Give and Take
263 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 94 ratingsSomeone once observed that if Howard Stern and Krista Tippett had a love child, it would be Scott Jones. Scott liked that.
At "Give and Take,” Scott Jones talks with artists, authors, theologians, and political pundits about the lens through which they experience life. With empathy, humor, and a deep knowledge of religion, current events, and pop culture, Scott engages his guests in a free-flowing conversation that's entertaining, unexpected, occasionally bizarre, and oftentimes enlightening. He likes people, and it shows.
Past interviewees include Mark Oppenheimer, Melissa Febos, David French, Miroslav Volf, Dan Savage, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rob Bell, and (yes) Krista Tippett.
Scott is the former host and producer of the popular Mockingcast podcast (https://themockingcast.fireside.fm) and an in-demand consultant on all things “pod.” He’s also the co-host, with Bill Borror, of New Persuasive Words (https://npw.fireside.fm). Scott is also a prolific writer, a frequent conference speaker, a PhD candidate in Theology, and an ordained minister.
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Episodes
Episode 212: Corona and The Congressional Dish, with Jennifer Briney.
May 09, 2020 19:00 - 1 hour - 63.8 MBMy guest is Jennifer Briney. She's the host of the wildly popular Congressional Dish podcast (https://congressionaldish.com) which offers granular and entertaining coverage of the U.S. Congress. Special Guest: Jennifer Briney.
Episode 211: Stan Lee: A Life in Comics, with Liel Liebovitz
May 07, 2020 17:00 - 1 hour - 78.7 MBMy guest is Liel Liebovitz. He's a Senior Writer at Tablet Magazine and a co-host of the wildly popular podcast Unorthodox. His newest book is Stan Lee: A Life in Comics.
Episode 211: Stan Lee: A Life in Comics, with Liel Leibovitz
May 07, 2020 17:00 - 1 hour - 78.7 MBMy guest is Liel Leibovitz. He's a Senior Writer at Tablet Magazine and a co-host of the wildly popular podcast Unorthodox. His newest book is Stan Lee: A Life in Comics.
Episode 212: Stan Lee: A Life in Comics, with Liel Liebovitz
May 07, 2020 17:00 - 1 hour - 78.7 MBMy guest is Liel Liebovitz. He's a Senior Writer at Tablet Magazine and a co-host of the wildly popular podcast Unorthodox. His newest book is Stan Lee: A Life in Comics.
Episode 210: This Is All I Got: A New Mother's Search for Home, with Lauren Sandler
May 04, 2020 21:00 - 1 hour - 46.4 MBMy guest is Lauren Sandler. Her newest book is This Is All I Got: A New Mother's Search for Home (https://www.amazon.com/This-All-Got-Mothers-Search-ebook/dp/B07TRXXF6N/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Lauren+Sandler+this+is+all+I+got&qid=1588628322&sr=8-1). More than forty-five million Americans attempt to survive under the poverty line, day by day. Nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters every night—forty percent of them children. This Is All I Got makes this issue deeply perso...
Episode 209: Pandemics Old and New, with Edward J. Watts
May 03, 2020 17:15 - 1 hour - 67.1 MBMy guest is Edward J. Watts. He holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including The Final Pagan Generation (https://www.amazon.com/Final-Generation-Transformation-Classical-Heritage-ebook/dp/B00Q6B7FXW/ref=pd_sbsd_14_3/146-5135130-5937969?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00Q6B7FXW&pd_rd_r=0fec29e1-a8b5-4cdd-a3be-2b36f300760e&pd_rd_w=3QCKb&pd_rd_wg=sUeEC&pf_rd_p=2c2d0d3...
Episode 208: Commentary and Corona, with Noah Rothman
April 30, 2020 19:00 - 1 hour - 57.8 MBMy guest is Noah Rothman. He is the Associate Editor of Commentary and the author of Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. (https://www.amazon.com/Unjust-Social-Justice-Unmaking-America/dp/1621577929) Special Guest: Noah Rothman.
Episode 207: The Power Worshipers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, with Katherine Stewart
April 29, 2020 00:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBMy guest is Katherine Stewart. Her newest book is The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. (https://www.amazon.com/Power-Worshippers-Dangerous-Religious-Nationalism/dp/1635573432) For too long, she argues, the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement t...
