Podcast appearances and mentions of Charles Taylor

In this thought-provoking episode of Thinking Out Loud, Nathan and Cameron tackle the popular atheist claim that the existence of God is an "extraordinary claim" requiring extraordinary evidence—flipping the script by examining the hidden assumptions and metaphysical commitments of skeptics themselves. Drawing on insights from thinkers like Richard Swinburne and Charles Taylor, they unpack why belief in an intelligible universe, laws of logic, and human consciousness are themselves extraordinary—and why secular worldviews often rest on faith-like assumptions. Perfect for Christians seeking a deeper, intellectually rigorous faith, this conversation explores how to respond to modern skepticism with confidence, nuance, and historical awareness. Whether you're engaging with "New Atheism" online or wrestling with tough questions about science, faith, and meaning, this is a must-watch for anyone serious about theology and cultural engagement.DONATE LINK: https://toltogether.com/donate BOOK A SPEAKER: https://toltogether.com/book-a-speakerJOIN TOL CONNECT: https://toltogether.com/tol-connect TOL Connect is an online forum where TOL listeners can continue the conversation begun on the podcast.

Send us a textCharles MacArthur Emanuel—known to many as Chuckie Taylor—speaks to us from United States Penitentiary Lee in Virginia, where he is serving a 97-year sentence under a conviction he has always challenged. In this raw and unfiltered conversation, he shares the story the world hasn't heard.Far from the one-dimensional villain of news headlines, Emanuel reveals himself as a man searching for truth, accountability, and redemption. Born in Boston to a Trinidadian mother and Liberian father, he was raised with Caribbean values of respect and “manas” long before Liberia's brutal civil conflict. An assassination attempt on his father, President Charles Taylor, pushed him toward creating the Anti-Terrorist Unit to protect his family—a decision he says was driven by loyalty, not lust for power.Chuckie Taylor describes himself now as “Gomai,” a man in philosophical transition who rejects the narrative of a sadistic warlord and asks the world to recognize his growth and humanity. He argues he was unfairly targeted as the only U.S. citizen convicted under federal anti-torture laws—an unprecedented case that he says was more about politics than justice.This conversation is about complicating the easy story. It's about giving voice to the condemned and confronting the uncomfortable question: What if this man deserves a second chance?

Matt, hey, my friends, welcome to the off the wire podcast. My name is Matt Wireman, and with over 25 years of coaching experience, I bring to you a an integrated approach to coaching where we look at mind, body and soul. So this being my little corner of the universe, welcome we cover everything from spiritual formation or the interior life all the way to goal setting and how to make your life better with life hacks, and I cover everything in between. So whatever it fits my fancy, I'm going to share with you, and I'm so thankful for your time, and I hope this episode helps you. All right. Well, hey, welcome, welcome to another episode of Off The Wire. This is Matt, still I haven't changed, but I do have with me, my friend. Really proud to call him a friend. And from seminary days, Dr Josh chatro, who is the Billy Graham chair for evangelism and cultural engagement at Beeson. That's a mouthful. Josh, well done. And then he is also, they just launched a concentration in apologetics at Beeson, which is really exciting. They got a conference coming up this summer. Is that also an apologetics Josh,its own preaching and apologetics? Okay? Awesome.And, and largely, you're also, you're also part of the Tim Keller Center for Cultural apologetics, and then also a, they call them fellows at the Center for Pastor theologians as well. That's right, yeah. And you in, you have been at Beeson for a couple years, because prior to that, you were at a you were heading up. And what was it largely an apologetics group, or was it, was it more broad than that in Raleigh?Yeah, it was. It was much more expansive than that. Evangelism and apologetics is part of what we were doing, but it was the Center for Public Christianity, okay? It was also very much in the work and faith movement. And I was also resident theologian at Holy Trinity Anglican in Raleigh. We were there for five years,excellent and and you don't know this because you don't keep tabs on who bought your book, but I've got every one of your books brother, so every every book you put out, and I'm like, I love this guy, and I'm gonna support him and buy his book. So it started all the way back, if you remember, with truth matters, yeah. And I use that book for one of the classes that I built here where I teach. And then then I want to go through the Litany here and embarrass you a little bit. And then it goes to apologetics, at the Cross Cultural Engagement, telling a better story, surprised by doubt. And then one that you just released called the Augustine way, retrieving a vision for the church's apologetic witness. So do you write much on apologetics? Is that kind of your thing?Yeah, I've written a few books on that.So why? Like, what is it about apologetics that has really captured your heart, in your mind and like, as opposed to just teaching theology, yeah, it's a certain it's a certain stream. If folks are first of all, folks are curious, like, What in the world is apologetics? Are you apologizing to folks? Like, are you saying I'm sorry?Well, I do have to do that. I'm sorry a lot. That's a good practice. That's not quite what apologetics is. Okay. Okay, so we, one of the things I would