, Stephanie, Travis, Jennifer and Deborah from the EMC’s Many Rooms Church Community, Pastor Melissa Florer-Bixler. We were also honoured to be able to interview Dr. Ronald J. Sider just a few months prior to his passing, so his wisdom from that interview is included as well. We are deeply grateful for the rich texture of perspectives that have come together for this first season.
You can check out The Armchair Anabaptist on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are found, or check it out online at www.thearmchairanabaptist.ca.