Episode 206: Power in Modernity, with Isaac Ariail Reed
April 18, 2020 19:15 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBMy guest is Isaac Ariail Reed. He's the author of Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies. (https://www.amazon.com/Power-Modernity-Relations-Creative-Destruction/dp/022668945X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=power+in+modernity+Isaac&qid=1587237920&sr=8-1) In it he proposes a bold new theory of power that describes overlapping networks of delegation and domination. Chains of power and their representation, linking together groups and individuals ...
Episode 205: Conservatism and Corona, with David French
April 15, 2020 23:30 - 1 hour - 70.6 MBMy guest is David French. He is a senior editor for The Dispatch and was formerly a senior writer for National Review. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his next book, The Great American Divorce, will be published by St. Martin’s Press later this year. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a former lecturer at Cornell Law School. He has served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and ...
Episode 204: Spirituality and Purpose in the midst of Corona, with Rabbi Daniel Cohen
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 38 minutes - 34.8 MBMy guest is Daniel Cohen. Rabbi Cohen is the author of What Will They Say About You When You Are Gone? Creating a Life of Legacy. (https://www.amazon.com/What-Will-They-About-Youre/dp/0757319513)He is co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Rabbi and the Reverend, with Reverend Greg Doll, writes for the Huffington Post Blog, and is a Bottom Line Inc. Expert. He serves as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Agudath Sholom, the largest modern orthodox synagogue in New England.
Episode 203: Saving Free Speech...from Itself, with Thane Rosenbaum
February 26, 2020 19:00 - 45 minutes - 31.1 MBMy guest is Thane Rosenbaum. His newest book is Saving Free Speech...from Itself (https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Speech-Itself-Thane-Rosenbaum/dp/1941493262). In an era of political correctness, race-baiting, terrorist incitement, the ‘Danish’ cartoons, the shouting down of speakers, and, of course, ‘fake news,’ liberals and conservatives are up in arms both about speech and its excesses, and what the First Amendment means. Speech has been weaponized. Everyone knows it, but no one seems to kn...
Episode 202: The Pleasure Gap, with Katherine Rowland
February 18, 2020 18:00 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MBMy guest is Katherine Rowland. Tens of millions of American women are dissatisfied with their sex lives. In her provocative and meticulously researched new book, The Pleasure Gap: American Women and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution (https://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Gap-American-Unfinished-Revolution/dp/1580058361/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+pleasure+gap&qid=1582049486&sr=8-1), Katherine Rowland, a public health researcher and journalist explores our culture's troubled relationship with women's sex...
Episode 201: Trains, Jesus, and Murder: The Gospel according to Johnny Cash, with Richard Beck
January 20, 2020 21:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MBMy guest is Richard Beck. His new book is Trains, Jesus, and Murder: The Gospel according to Johnny Cash (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1506433766/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0). "Saints and sinners, all jumbled up together." That's the genius of Johnny Cash, and that's what the gospel is ultimately all about.Johnny Cash sang about and for people on the margins. He famously played concerts in prisons, where he sang both murder ballads and gospel tunes in the same set. It's this juxtaposi...
Episode 200: The Unspoken, with Bob Holman
December 05, 2019 20:00 - 57 minutes - 39.7 MBMy guest is Bob Holman. On December 3, 2019, Bowery Books simultaneously released two new books of poetry by Bob Holman—written 50 years apart. LIFE POEM (https://www.amazon.com/Life-Poem-Bob-Holman/dp/1936411547)and THE UNSPOKEN (https://www.amazon.com/UnSpoken-Bob-Holman-Word-Movement/dp/1936411571/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Bob+Holman+the+unspoken&qid=1575579603&s=books&sr=1-1) serve not only as bookends to a lifetime immersed in words, performance, and the avant garde, but they also show the ev...
Episode 199: How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics, with Lauren Duca
December 04, 2019 16:00 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MBMy guest is Lauren Duca. Her new book is How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politic (https://www.amazon.com/How-Start-Revolution-American-Politics/dp/1501181637)s. In it this Teen Vogue award-winning columnist shares a smart and funny guide for challenging the status quo in a much-needed reminder that young people are the ones who will change the world. Duca investigates and explains the issues at the root of our ailing political system and reimagines what an e...