say is, and when I meet, when I meet up with old friends like you, sometimes they say, What have you been doing? Because we didn't see this coming. And when we were in seminary together, it wasn't as if I was, you know, reading a lot of apologetic works. And so one of the things is,and you weren't picking fights on campus too much. You were always a really kind person. And most, most time, people think of like apologists as, like, real feisty. And you're not a feisty friend. I'm not. I actually, unless you start talking about, like, soccer and stuff like that, right? Yeah,yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I don't. I don't love, I don't love, actually, arguments I'd much rather have, which is an odd thing, and so I need to tell how did I get into this thing? I'd much rather have conversations and dialog and kind of a back and forth that keeps open communication and and because, I actually think this ties into apologetics, most people don't make decisions or don't come to they don't come to any kind of belief simply because they were backed into an intellectual corner. And but now maybe I'll come back to that in a second. But I got into this because I was doing my PhD work while I was pastoring. And when you do yourpH was that in in Raleigh, because you did your PhD work at Southeastern, right?That's right, that's right. But I was actually, we were in southern, uh. In Virginia for the first half, we were in a small town called Surrey. It was, if you know anything about Tim Keller, it was he served in Hopewell, Virginia for seven or nine years before he went to Westminster and then to New York. And we were about 45 minutes from that small town. So if you've read Colin Hansen's book, he kind of gives you some background on what is this, these little communities, and it does, does kind of match up the little community I was serving for two years before moving to another little community in South Georgia to finish while I was writing. And so I pastored in both locations. So these aren't particularly urban areas, and yet, people in my church, especially the young people, were asking questions about textual criticism, reliability of the Bible.Those are any topics forfolks like, yeah, something happened called the Internet, yes. All of a sudden now, things that you would, you would get to, maybe in your, you know, thm, your your master's level courses, or even doctoral level courses. Now 1819, year old, 20 year olds or 50 year olds had questions about them because they were reading about some of this stuff on the internet. And because I was working on a PhD, I was actually working on a PhD in biblical theology and their New Testament scholar, people would come to me as if I'm supposed to know everything, or you know. And of course, of course, when you're studying a PhD, you're you're in a pretty narrow kind of world and very narrow kind of lane. And of course, I didn't know a lot of things, but I was, I kind of threw myself into, how do I help people with these common questions. So it wasn't as if, it wasn't as if I was saying, oh, I want to study apologetics. I kind of accidentally got there, just because of really practical things going on in my church context. And and then as I was reading and I started writing in response to Bart Ehrman, who is a is a agnostic Bible scholar. Wrote four or five New York Times bestsellers, uh, critical of the New Testament, critical of the Bible, critical of conservative Christianity. I started writing those first two books. I wrote with some senior scholars. I wrote in response. And then people said, so your apologist? And I said, Well, I guess I am. And so that, yeah, so I'm coming at this I'm coming at this area, not because I just love arguments, but really to help the church really with really practical questions. And then as I began to teach it, I realized, oh, I have some different assumptions coming at this as a pastor, also as a theologian, and trained in biblical theology. So I came with a, maybe a different set of lenses. It's not the only set of lens. It's not the it's not the only compare of lenses that that one might take in this discipline, but that's some of my vocational background and some of my kind of journey that brought me into apologetics, and in some ways, has given me a little bit different perspective than some of the dominant approaches or dominant kind of leaders in the area.That's great. Well, let's go. Let's get after it. Then I'm gonna just throw you some doozies and see how we can rapid fire just prove all of the things that that are in doubt. So here we go. Okay, you ready? How do we know that God exists?Yeah, so that word no can have different connotations. So maybe it would be better to ask the question, why do we believe God exists? Oh,don't you do that? You're you can't, you can't just change my question. I was kidding. Well, I think, I think you bring up a great point, is that one of the key tasks in apologetics is defining of terms and understanding like, Okay, you asked that question. But I think there's a question behind the question that actually is an assumption that we have to tease out and make explicit, right? Because, I mean, that's, that's part of you. So I think sometimes people get into this back and forth with folks, and you're like, Well, you have assumptions in your question. So go ahead, you, you, you go ahead and change my question. So how do we knowthe issue is, is there is that when we say something like, you know, we people begin to imagine that the way Christianity works is that we need to prove Christianity in the way we might prove as Augustine said this in confessions, four plus six equals 10. And Augustine, early church father, and he's writing, and he's writing about his own journey. He