This is our third and final instalment of our series with Orthodox theologian and friend of the Cupboard, David Goa. This series has focused on the topic of fundamentalism, how it is expressed within the church, from several sides. If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes in this series, we’d encourage you to go back and take a listen to them before diving into this conversation.

In today’s episode, Todd and David speak of the challenge that encountering the living God presents to fundamentalism and how this challenge is hopeful for those professing Christian faith. Discussing the work of William Cavanaugh in his recent book, The Uses of Idolatry, we consider how encountering the living God is fundamentally unmanageable. This unmanageability can be experienced as distressing and fearful for people as it can be at odds with that which we assume is certain, is foundational, that which we may hold sacred. But in this place, we can come to understand the presence of God rather than our presumptions about God.

We hope that you have found challenge and encouragement, perhaps, hope in these conversations. Thanks for listening.

If you’d like to explore these ideas more, we invite you to read the books that these conversations have largely centred around.

Minds Wide Shut: How the New Fundamentalisms Divide Us, Gary Saul Morson and Morton Shapiro, 2021

Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers of the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter, Gary Saul Mortson, 2023

The Uses of Idolatry, Williams T. Cavanaugh, 2024