About Faith Lab
Faith isn’t pretending to believe what you know isn’t true. And it isn’t shutting off your brain to keep your heart in the game.
Faith Lab is a podcast hosted by Nate and Shelby Hanson that brings serious biblical scholarship out of academic settings and into conversations everyday people can actually follow. Each episode features historians, biblical scholars, archaeologists, philosophers, and scientists explaining their research clearly and honestly, so listeners can see for themselves why so many serious thinkers find the Christian story compelling.
How It Started
Nate spent over a decade in ministry, serving as a pastor and church planter alongside Francis Chan. But the version of Christianity he’d been handed couldn’t hold up under the weight of his own questions, and eventually he entered a long season of deconstruction.
He launched Almost Heretical, a podcast that gave space to people wrestling with hard questions about God, the Bible, and faith. That show reached more than two million downloads and helped thousands of listeners process their doubts openly.
But the questions didn’t stop at deconstruction. As Nate dug deeper into the historical, textual, and philosophical foundations of Christianity, he found far more substance than he expected. Scholars like Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright, and David deSilva opened up a world of rigorous research that most people never encounter in church or in the headlines. What he found wasn’t blind faith. It was a faith built on evidence, history, and careful reasoning.
The Conversation
Shelby brings her own academic weight to the table. With an MA in Biblical Studies and deep experience in the original languages, authorship, canon formation, and the role of women in the biblical world, she asks the questions that keep the show honest and grounded.
Together, they don’t debate. They don’t defend. They translate serious scholarship into real conversations and let listeners decide for themselves.
Who It’s For
Faith Lab exists for believers who want to understand why they believe, for skeptics willing to look at the evidence, and for anyone quietly curious about whether Christianity can hold up under scrutiny.
If you have questions, want to say hello, or want to tell us what you think, reach out to us anytime.
Welcome to Faith Lab. Truth can handle the microscope.