said I really had to get to the point where I realized this is not how this works. Yeah, we're not talking about, we do not one plus one, our way to God.Yeah. And when is Augustine writing about When? When? So people are, yeah, 397,at. This point. So he's writing right at the, you know, right right before the fifth century, okay? And, and, of course, Augustine famously said, we have to believe to understand, for most believers, God is intuitive, or what? Blaise Pascal, the 17th century Christian philosopher He called this the logic of the heart. Or I can just cite a more contemporary figure, Alvin planeta, calls this basic belief that. He says that belief in God is a basic belief, and and for So, for for many believers, they would say something like this. And I think there's validity in this so is that God just makes sense, even if, even if they haven't really worked out arguments that they they say, Well, yeah, this God makes sense to me. Now I can kind of begin to explore that. I will in just a second, but I just want to say there's, for most of your listeners, it's something like, I heard the gospel and this and the stories of Jesus, and I knew they were true, right? And as kind of insiders here, we would say that's the Spirit's work. The Holy Spirit is working, and God speaks through creation and his word, and people believe. And so that's that's why we believe now, of course, once we say that people have these kinds of intuitions, or as theologians would put it, this sense of God kind of built into them, I would want to say, as an apologist, or even as a pastor, just a minister, you don't have to be apologist to say this is that we can appeal to those intuitions and make arguments in many different types of ways. Well,hold on one second. Isn't that a little too simplistic, though? Because, I mean, you have the Greeks who believed in all the different gods, and the Romans who adopted those gods and changed their names and like, how do we assimilate that? You know, where, you know Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins famously say, Well, I don't, I don't believe in Zeus. So does that make me an atheist? It would have made me an atheist back in, you know, you know Roman and Latin and Greek times. So, so there's an intuition, but, but how do we delineate that? Well, that's not the right object of that intuition.Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have this intuition, you know, we could say Romans, Romans, one is pointing us to, this is what I would argue, this sense of God, and yet we're, we're fallen, according to the Christian story. And so even though we have this sense of God, we suppress that, and we worship false gods, or we worship the created, rather than the Creator. So the Christian story as a as a Christian, helps make sense of both the kind of why? Well, although we have this sense this, there's this common sense of God, it goes in many different directions and and I would argue that even if you deny kind of transcendence altogether, you're still going to have you're going to still make something kind of a god. You're going to you're going to want to worship something. And I think that's that's part of the point of Romans, one, you end up going to worship the created rather than the Creator. So does that get out what you're asking Matt or Yeah,I think so. I think sometimes the arguments that are real popular, even now is like, well, I just don't, I just don't, I just don't believe that God exists, just like I don't believe that Zeus exists, like, what's, what's the big deal? Why? Why are you so adamant that I believe in that God exists? Like to because I don't, I don't know that God exists because I don't see him. So how would you respond to somebody who says, Well, this Intuit intuition that that you say we all have, and that Romans one says we have, I just don't buy it, you know, because, I mean, I'm, I wouldn't believe that Zeus exists, because there's no empirical evidence to show me otherwise. So how would you respond to somebody that's equivocating or saying that, you know, Yahweh of the Old Testament, the God of the, you know, the God of the Bible is, this is just a tribal deity, just like Zeus is. So, how should we? Iwould, I would say so. So I think we can make kind of arguments for some kind of for transcendence. So there's ways to make arguments against naturalism. That's that's what's being promoted. And there's various different kinds of, you know. So sometimes these kinds of arguments that are in the Christian tradition are used to say, hey, we're going to prove God's existence using these arguments. I think I'm not. Are typically comfortable with the language of prove and how it's used in our context today, again, we get into the math, kind of two plus two equals four. Kind of thinking, yep. But I think a lot of those arguments are appealing to both intuitions and they they work much more effectively as anti naturalistic arguments. Not so much saying, Okay, we know a particular God through, say, the moral argument, okay, that we're but, but it's arguing against simply a naturalistic, materialistic. You know, even Evans, who's a longtime professor at Baylor, makes this argument that those, those types of arguments are really good against pushing back against naturalism. So plan again, has a famous argument that says, if naturalism and evolutionary theory are both true because of how evolution theory works, it's not about right thinking, but right action that you perform certain things to survive. Then, if both of those are true, you have no reason to trust your kind of cognitive faculties.Can you tease that one out a little bit? I kind of lost on that one. He said,What planet is arguing? Is he saying? Look, if, if all of our kind of