We have an early Christmas gift for Gospelbound listeners. In this special bonus episode I’m joined by my good friend and colleague Melissa Kruger, co-host of the popular Let’s Talk podcast, which also debuted in TGC’s Podcast Network in 2020.

Melissa turns the tables and asks about my annual list of top 10 theology stories. As usual, this list branches far beyond theology. That’s because you can rarely separate theology from personality and politics. In 2020 you could not deduce a church’s position on masks by asking about their views about predestination or the Lord’s Supper. But if you asked church leaders about the mainstream media and President Trump, you could probably determine how they would regard the threat of COVID-19. In 2020 theological unity took a back seat to political partisanship.

In any given year, the top three theology stories of 2020 would each claim #1. It’s not hyperbole to say the world will never be the same. The top three stories overlapped, and probably none of them would have played out the same way without the other. The extent to which the church can recover depends largely on whether theology emerges as more formative than ethnic identity or political party. You can listen to more about what’s next for 2021 in this week’s special Gospelbound episode with Melissa Kruger.