It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose, marking an episode of The Mockingcast “E” for “Explicit.” I just figured that when it happened, it’d be because of language (*ahem, Rev Jackwagon*) rather than content. But iTunes is notoriously touchy about these things and the “sex recession” is just too relevant of a subject not […]
O Come Thou Dayspring (and Grandparents, too)
“Would you like to see what you got me for Christmas?” Starting this time of year, this is the refrain in my home. I am a gift person. My husband is … not. I love selecting, buying, and wrapping gifts. He … doesn’t. I could blame the hectic Advent schedule at church (he’s clergy), but […]
Gig Economies and the Evangelism of Pleeeeeeeeaassssee
I really wish she hadn’t written this one. It would’ve stung no matter when it came out, but right now just seems cruel. Maybe you saw it and feel similarly exposed. Hopefully not. I’m talking about Ruth Whippman’s searing editorial in The NY Times “Everything Is For Sale Now, Even Us.” Believe me when I […]
The Philosopher from the 1800s Who Talked About Social Media
Long before Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, there lived a man in 19th-century Denmark who foreshadowed them all. His name was Søren Kierkegaard. We recognize him as a philosopher and a pugilistic theologian. Plus, the guy could tell a story like nobody’s business. And in one of his stories, he all but prophesies the future soul […]
Hopelessly Devoted: Mark Chapter Seven Verses Thirty-One to Thirty-Six
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put […]
PZ’s Podcast: Transgressive Enough 4 U?, Mountain of Love, Magic, and Too Weak to Fight
EPISODE 260: Transgressive Enough 4 U? Experiencing a massive re-think just now concerning world cinema! This has been occasioned in part by watching every disc one can get one’s hands on of the recently released catalogue of British “Vintage Classics”. Have you ever heard of “Mandy” (1951)? Or “The Captive Heart” (1946)? Or “The Sound Barrier” […]
Who Are You When You Don’t Win?
“He says he is winning all the time. Who are you when you don’t win?” – Doris Kearns Goodwin, speaking of President Trump Forget about politics. No trolling, snarking, self-righteousness allowed. Every one of us, in our youth, with every “A” on a paper, and every “D” on a test, felt either validated or outed […]
Culture and the Countercultural Cross – David Zahl
The talk given at the Here We Still Stand conference in San Diego last month, in which I offered up the first full-length taste of my forthcoming book Seculosity (and had a lot of fun in the process). Many thanks to everyone at 1517 for putting it on:
PZ’s Podcast: Revenge of the Creature
EPISODE 259 We’re talking about love today — wouldn’t ya know — and the relation of divine love to romantic love. It’s a familiar topic, but one that remains very fresh, at least as long as human memory and human loss remain conscious. Here is the key line, from a kind of monologue that occurs […]
My Dad, His Dad, Jesus, and His Bride
Last month, my parents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary…and the occasion caused me to realize that although my dad has never been a religious man in the traditional sense of the word, he was a picture of Jesus and the church, for me. The most succinct way I can say this graciously is that he […]
Forty, Finitude, and Me
A lovely personal reflection from Katy Attanasi: This is a story about the tension that exists between Christian triumph and human frailty, between the ideal and the real, and between the myth of unlimited potential and the reality of constrained choices. Once upon a time, my 21-year-old self was on top of a world that […]
What If Millennials Were Enough?
The list of safe topics to bring up at a dinner party is, as we all know, shrinking. It used to be just politics and religion that were outlawed from “polite society.” But then everything became political — and politics itself became an object of widespread religious faith (#seculosity) — and to get along, you […]