cognitive faculties are just a product of evolution, okay? And by the way, not only does it's not just a plan. Ago makes this argument, it's actually kind of interesting figures who were like Nietzsche and others made this argument that basically, if, if evolution and naturalism is true that all we are is energy and manner and this product of evolutionary process, then we would have no reason to actually trust kind of our rationality, and that's what rationality is actually mapping onto reality. All of our our brains and our minds are really just producing certain conclusions to help us survive. So it would undercut the very foundations of that position. Now again, yeah, being able to observe, yeah, yeah. So, so with that, again, I think that's an example of an argument that doesn't so much. You know, say this is the Christian God. This supports the belief in Christian God. But what it does is it from within their own thinking. It challenges that. It undercuts their own way of thinking, which is what you're assuming and what you're kind of pushing back on, is a kind of naturalistic world. And I think we can step within that try to understand it and then challenge it on its own terms. And I think that's the real strength of planning this argument. What he's doing now, go ahead.Well, that's it, yeah, in his, in his, like, the the Opus is, uh, warranted. Christian belief is that what you're referencing the the big burgundy book.I can't remember where he makes this argument? Yeah, I can'tremember exactly. But like, if all your cognitive faculties are working, somebody who believes that God exists does not mean that they does not negate all of the other cognitive faculties that they're like if they're in their rational mind, that they have warrants for their belief. But, but that's what I what I think, where I'm tracking with you, and I love this is that even like, it still holds true, right? Like there's not one silver bullet argument to say now we know, like, that's what you were challenging even in the question is, how do you know that you know that you know that God exists? Well, you have to layer these arguments. And so this is one layer of that argument that even the Greeks and the Romans had a sense of transcendence that they were after, and they identified them as gods. But there's this other worldliness that they're trying to attribute to the natural world that they observe, that they can't have answers for, and that we can't observe every occurrence of reality, that there has to be something outside of our box, so to speak, out of our naturalistic tendencies. And so even that can be helpful to say, well, that kind of proves my point that even the Greeks and the Romans and other tribal deities, they're after something outside of our own experience that we can experience in this box. Yeah, that'sright. And there's a, I mean again, this, this argument, isn't intellectually coercive, and I don't think any of these are intellectually coercive. What I mean by that is you can find ways out. And so the approach I would take is actually called an abductive approach, which says, Okay, let's put everything on the table, and what best makes sense, what best makes sense, or what you know, what story best explains all of this? And so that way, there's a lot of different angles you can take depending on who you're talking to, yep, and and so what one of the, one of the ways to look at this and contemporary anthropology? Psycho psychologists have done work on this, to say, the kind of standard, what we might call natural position in all of human history, is that there's there's transcendence. That's, it's just the assumption that there's transcendence. Even today, studies have been shown even people who grow kids, who grew up in a secular society will kind of have these intuitions, like, there is some kind of God, there is some kind of creator, designer. And the argument is that you actually have to have a certain kinds of culture, a particular culture that kind of habituate certain thinking, what, what CS Lewis would call, a certain kind of worldly spell to to so that those intuitions are saying, Oh no, there's not a god. You know, there's not transcendence. And so the kind of common position in all of human history across various different cultures is there is some kind of transcendence. It takes a very particular, what I would say, parochial, kind of culture to say, oh, there's probably no there. There's not. There's, of course, there's not. In fact, Charles Taylor, this is the story he wants to tell of how did we get here, at least in some secular quarters of the West, where it was just assumed, of course, there's, of course, there's a God to 500 years of to now, and at least some quarters of the West, certain, certain elite orsecular? Yeah? Yeah, people. And even then, that's a minority, right? This is not a wholesale thing, yeah.It seems to be. There's something, well, even Jonathan height, uh, he's an atheist, says, has acknowledged that there seems to be something in humans. That's something like what Pascal called a God shaped hole in our heart, and so there's this kind of, there's this deep intuition. And what I'm wanting to do is, I'm wanting in my arguments to kind of say, okay, given this as a Christian, that I believe we have this sense of God and this intuition of God, these intuitions, I want to appeal to those intuitions. And so there's a moral order to the universe that people just sense that there is a right and wrong. There's certain things that are right and certain things are wrong, even if a culture says it is, it is, it is fine to kill this group of people, that there's something above culture, that even there's something above someone's personal preference, that is their moral