Episode 198: Modern Technology and the Human Future, with Craig Gay
November 13, 2019 14:00 - 49 minutes - 33.8 MBMy guest is Craig M. Gay. His newest book is Modern Technology and the Human Future: A Christian Appraisal. (https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Technology-Human-Future-Christian/dp/0830852204) Technology is not neutral. From the plow to the printing press, technology has always shaped human life and informed our understanding of what it means to be human. And advances in modern technology, from computers to smartphones, have yielded tremendous benefits. But do these developments actually encourage...
Episode 197: Revolution of Values, with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
November 12, 2019 15:00 - 1 hour - 47.5 MBMy guest is Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. His newest book is Revolution of Values: Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good (https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Values-Reclaiming-Public-Common/dp/0830845933/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1573571953&sr=1-1). In it he argues that the religious Right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian...
Episode 196: Why We Need the Electoral College, with Tara Ross
November 08, 2019 17:00 - 50 minutes - 34.7 MBMy guest is Tara Ross. She is the author of "Why We Need the Electoral College." Is the Electoral College anti-democratic? Some would say yes. After all, the presidential candidate with the most popular votes has nevertheless lost the election at least three times, including 2016. To some Americans, that’s a scandal. They believe the Electoral College is an intolerable flaw in the Constitution, a relic of a bygone era that ought to have been purged long ago. But that would be a terrible mist...
Episode 195: The Tutor, with Marilee Albert
November 07, 2019 17:00 - 39 minutes - 27.3 MBMy guest is Marilee Albert. Her new novel is The Tutor (https://www.amazon.com/Tutor-Marilee-Albert/dp/1644280345). In it recent Yale grad, Alice, wants to be close to her boyfriend in Paris, with enough space to sow a few oats. Rome fits, so off she goes. Her other goals? To make art and find a muse. Instead, she finds herself a muse to various men―including a TV-host dwarf, lonely banker, alcoholic playboy, aging prince, and the disillusioned Oscar-winning film director, Frank Colucci. The ...
Episode 194: Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There), with Sarah Hurwitz
November 01, 2019 16:00 - 1 hour - 44.1 MBMy guest is Sarah Hurwitz. Her new book is Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There) (https://www.amazon.com/Here-All-Along-Spirituality-Life/dp/0525510710). After a decade as a political speechwriter—serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign—Sarah Hurwitz decided...
Episode 193: How Charts Lie, with Alberto Cairo
October 30, 2019 22:30 - 45 minutes - 30.9 MBMy guest is Alberto Cairo. His new book is How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information (https://www.amazon.com/How-Charts-Lie-Getting-Information/dp/1324001569/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=how+charts+lie&qid=1572474634&sr=8-1). In it this leading data visualization expert explores the negative―and positive―influences that charts have on our perception of truth. We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has...
Episode 192: The Fire Is Upon Us, with Nicholas Buccola
October 29, 2019 20:00 - 55 minutes - 38.3 MBMy guest is Nicholas Buccola. His new book is The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (https://www.amazon.com/Fire-upon-Us-Baldwin-William/dp/0691181543). On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's ...
Episode 191: Only Americans Burn in Hell, with Jarett Kobek
October 18, 2019 19:00 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBMy guest is Jarret Kobek. His new book is Only Americans Burn in Hell (https://www.amazon.com/Only-Americans-Burn-Jarett-Kobek/dp/0578529718/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=only+americans+burn+in+hell&qid=1571353565&sr=8-1). If you still want to play the game of American life, then you had better learn to lie. Kneel before false gods. Pretend to care about the ruling class and their illusions. Keep your head down. Pray that no one sees you. Your world is one of endless interruption and constant despair. ...
Episode 190: The Church of Us vs. Them, with David Fitch
October 18, 2019 04:00 - 54 minutes - 37.2 MBMy guest is David Fitch. His newest book is The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith That Feeds on Making Enemies (https://www.amazon.com/Church-Us-vs-Them-Freedom/dp/1587434148/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+church+of+us+vs+them&qid=1571349899&sr=8-1). We are living in angry times. No matter where we go, what we watch, or how we communicate, our culture is rife with conflict. Unfortunately, Christians appear to be caught up in the same animosity as the culture at large. We are perceived as a...
