Almost Heretical - Deconstruct Christianity

About Almost Heretical - Deconstruct Christianity

Christianity is deeper than you've been shown. Nate Hanson digs into the parts of Christianity most of us were never shown: the evidence for Jesus, the strange spiritual world of the Bible, miracles, the first Christians, and true stories of people Jesus changed. Short episodes, grounded in serious scholarship. Earlier episodes feature conversations with scholars like N.T. Wright, Tim Mackie, and Craig Keener. Nate was a pastor, spent most of a decade deconstructing, and came back through scholarship. Faith Lab is free and listener-supported. Help keep it going at faithlabshow.com/support (https://faithlabshow.com/support).

Publisher

Nate Hanson

Category

religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jan 2018

Latest episode

13 May 2026

Latest episodes

46 of 320 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   13 May 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Why the gospels hold up as history (Craig Keener)

   New Testament scholar Craig Keener explains why the Gospels are historically reliable, sharing his journey from atheism to faith.

2. 

   29 Apr 2026

   Is the gospel just a ticket to heaven? (Dr. Nijay Gupta)

   New Testament scholar Dr. Nijay Gupta discusses with host Shane Rosenthal and Nate how Paul's gospel differs from the common "ticket to heaven" theology.

3. 

   1 Apr 2026

   What the first Christians believed about Easter

   The hardest critiques of the cross target one version of the gospel. The earliest Christians were teaching something bigger. For a thousand years before penal substitution became the dominant framework, the church proclaimed something wider: that God entered into death to destroy it from the inside. Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Gregory of Nyssa all described it, and their version answers the questions that trip most of us up. 🙏 Faith Lab is a listener-supported show. If these conversations are helping you, you can support the show at faithlabshow.com/support (https://faithlabshow.com/support) ★ Support this podcast ★ (https://faithlab.supercast.com)

Inside a recent episode

Why the gospels hold up as history (Craig Keener)

Published 13 May 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] It's clearly historical preface. Now, Love Day Alexander is a scholar who examined it and said, it's a, it's like a scientific preface, but she clarified afterwards that she wasn't denying it was historical preface. She was saying that there's different kinds of historians and this was closer to the technical scientific way of writing history as opposed to the more rhetorical way of writing history. So, but in terms of my own research, most scholars think that the genre to which the Gospels is close, or closest is the genre of ancient biography, which is not exactly the same as the way we do modern biography, but obviously the related, which is why we can use the same, same term for both. […]

Who has been a guest on Almost Heretical - Deconstruct Christianity

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Craig Keener
• NT Wright
• Caleb Friedeman

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

86,256

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

574 ratings

Spotify

4.1 / 5

163 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

47

Social presence

0

YouTube

85

Engagement

97

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