order to the universe. Now, given that deep seated intuition, what you might call a first principle, what makes best sense of that, or a deep desire, that that, that nothing in the universe seems to satisfy that we have. This is CS Lewis's famous argument. We have these desires, these natural desires for we get thirsty and there's there's water, we get hungry and there's food, and yet there's this basically universal or worldwide phenomenon where people desire something more, that they try to look for satisfaction in this world and they can't find it. Now, what best explains that? And notice what I'm doing there, I'm asking that the question, what best explains it? Doesn't mean there's, there's not multiple explanations for this, but we're saying, What's the best explanation, or profound sense that something doesn't come from nothing, that intelligence doesn't come from non intelligence, that being doesn't come from non being. Yeah, a deep sense that there's meaning and significance in life, that our experience with beauty is not just a leftover from an earlier primitive stage of of evolution. And so we have these deep experiences and intuitions and ideas about the world, and what I'm saying is particularly the Christian story. So I'm not, I'm not at the end, arguing for just transcendence or or kind of a generic theism, but I'm saying particularly the Christian story, best, best answers. Now, I'm not saying that other stories can't incorporate and say something and offer explanations, but it's a, it's a really a matter of, you know, you might say out narrating or or telling the Gospel story that maps on to the ways we're already intuiting about the world, or experiencing or observing the world.Yeah, so, so going along with that, so we don't have, like, a clear cut case, so to speak. We have layers of argument, and we appeal to what people kind of, in their heart of hearts, know, they don't have to like, they have to be taught otherwise. Almost like, if you talk to a child, they can't, they kind of intuit that, oh, there's something outside, like, Who created us? Like, who's our mom? You know, like, going back into the infinite regress. It's like, okay, some something came from nothing. How does that even how is that even possible? So there has to be something outside of our. Experience that caused that to happen. So, so say you, you go there, and then you help people. Say, help people understand. Like, I can't prove God's existence, but I can argue that there are ways of explaining the world that are better than other ways. So then, how do you avoid the charge that, well, you basically are a really proud person that you think your religion is better than other religions. How, how could you dare say that when you can't even prove that you're you know? So how? How would you respond to somebody who would say, like, how do you believe? Why do you believe that Christianity is a one true religion? Yeah, um,well, I would say a couple of things. One is that, in some sense, everyone is staking out some kind of claim. So even if you say you can't say that one religion is true or one one religion is the one true religion, that is a truth claim that you're staking out. And I think it's fine that this for someone to say that they just need to realize. I mean, I think they're wrong, but I think they're they're making a truth claim. I'm making a truth claim. Christians are making truth so we're, we all think we're right, and that's fine. That's fine, but, but then we but then once you realize that, then you're not saying, Well, you think you're right, but I just, I'm not sure, or it's arrogant to say you're right. I think, of course, with some some things, we have more levels of confidence than other things. And I think that's the other thing we can say with Christian with as Christians, it's saying, Hey, I believe, I believe in the resurrection. I believe in the core doctrines of Christianity. It doesn't mean that everything I might believe about everything is right. It doesn't even mean all my arguments are are even 100% always the best arguments, or I could be wrong about a particular argument and and I'm also not saying that you're wrong about everything you're saying. Okay, so, but what we are saying is that, hey, I I believe Jesus is who he said he was, and you're saying he's not okay. Let's have a conversation. But it's not, rather, it's not a matter of somebody being air. You know, you can hold those positions in an arrogant way. But simply saying, I believe this isn't in itself arrogance, at least, I think how arrogance is classically defined, yeah. And what is this saying? I believe this, and I believe, I believe what Jesus said about himself. And I can't go around and start kind of toying with with, if I believe he's Lord, then it's really not up to me to say, okay, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna, kind of take some of what he said, but not all of what he said. If you actually believe he rose from the dead and he is Lord and He is God, then then you take him at his word.What is it, as you think about cultural engagement, cultural apologetics that you've written on like, what is it in our cultural moment right now where people you say that thing, like Jesus said, You know, he, he, he said, I'm God, you know, not those explicit words, right? That's some of the argument. Like, no, but you look at the narrative he did, and that's why he was going to be stoned for blasphemy. That's why all these things. But that's, that's another conversation for another day. But, and then you talk to someone, you're like, Well, I don't believe he was God. I don't believe His claims were. Like, why then do you do we oftentimes find ourselves at a standstill, and people just throw up their hands