Grant’s work invites us to ask searching questions: What does Bible study look like after inerrancy? Do you have to give up Scripture when you no longer believe in its literal interpretation? Can you still call it sacred while renegotiating your relationship with the church?
In Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible, she wrestles with these questions in a lyrical and deeply personal commentary on Genesis—offering readers a fresh vision for encountering God in Scripture, even as faith continues to shift and evolve.
Michael Barram, always warm and thoughtful, will bring his trademark curiosity, expertise in biblical studies, and engaging questions to the conversation. And, as always, there will be time for audience participation.
Liz Charlotte Grant is an award-winning writer whose work has been published in The Revealer, Sojourners, Brevity, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Hippocampus, Religion News Service, U.S. Catholic, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Her essays have twice won a Jacques Maritain Nonfiction Prize. She also writes The Empathy List, a popular newsletter that has been nominated for a Webby two years running and received an honorable mention from the Associated Church Press Awards in 2023. Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible is her first book.
Michael Barram, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology & Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California. His work explores missional hermeneutics and how Scripture shapes moral imagination and moral reasoning, especially around economic and social justice. He is the author of Missional Economics (2018) and Mission and Moral Reflection in Paul (2006), and co-author (with John R. Franke) of Liberating Scripture (2024). Barram also co-edited Reparations and the Theological Disciplines (2023) and the Cascade series Studies in Missional Hermeneutics, Theology, and Praxis. He also teaches for New College Berkeley and First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley.
Names mentioned:
Zach W. Lambert; John Piper; John MacArthur; Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg; Rashi; Abraham Joshua Heschel; Gregory of Nyssa; Simone Weil; Renita Weems; James Cone; Howard Thurman; Martin Luther King Jr.; Delores S. Williams; Wil Gafney; Gustavo Gutiérrez; Sigmund Freud; Rob Bell; Sefaria.org
Books mentioned:
Better Ways to Read the Bible: Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing (Zach W. Lambert)
Jesus Freaks: Stories of Those Who Stood for Jesus (DC Talk & The Voice of the Martyrs)
The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis (Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg)
Sisters in the Wilderness (Delores S. Williams)
The Life of Moses (Gregory of Nyssa)
A Generous Orthodoxy (Brian McLaren)