Things Not Seen Podcast

Looking through the lens of the biblical narrative of Esther, our guest Brenda Salter McNeil challenges Christians to recognize the pain in our world so they can work together to repair what is broken. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith returns to our show to explain that we must reckon with the past in order to discern the present and have hope for the future. In his recent book, How to Inhabit Time, Smith brings together popular culture, biblical exposition, and meditation, he helps us develop a sense of "temporal awareness" that is attuned to the texture of history, the vicissitudes of life, and the tempo of the Spirit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book,Thriving on a Riff, Presbyterian minister and jazz pianist Bill Carter introduces us to the spiritual worlds opened up by jazz music. From King David to Dave Brubeck, from the Psalms of Israel to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, musicians help us glimpse the experience of music as communion with the Divine. Weaving together stories from the history of American music with his personal experiences as a working musician, Carter invites us to meet a God who not only embraces syncopation but blesses the swing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Award-winning journalist John Blake tells the story of his quest to reconcile with his white mother and the family he'd never met—and how faith brought them all together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sr. Julia Walsh talks about her gripping spiritual memoir, For Love of the Broken Body, chronicling her journey through religious life and traumatic injury Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veteran editor and author Jon Sweeney returns to Things Not Seen to talk about his most recent work, My Life in Seventeen Books: A Literary Memoir Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are joined by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes to discuss their recent book, Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Julia Feder, discusses her recent book, Incarnating Grace: A Theology of Healing from Sexual Trauma. The book attempts to save our broken ways of talking about God's grace by unearthing liberating resources buried in the Christian tradition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Anna Broadway, discusses her recent book, Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling. Through its deeply researched account, Solo Planet shows how a more biblical approach to singleness can strengthen churches and empower singles to thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Donna Freitas, talks about her recent book, Wishful Thinking: How I Lost My Faith, and Why I Want to Find It Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Rabbi Shai Held, talks about his recent book: Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life. Held reminds us that love is foundational and constitutive of Jewish faith, animating the singular Jewish perspective on injustice and protest, grace, family life, responsibilities to our neighbors and even our enemies, and chosenness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Miguel De La Torre returns to Things Not Seen to discuss his recent book, Resisting Apartheid America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Cain is a Jesuit who has spent his life writing screenplays for movies and television. In his 2022 book, The Diary of Jesus Christ, he reimagines the stories of the Gospels from the point of view of Jesus himself, with breathtaking results Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Leah Payne traces forty years in the formation of American Evangelical identity through a mixture of Christian bookstores, Contemporary Christian Music, charismatic recording artists, and self-reinforcing product placements. We discuss her recent book, God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Lisa Sharon Harper takes us on a four-century journey through the history of her family, showing us how it entwines with the broken history of race in America. She discusses her recent book, Fortune. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Michael Wear, has lived at the intersection of faith and politics at the highest corridors of power. In his recent book, The Spirit of Our Politics, Wear offers a distinctly Christian approach to politics that results in healing rather than division, kindness rather than hatred, and hope rather than despair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Mark Elsdon talks about the coming wave of church property transitions, and what it will mean for communities and faith at large in the United States. We talk about his recent edited volume, Gone for Good? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book, Reorganized Religion, our guest, veteran religion reporter Bob Smietana, offers an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O'Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel titled Why Do the Heathen Rage? For the past ten-plus years, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson has explored the 378 pages of typed and handwritten material of the novel, compiling everything to provide a glimpse into what O'Connor might have planned to publish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book Race & Rhyme, our guest Love Lazarus Sechrest invites listeners to explore biblical narratives in ways that enliven and ethically inform our present conditions. She discusses her method of associative hermeneutics in this far-ranging conversation about race, theology, and repairing the broken world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Jessica Coblentz calls readers and scholars alike to re-imagine our theological accounts of depression and recovery in her recent book, Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling author and beloved retreat leader Joyce Rupp speaks to us about her recent book, Jesus, Friend of My Soul: Reflections for the Lenten Journey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Dawn Eden Goldstein discusses her recent book, Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.'s Spiritual Sponsor, which tells the story of Father Ed Dowling, SJ, the Jesuit priest who helped to spread the word about Alcoholics Anonymous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Rachel Mann, calls Jane Austen "the supreme novelist of attention." In her recent book, A Truth Universally Acknowledged, Mann invites us to journey through the 40 days of Lent with the works of Austen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Corey Nathan, talks about his upbringing and