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Makerspace

di Sam Burrows & CEN

Educazione Religione e spiritualità

Stagione 4

Christian Moore-Anderson: Meaning, Powerpoints, and the Death of the Teacher

This week I speak with Christian Moore-Anderson — a biology teacher-turned-cognitive-science-thinker based in Barcelona. Christian argues that the real crisis in education isn't teacher-led vs. student-led, it's that both camps quietly write the teacher out of the classroom. Drawing on enactivist ideas, Christian makes the case that meaning simply cannot be transmitted — not through a slide, not through a diagram, not through AI — because meaning needs to be enacted in each individual and gets built through live conversation between teacher and student. That reframes cognitive load theory and explicit instruction as useful but incomplete: fine for phonics, but dangerously thin once you're teaching anything that actually requires sense-making. Get the first chapter of Christian's book , "Making Meaning" for free here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/teaching-meaning/ His most recent blog post: https://christianmooreanderson.com/teaching-with-the-wrong-ends-of-the-constructivist-stick/

Cassandra Sharp: Cancelled by Consensus - Social Media and Legality

When a gunman live-streamed a massacre in Christchurch, the world didn't just watch — it judged. In real time. In hashtags. And when Amber Heard and Justin Baldoni became the internet's most recent defendants, millions of people delivered a verdict before a single court date. We now live in an age where justice doesn't wait for judges. It happens in comment sections, in retweets, in pile-ons — verdicts reached by consensus, not by law. What does it mean for the young people growing up inside that machine, absorbing their first lessons in right and wrong not from a courtroom, but from a comment thread? That's what we're getting into today. My guest is Cassandra Sharp, Professor of Law at the University of Wollongong and author of the book, Hashtag Jurisprudence. Drawing on case studies of terrorist attacks between 2014 and 2018, her book examines how ordinary people use social media to process terror, express outrage, and — crucially — construct their own theories of justice outside formal legal institutions. She calls this "hashtag jurisprudence": the everyday, emotional, narrative-driven sense of law and justice that plays out online, often in tension with — and sometimes in direct defiance of — the formal legal system.

Alain Emerson: Have We Forgotten What Christian Leadership Means?

This week I dialled in to Northern Ireland to speak with Alain Emerson, the Irish National Director of 24/7 prayer, and pastor at Emmanuel Church in Lurgan. He’s also the author of a number of books. In this conversation we talk about his latest book, The Cruciform Leader. We talk about the crisis facing Western church leadership, stemming from the temptation toward celebrity and results over character. This book calls leaders back to leadership shaped by the cross. We chat about the Asbury Revival and reflect on how a new generation of leaders, many shaped through the hidden years of COVID, are showing more interest in Jesus than platforms. It's a raw, hope-filled conversation about suffering, formation, and what faithful leadership actually costs. Plus, the conversation is delivered in his Irish accent, so you can’t say I don’t do anything for you.

Kevin Mirchandani: Is Your Christian School Killing Students' Faith?

This week I speak to Kevin Mirchandani, a teacher and researcher at Langley Christian School in Vancouver, Canada, whose work sits at the intersection of faith formation, network theory, and Christian school culture. His PhD research explores the often-overlooked who and where of faith development — arguing that identity, belonging, and purpose are shaped not just by curriculum or content, but by the communities and networks students inhabit. He's a passionate advocate for Christian schooling done well, and a thoughtful voice on what it actually takes to move faith formation from performance to authenticity. We talk identity, belonging, purpose, and why some Christian schools might actually be making students' faith worse!

Hans Boersma: God Is Closer Than Your Theology Admits

How do we understand the connection between God and the world? Is God close and involved or is he just watching us get on with it? This week we speak to theological heavyweight, Hans Boersma. Hans is a Dutch-Canadian theologian and prolific author, widely recognised as a leading voice in retrieving the wisdom of the early church for contemporary Christian thought. He holds the Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. In this conversation, we talk through what it might mean to listen to the church fathers of the first few centuries, what we may miss in our contemporary ways of thinking, and what it might mean for Christ to be in all things. It’s a revolutionary and challenging conversation and one that I hope inspires lots of chewing over of the ideas afterwards. His book, Heavenly Participation, is a great place to dive into this conversation in more detail.

Mark Strom: What if Christianity Was Never a Religion?

This week I get to talk with author, speaker and consultant, Mark Strom. Mark is the author of the popular books Reframing Paul, the Symphony of Scripture, and lead with Wisdom. He also served as principal of Laidlaw College in NZ FROM 2005 - 2009, where our paths crossed, despite never actually meeting. Mark is Pauline scholar, and so in this conversation we centre mainly on the thinking of Paul in his letters, and the way he seems to be doing something revolutionary with his understanding of the way the gospel changes the world. This was a dynamic and inspiring conversation that helps us to not sell short, as Mark says in his words, this wild good news. Enjoy!

Dr Leah Payne: The Complicated History of Christian Pop Music

In this episode I get to speak with Leah Payne. Leah is an award-winning historian and Professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary. She also is the author of God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music, which was the Christianity Today Book of the Year for History and Biography, and her research on religion, politics, and popular culture has appeared in The Washington Post, Harper's Magazine, The Economist, BBC Radio, and NBC News. She co-hosts the podcast Rock That Doesn't Roll and created Weird Religion, a religion and pop culture podcast. In his conversation Leah and I talk about the story of contemporary Christian music and the way that Christians have engaged in cultural formation, politics and markets through it, as a way of understanding the story of the church over the last 60 years or so. In the middle I actually take some time to go through her book with some music snippets! https://www.drleahpayne.com Rock that Doesn’t Roll podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6duv0G8igy2tL0W1aW8mCU?si=5aa859c1aab348d5

Edward David: The Spiritual Narratives of Generation Z

This week I get to chat with Edward David, the director of associateship and lecturer of ethics and values at King’s College London, as well as a research fellow at Oxford. Edward has recently lead a research team in a pioneering study into the spirituality of generation Z. Instead of just asking questions, this study uses story completion—letting young people finish the narrative to reveal the hidden spiritual maps they’re actually using to navigate the world. They have identified 5 main ways people are understanding spirituality today and so in this conversation I chat with Edward about what these results mean for teachers, but also how they help us to understand the spiritual climate our young people are growing up in.

Dean Ashenden: The Tensions in Australian Education

This week our guest is Dean Ashenden, a former teacher, researcher, political advisor, and veteran observer of the Australian school system and the author of Unbeaching the Whale. Dean’s work cuts through the political noise to examine the structural bones of our education system. He’s a regular contributor to mainstream publications and one of the sharpest minds in the country when it comes to the politics of the classroom. This conversation is a challenging one, as Dean presents us with big questions to ask of Australia’s education system, and the inequalities present within it.

Chris Watkin: The Questions AI is Forcing Us to Answer

Our first guest this season is a returning guest, Chris Watkin, author of Biblical Critical Theory and more recently, The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity. Chris speaks into a variety of areas, one of them being AI. He’s launching a course on the underlying philosophy of this, so we jump on to talk through some of the contours of the content. We go big picture here, not so much about how to use AI, but asking the questions that need to be addressed before we do. Chris's upcoming AI course through Notre Dame: https://events.nd.edu.au/artificial-intelligence-and-christian-wisdom?fbclid=IwY2xjawSByi9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFSZ094R25qMDg5YVdFcHJhc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHkv0daT6xEstpG1EeXocgOiqFcp7hGt0fKmAJdydFirrFJLHj8LE7L8fyZQ3_aem_6-WQpxGkSZU9Zfxba777lA

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