Episode 189: Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive, with Jonathan Walton
October 17, 2019 21:00 - 58 minutes - 40.4 MBMy guest is Jonathan Walton. His new book is Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive: And the Truth That Sets Us Free. (https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Lies-That-America-Captive/dp/0830845585/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ND5NDBMY2IYR&keywords=12+lies+that+hold+america+captive&qid=1571347397&sprefix=12+lies+%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1) "America is a Christian nation." "All men are created equal." "We are the land of the free and the home of the brave." Except when we're not. These commonly held ideas break down in th...
Episode 188: How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy, with Johanna Hanink
October 17, 2019 01:00 - 39 minutes - 27.3 MBMy guest is Johanna Hanink. Her newest book How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy (https://www.amazon.com/How-Think-about-War-Ancient/dp/0691190151) is an accessible modern translation of essential speeches from Thucydides’s History that takes readers to the heart of his profound insights on diplomacy, foreign policy, and war. Why do nations go to war? What are citizens willing to die for? What justifies foreign invasion? And does might always make right? For nearly 2,500...
Episode 187: Miller's Children: Why Giving Teenage Killers a Second Chance Matters for All of Us, with James Garbarino
October 10, 2019 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.6 MBMy guest is James Garbarino. His new book is Miller's Children: Why Giving Teenage Killers a Second Chance Matters for All of Us (https://www.amazon.com/Millers-Children-Teenage-Killers-Matters-dp-0520295676/dp/0520295676/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=). It is a passionate and comprehensive look at the human consequences of the US Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Miller v. Alabama, which outlaws mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile murderers. The decision to a...
Episode 186: She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, with Carl Zimmer
October 04, 2019 15:00 - 1 hour - 42.2 MBMy guest is Carl Zimmer. His newest book is She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity. (https://www.amazon.com/She-Has-Her-Mothers-Laugh/dp/1101984597) In it he presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gr...
Episode 185: Exodus Preaching, with Kenyatta Gilbert
October 01, 2019 19:00 - 1 hour - 46.4 MBMy guest is Kenyatta Gilbert. His newest book is Exodus Preaching: Crafting Sermons about Justice and Hope (https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Preaching-Crafting-Sermons-Justice/dp/1501832573). Exodus Preaching is the first of its kind. It is an exploration of the African American prophetic rhetorical traditions in a manner that makes features of these traditions relevant to a broad audience beyond the African American traditions. It provides readers a composite picture of the nature, meaning, and...
Episode 184: What Does It Feel Like to Die?, with Jennie Dear
September 30, 2019 16:00 - 43 minutes - 30 MBMy guest is Jennie Dear. Her new book is What Does It Feel Like to Die?: Inspiring New Insights into the Experience of Dying (https://www.amazon.com/What-Does-Feel-Like-Die/dp/0806539860), As a long-time hospice volunteer, Jennie Dear has helped countless patients, families, and caregivers cope with the many challenges of the dying process. Inspired by her own personal journey with her mother’s long-term illness, Dear demystifies the experience of dying for everyone whose lives it touches. Sh...
Episode 183: How Reason Can Lead to God, with Joshua Rasmussen
September 29, 2019 01:00 - 40 minutes - 27.7 MBMy guest is Joshua Rasmussen. His newest book is How Reason Can Lead to God: A Philosopher's Bridge to Faith (https://www.amazon.com/How-Reason-Can-Lead-God/dp/0830852522). Do you seek the truth? Do you value reason, science, and independent thinking? Are you skeptical of beliefs that people maintain merely "on faith," yet you remain interested in the big questions of life? Do you hope there could be a greater purpose to the universe, if only that were realistic? If so, then philosopher Joshu...
Episode 182: Why Church, with Scott Sunquist
September 25, 2019 21:00 - 47 minutes - 32.5 MBMy guest is Scott Sunquist. His newest book is Why Church: A Basic Introduction (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Church-Introduction-Scott-Sunquist/dp/0830852387). Is a church just something we create to serve our purposes or to maintain old traditions? Or is it something more vital, more meaningful, and more powerful? This can be hard to believe when we look at what happens in any one congregation or denomination. Certainly not all churches act like Jesus in the world, and many individual churche...
Episode 181: Up In Arms, with John Temple
September 24, 2019 22:00 - 43 minutes - 29.5 MBMy guest is John Temple. His newest book is Up in Arms: How the Bundy Family Hijacked Public Lands, Outfoxed the Federal Government, and Ignited America’s Patriot Militia Movement. (https://www.amazon.com/Up-Arms-Hijacked-Outfoxed-Government/dp/1946885959) Up in Arms chronicles how an isolated clan of desert-dwelling Mormons became the guiding light—and then the outright leaders—of America’s Patriot movement. The nation was riveted in 2014 when hundreds of Bundy supporters, many of them armed...