religious journey from Judaism to Christianity. Along the way, he talks about his vision for ways for citizens to be able to talk across their differences and divisions, which he practices in his podcast, Talkin' Religion and Politics without Killin' Each Other Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his 2022 book, The Magi, our guest Eric Vanden Eykel examines the birth of the Magi story; its enrichments, embellishments, and expansions in apocryphal writing and early Christian preaching; its artistic expressions in catacombs, icons, and paintings and its modern legacy in novels, poetry, and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Barbara Mahany returns to the show to talk about her wonderful recent book, The Book of Nature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Rev. Ronald J. Greer, invites us into the realms of grief and mourning as he discusses his powerful recent book, The Quiet House: Reflections on the Loss of a Spouse Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book, The Love of Thousands, our guest Christine Valters Paintner invites us to consider that angels, saints, and even our departed ancestors support and inspire us throughout our lives, and invite us toward holiness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Timothy Beal returns to Things Not Seen to talk about his recent book, When Time Is Short, which deals with human-made climate catastrophe and the idea of 'palliative hope' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rev. Maryann McKibben Dana returns to our show to talk about her recent book, Hope: A User's Manual. She reflects on the surprising place where hope is often found--in the messiness of our imperfect, flawed, beautiful human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Celeste Kennel-Shank, tells the intriguing story of the Community of Christ, a church community based in Washington, DC, and its five decades of ministry. We talk about her recent book, What You Sow is a Bare Seed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We speak with Eric Bowman, educator and founder of the Revolution Ethics Project, about his 2022 podcast series, The Virtue Field, which explores the life of anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book, Cathonomics, our guest Anthony M. Annett draws on economics, Catholic social thought, philosophy, climate science, and psychology to show how readers of all faiths and backgrounds can work together to create a more just economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We welcome back our guest, philosopher and educator David Dark, to talk about his recent book, We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds that Demand Our Silence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, philosopher J. Aaron Simmons, invites listeners to take "risk with direction" in his recent book, Camping with Kierkegaard. In the book, he asks us to consider "what is worthy of our finitude?" and reads the question through the metaphors of outdoor adventure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Joshua Shepperd, is an expert on the history of radio. His recent book, Shadow of the New Deal, tells the amazing and often surprising story of the rise of public broadcasting in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Jennifer Banks, discusses her recent book Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth, The book invites us to attend to birth as a challenging and life-affirming reminder of our shared humanity and our capacity for creative renewal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Greg Garrett joins us to discuss his recent book, The Gospel According to James Baldwin: What America's Great Prophet Can Teach Us about Life, Love, and Identity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We welcome Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg to talk about the five steps of repentance, set forth by Moses Maimonides, which form the heart of her recent book, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Sarah Stankorb joins us to talk about her powerful book, Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Things Not Seen we check in with the hosts of one of our favorite podcasts, Weird Religion. Hosts Brian Doak and Leah Payne look back at five years of producing the show, and look ahead to what religion might mean for us in the decades to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are joined by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes to discuss their recent book, Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves. We explore self-care as both a sacred and a subversive practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artist and cartoonist David Hayward has been using his simple line drawings to convey messages of love and inclusion to those who have felt left out by the Christian faith. We talk about a new collection of his cartoons, called Flip It Like This. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Isaac B. Sharp recovers a history of Evangelical Christianity in America, looking at the various populations who were "left behind" in the Evangelical quest for increased influence in American politics. We talk about his book, The Other Evangelicals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We welcome back Dr. Kelly J. Baker to talk about her amazing and powerful book Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Kelley Nikondeha invites us to re-read the stories of the Old and New Testament through the lens of the so-called "Fifth Gospel": the lands of Israel and Palestine. Nikondeha encourages us to consider the imperial politics behind the Gospel narratives, both when they were first written, and now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Ellen T. Armour discusses the way the media of photography and video have changed our way of thinking and feeling, and the fundamental nature of our relationships with others. She talks about her recent book, Seeing and Believing: Religion, Digital Visual Culture, and Social Justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guests, Jill Hicks-Keeton and Cavan Concannon, talk about their recent book, Does Scripture Speak for Itself? The book explores the cultural, ethical, and political aspects of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Nancy Koester talks about her recent book, We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Dr. Carmen Acevedo Butcher, talks about her powerful translation of Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence, and how she helped this ancient classic find a new voice for contemporary readers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices