Pastor-Theologian Insights on Faith Journeys: with Dr. Andrew Ray Williams

I return from a short hiatus and talk with Dr. Andrew Ray Williams, a pastor theologian who serves the church while also teaching in the academy. We discuss his book Reconstructing Prayer and how deconstruction isn’t monolithic or the same as deconverting; it can be a faithful, generative process that leads toward reconstruction involving both theology and spirituality (head and heart). Andrew describes reconstruction as “mature dependence,” where Christian maturity means deeper reliance on God, and he highlights faithful doubt, lament, and protest as biblical practices that keep questions turned toward Jesus (like Job, the Psalms, Mark 9, and John the Baptist). We explore suffering and theodicy through “God is great, God is good,” arguing the “answer” to evil is ultimately a person—Jesus—not a tidy idea. We also warn pastors not to play savior, to listen well, and to use resources like the Psalms and Beyond Doubt.