like, well, that's your truth, and my truth is, I just don't, like, just don't push it on me. Like, why do we find ourselves in this? And it's not new. I mean, this is something that goes back to, you know, hundreds of years ago, where people are making arguments and they're like, Well, I just don't know. So I'm gonna be a transcendentalist, or I'm gonna be a deist, or I'm gonna whatever. So how do we kind of push back on that a little bit to say, No, it's not what we're talking about. Is not just a matter of preference, and it's not just a matter of, hey, my truth for me and your truth for you. But we're actually making it a claim that is true for all people. Like, how do we kind of encourage people to push into that tendency that people have to just throw up their hands and say, whatever? Pass the piece, you know? Well,okay, so I think let me answer that in two ways. One's philosophically, and then two are practically. One philosophically. I do think it's, you know, CS Lewis was on to this, as he often was way ahead of the curve on certain things, but on an abolition of man. When he talked, he's talking about the fact value distinction and how we've separated. You know, you have your facts, and then everything you know, where, classically, you would kind of recognize that courage, you know, is a virtue, and that's, it's a, it's a, it's also a fact that we should pursue courage and rather than just my preference of kind of and so there's actually. Be this, but now we have, well, that's a value, kind of courage, and say you should do something, but it's, it's, that's your value and and so we have this distinction between facts, which is, follow the science, and then values over here. And as that has opened up. You have both a kind of, on one hand, a very, very much, a people saying in a very kind of hard, rationalistic way, you know, science has said, which, that would be another podcast to kind of dive into that more science is good and, yeah, and, but science doesn't say anything. So I'm a fan of science, but it doesn't say anything. We interpret certain things, but, but so you can kind of have a hard rationalism, but you also combine with a kind of relativism, or at least a soft relativism that says, Well, this is my truth, because values become subjective. So that's the philosophical take. But the kind of practical thing, I would say, is they need people. One of the reasons people do that is because, it's because they've seen kind of these to reference what you're talking about earlier this hey, this person's coming in wanting to talk about my worldview, and it just becomes this fierce, awkward encounter, and I don't want anything to do with that type of thing, like I don't, I don't want to go down the dark corners of of the Internet to have these, to have these intellectual just like Charles Taylor says, a lot of the kind of arguments are, I have three reasons why your position is untenable. He says something like untenable, wrong and totally immoral. Now, let's have a conversation. It just and so it's kind of like, no thanks. I don't think I want to have that conversation. You do you. And so there's, there is a part that, culturally, something is going on which needs to be confronted. And Lewis was doing that work, and a lot of philosophers have followed him in that but there's also a side of of maybe where our own worst enemies here, and the way that we try to engage people, and where we start with people, and we think, Okay, let's start in this kind of, you know, apologetic wrestling match with people. And a lot of times, people are just looking to cope. People are just looking to survive. They have mental health issues going on, and they don't want another one to pop up because of the apologist. And so they're just looking to try to skirt that conversation and get to feeding their kids or dealing with their angry neighbor. And so we've got to kind of take stock on kind of where people are at, and then how to engage them with where they're at. Now I'm going to apologize. I think all of those arguments are helpful in a certain context, but a lot of times, we've been our own worst enemy, and how we try to try to engage so what I what I encourage students and ministers to do is is start talking about people's stories, and you know how life is going and where what's hard, and asking really good questions, and kind of having a holy curiosity and and often, I was in an encounter with a guy who came up to me after a kind of a university missions thing, and he was an atheist, and he wanted to talk about the moral argument. And I was happy to do that for a few minutes, but then I just asked him. I said, what you know, what do you love to do? Tell me about yourself, and where do you really find joy in life? And he looked at me, and he started to tear up, and he said, You know, I'm really lonely right now, you know, go figure this moment in our world, the kind of fragmented world we live in. And he said, what's really meaningful to me is my is my pet, because he provides solace. And there's this moment where, of course, I mean, here's an atheist wanting to show up at a Christian event, right? And because Christians were nice to him, and he's deeply lonely, and we got to have a pretty meaningful conversation about, you know, the benefits of following Christ in the community, communion with not only God, but with others, yeah, but if I would have just left it at, let's go to the more we would have never got there. But it took me kind of asking the question, which is, in essence, what I was trying to ask is what, I didn't put it like this, but what are you seeking? What are you really after here? And where are you really getting joy in life, and what's going on? And I if we can learn to go there, I think we'll have much more productive conversations. And then just kind of, I heard chatro talk about the, you know, ontological argument. Now let me throw that out there at somebody. I think that's why apologists and apologetics have sometimes been given a bad name. But if you. Actually look at the tradition, the the larger tradition. There's so many resources, and there's so many people, apologists, doing lots of different things, that I think gives us kind of way to actually engage people where they're at.Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. Well, I It reminds me, I believe it was Schaefer who talked about the the greatest apologetic, at least his time, and I think it stands true even now, is welcoming people and being hospitable towards people, welcoming the questions, not looking at folks as adversaries, but fellow pilgrims. And then you welcome them into that space, into that community. And then they're they see that, quite frankly, the faith works. The Christian ethic actually works, albeit imperfect, by imperfect people in imperfect ways. But you know, as we go through pain and suffering, as we go through, you know, elation and disappointment, like there's still a lot that that we can demonstrate to the world through our testimony that it works. You know, so to speak. So I'd love to hear you kind of help walk us through how the Christian story tells a better story about pain and suffering, because that's that's a fact of every person listening is that there's some modicum of pain and suffering in their life at any moment. And then you look at the grand scale of the world and all these things, but just even we can go down to the individual level of the why is there pain and suffering in my life and in the world and, you know, in general. But I like, like for you to just kind of riff on that for a little bit for us, to helpus, yeah. And in some ways, this question, and the apologetic question is a kind of real, a snapshot into the into what we're talking about with, how do we respond to that? Not just as Okay, an intellectual question, yeah, yeah, but it's also a profoundly experiential question. And there's youmean, you mean, and how, in the moment when you're saying, in the moment when somebody asks you the question, not getting defensive, but being being willing to listen to the question, Is that what you mean by that? And yeah,well, what I mean is, that's certainly true. Matt, what I was really thinking, though, is how this is not just something kind of an abstract, intellectual question. Oh, okay, but it's a profound experiential and there's different angles that we might take into it. But I mean, as a kind of snapshot or a test case in our apologetic is, I think there's ways to answer that question that are sterile, that are overly academic, and I and that also, I would say, rushes in to give an answer. And I would want to argue that Christianity doesn't give an answer to evil and suffering, but it gives a response. And let me make, let me explain that, yeah, is, is an answer. Tries in the way I'm using it, at least tries to say, I'm going to solve this kind of intellectual problem, and the problem of evil and suffering in the world, of why a good God who's all powerful would allow the kind of evil and suffering we see in the world is, is one that we might say, Okay, now there's the problem. Now let me give the solution. And this is often done, and we've you maybe have been in this if you're listening into a certain context where a kind of famous apologist says, Here is the answer, or famous Christian celebrity says, Here is the answer to evil, and this solves all the problems, until you start thinking about it a little bit more, or you go home, or three or four years, and you grow out of that answer and and so I think we need to be real careful here when we say we have the answer, because if you keep pushing that question back in time, or you start asking questions like, well, that that bullet that hit Hitler in World War One and didn't kill him? What if the God of the Bible, who seems to control the wind and everything, would have just blown it over and killed Hitler. It seems like maybe it could have been a better possible world if Hitler, you know, didn't lead the Holocaust. Okay, so, so again, I think, I think pretty quickly you begin to say, Okay, well, maybe some of these theodicies Don't actually solve everything, although I would say that some of the theodicies that are given things like free will, theodicy or or the kind of theodicies that say God uses suffering to to grow us and develop us. And I think there's truth in all of that, and there's but what it does. What none of them do is completely solve the problem. And so I think that there's value in those theodicies in some extent.Hey, did you know that you were created to enjoy abundance? I'm not talking about getting the latest pair of Air Jordans or a jet plane or whatever that this world says that you have to have in order to be happy. Instead, I'm talking about an abundant life where you are rich in relationships, you're rich in your finances, but you are rich in life in general, that you are operating in the calling that God has for you, that He created you for amazing things. Did you know that? And so many times we get caught up in paying our mortgage and running hither and yon, that we forget that in this world of distractions that God has created you for glorious and amazing things and abundant life. If you would like to get a free workbook, I put one together for you, and it's called the my new rich life workbook. If you go to my new rich life.com my new rich life.com. I would be glad to send you that workbook with no strings attached, just my gift to you to help you. But here'sthe thing, here's what