Episode 180: Walter Kaufmann: Philosopher, Humanist, Heretic, with Stanley Corngold
September 24, 2019 17:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MBMy guest is Stanley Corngold. His new book is Walter Kaufmann: Philosopher, Humanist, Heretic (https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Kaufmann-Philosopher-Humanist-Heretic/dp/0691165017). Walter Kaufmann (1921–1980) was a charismatic philosopher, critic, translator, and poet who fled Nazi Germany at the age of eighteen, emigrating alone to the United States. He was astonishingly prolific until his untimely death at age fifty-nine, writing some dozen major books, all marked by breathtaking erudition an...
Episode 179: The Art of Less Doing, with Ari Meisel
September 19, 2019 13:00 - 55 minutes - 38.2 MBMy guest is Ari Meisel. Ari is the best-selling author of “The Art of Less Doing“, and “The Replaceable Founder.” He is a self-described Overwhelmologist whose insights into personal and professional productivity have earned him the title, “The Guru’s Guru.” He can be heard on the award-winning Less Doing Podcast, and on international stages speaking to thought leaders and influencers around the world. We had a wide ranging conversation about everything from time tracking, the why's and how's...
Episode 178: Love Over Fear, with Dan White Jr.
September 17, 2019 19:00 - 35 minutes - 24.4 MBMy guest is Dan White Jr. His new book is Love over Fear: Facing Monsters, Befriending Enemies, and Healing Our Polarized World (https://www.amazon.com/Love-over-Fear-Befriending-Polarized/dp/0802418880/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=love+over+fear+dan+white&qid=1568749250&s=gateway&sr=8-1). Whether it's the news, social media, or well-intentioned friends, we're told daily to fear "others." We fear strangers, neighbors, the other side of the aisle, even those who parent differently. And when we're confr...
Episode 177: Sacred and Profane Love, with Jennifer Frey
September 15, 2019 02:00 - 1 hour - 50.9 MBMy guest is Jennifer Frey. She teaches at the University of South Carolina, and hosts The Virtue Blog (https://thevirtueblog.com) and the philosophy and literature podcast, Sacred and Profane Love. She writes about virtue, action, practical reason, and what it might mean to live well as a human person. Special Guest: Jennifer Frey.
Episode 175: Two Guys Talk Chesterton in New York City, with David Shields
August 31, 2019 15:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBMy guest is David Shields. In this episode we talk about G.K. Chesterton and his insights into the human condition on a beautiful hotel patio in New York City. Special Guest: David Shields.
Episode 174: Marshawn Lynch: A History, with David Shields
August 31, 2019 14:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MBMy guest is David Shields, New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books. He has just written, directed and produced a documentary film, Marshawn Lynch: A History. The film explores the silence that nonconformist NFL star Marshawn Lynch deploys as a form of resistance. Culling more than 700 video clips and placing them in dramatic, rapid, and radical juxtaposition, the film is a powerful political parable about the American media-sports complex and its deep complicity with racia...
Episode 173: Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire, with Dan Conway
August 28, 2019 20:00 - 55 minutes - 38.2 MBMy guest is Dan Conway. His new book is Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire: My Unlikely Escape from Corporate America. (https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Crypto-Millionaire-Unlikely-Corporate-ebook/dp/B07VBS7Z5K) When the Financial Times interviewed Dan Conway for a story about cryptocurrency millionaires, he told them the unvarnished truth: "I invested because I wanted the underdogs to win, for once - losers like me who didn't make the rules and didn't have the money... We'd been forced to...
Episode 172: Color Me In, with Natasha Díaz
August 28, 2019 13:00 - 33 minutes - 22.9 MBMy guest is Natasha Diaz. Her debut novel is Color Me In (https://www.amazon.com/Color-Me-Natasha-Diaz/dp/0525578234). In it Natasha Díaz pulls from her personal experience to inform this powerful coming-of-age novel about the meaning of friendship, the joyful beginnings of romance, and the racism and religious intolerance that can both strain a family to the breaking point and strengthen its bonds. Who is Nevaeh Levitz? Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, sixteen-year-old Nev...
Episode 171: Bless This Mess, with Molly Baskette and Ellen O'Donnell
August 20, 2019 18:00 - 55 minutes - 38.2 MBMy guests are Rev. Molly Baskette and Dr. Ellen O’Donnell. Their new book is Bless This Mess: A Modern Guide to Faith and Parenting in a Chaotic World (https://www.amazon.com/Bless-This-Mess-Parenting-Chaotic/dp/1984824120). When the two first met, they were both new mothers seeking parenting wisdom. They read a lot of books on the topic, but none of them contained practical suggestions that would help their families psychologically and spiritually while maintaining their progressive values: ...
Episode 170: Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture, with Michael Patrick Lynch
August 16, 2019 19:00 - 1 hour - 44.9 MBMy guest is Michael Patrick Lynch. His newest book is Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Know-All-Society-Arrogance-Political/dp/1631493612). Taking stock of our fragmented political landscape, Michael Patrick Lynch delivers a trenchant philosophical take on digital culture and its tendency to make us into dogmatic know-it-alls. The internet―where most shared news stories are not even read by the person posting them―has contributed to the ram...
Episode 169: 100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism, with Chavisa Woods
August 14, 2019 01:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MBMy guest is Chavisa Woods. Her newest book is 100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism (https://www.amazon.com/100-Times-Memoir-Chavisa-Woods/dp/1609809130). In it this award winning author presents one hundred true stories of sexism, harassment, discrimination, and assault. Recounting her experiences with sexist discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence—beginning in childhood, through the present—Woods lays out clear and unflinching personal vignettes that build in intensity as the number...
Episode 168: Reading Romans Backwards, with Scot McKnight
August 06, 2019 18:00 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MBMy guest is Scot McKnight. His newest book is Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire (https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Romans-Backwards-Gospel-Empire/dp/1481308777). In it he argues that to read Romans from beginning to end, from letter opening to final doxology, is to retrace the steps of Paul. To read Romans front to back was what Paul certainly intended. But to read Romans forward may have kept the full message of Romans from being perceived. Reading forward has ...
Episode 167: The Year of Return, with Nathaniel Popkin
August 03, 2019 13:00 - 1 hour - 42.1 MBMy guest is Nathaniel Popkin. Set against the backdrop of 1976 Philadelphia, his new novel The Year of the Return (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1948598191/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=year+of+return+popkin&qid=1564840658&s=gateway&sr=8-2)follows the path of two families, the Jewish Silks and African American Johnsons, as they are first united by marriage and then by grief, turmoil, and the difficult task of trying to live in an America failing to live up to its ideals. Paul Silk and Charlene Johnson are...
Episode 166: Addiction Nation, with Timothy McMahan King
July 31, 2019 17:00 - 43 minutes - 30 MBMy guest is Timothy McMahan King. His new book is Addiction Nation: What the Opioid Crisis Reveals about Us (https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Nation-Opioid-Crisis-Reveals/dp/1513804073). When a near-fatal illness led his doctors to prescribe narcotics, media consultant Timothy McMahan King ended up where millions of others have: addicted. Eventually King learned to manage pain without opioids—but not before he began asking profound questions about the spiritual and moral nature of addiction, ...
Episode 165: The Meaning of Protestant Theology, with Phillip Cary
July 30, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 55 MBMy guest is Phillip Cary. His newest book is The Meaning of Protestant Theology: Luther, Augustin, and the Gospel That Gives Us Christ (https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Protestant-Theology-Luther-Augustine/dp/0801039452). This book offers a creative and illuminating discussion of Protestant theology. Veteran teacher Phillip Cary explains how Luther's theology arose from the Christian tradition, particularly from the spirituality of Augustine. Luther departed from the Augustinian tradition and i...
Episode 164: In Search of there Common Good, with Jake Meador
July 24, 2019 18:00 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MBMy guest is Jake Meador. His new book is In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World (https://www.amazon.com/Search-Common-Good-Christian-Fractured/dp/0830845542/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=jake+meador&qid=1563991428&s=gateway&sr=8-2). Common life in our society is in decline. Our communities are disintegrating, as the loss of meaningful work and the breakdown of the family leave us anxious and alone―indeed, half of all Americans report daily feelings of loneliness. Our publ...