I want to go back to with a question. Is that the Odyssey as we know it, or this? And what I'm using theodicy for is this, this responsibility that that we feel like we have to justify the ways of God, is a particularly modern phenomenon. I think this is where history comes and helps us. Charles Taylor talks about this in that the kind of way we see theodicy and understand theodicy was really developed in the middle of the 1700s with figures like Leibniz, and then you have particularly the Lisbon earthquakes in the middle of the 18th century. And that was this kind of 911 for that context. And in this 911 moment, you have philosophers being saying, Okay, how do we justify the ways of God? And are trying to do it in a very kind of this philosophical way to solve the problem. But from for most of human history and history of the West, of course, evil and suffering was a problem, but it wasn't a problem so much to be solved, but it was a problem to to cope with and and and live in light of, in other words, what you don't have in the Bible is Job saying, Okay, well, maybe God doesn't exist. Or the psalmist saying, maybe God doesn't exist because I'm experiencing this. No, they're ticked off about it. They're not happy about it. They're struggling to cope with it. It is, it is a problem, but it's not, then therefore a problem. That says, well, then God doesn't exist. Yeah. And it didn't become a widespread kind of objection against God's very existence, until certain things have happened in the kind of modern psyche, the kind of modern way of imagining the world. And here is what's happened. This is what Charles Taylor says. Is that Taylor says what happened is kind of slowly through through different stages in history, but but in some sorry to be gloved here, but it's, it's a very kind of, you know, long argument. But to get to the point is, he says our view of God became small, and our view of humans became really big. And so God just came became kind of a bigger view of version of ourselves. And then we said, oh, if there is a reason for suffering and evil, we should be able to know it, because God's just a bigger kind of version of us, and he has given us rational capacities. And therefore if we can't solve this, then there must not be a god. That's kind of where the logic goes. And of course, if you step into the biblical world, or what I would say a more profoundly Christian way of looking at it is God. God isn't silent, and God has spoken, has given us ways to cope and live with suffering and ways to understand it. But what he what he doesn't give us, is that we're going to he actually promises that, that we're not going to fully understand His ways that, that we're going to have to trust Him, even though we can't fully understand why he does what he does in history all the time. And so this leads into what, what's actually called. There's, this is a, this is a weird name if you're not in this field, but it's called skeptical theism. I'm a skeptical theist. And what skeptical theists Are you is that we're not skeptical about God, but we're skeptical about being able to neatly answer or solve the problem of evil. But we actually don't think that's as big of a deal, because, simply because. I don't understand why God, God's simply because I don't understand God's reasons. Doesn't mean he doesn't have reasons. Yeah, yeah. Andso just beyond your the your finite, uh, temporo spatial understanding of things, right? Like you don't understand how this horrible situation plays out in a grander narrative,right? So it's Stephen wickstra. He had this famous argument. I'll riff off of it a little bit. I mean, just metaphor. He says, if you have a if you have a tent, and we go camping together, Matt and and I open the tent and say, there's a giant dog in there. And you look in there, there's no dog, you would say, Yeah, you're either crazy or a liar. But if I open the tent and say there's tiny bugs in there, and they're called no see ums, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't be in a position to know. You wouldn't be in an epistemological position to know whether there's a bug in there or not. So you would simply have to decide whether you're going to trust me or not. And then, you know, the claim of the non Christian might be, well, yeah, why would I trust the God given the kind of crap that I see in the world? And I would say, well, a couple reasons. One is most profoundly because God has entered into this world. He has not sat on the sidelines. So even though we don't fully understand it, he has in the person of Jesus Christ, he has suffered with us and for us. So this is a God who says, I haven't given you all the answers, but I have given you myself. And that's I think both has some rational merit to it, and profoundly some intellectual merit to that. I'd also say that the Christian story actually gets at some deep intuitions, kind of underneath this challenge or this problem. It was CS Lewis, who was an atheist in World War One, and and he was very angry at God because of the evil and violence and his his mom dying at an early age, and was an atheist. But then he realized that in his anger against God, that he was assuming a certain standard, a certain kind of moral standard, about how the world should be, that there is evil in the world and that it shouldn't be so, and this deep intuition that it shouldn't be so that certain things aren't right. Actually, you don't have if you do away with God's existence, you just you have your preferences. But in a world of just energy and matter, why would the world not be absurd? Why would you expect things not to be like this. Why would you demand them not to be like this?So a deeply embedded sense of morality that can't be explained by naturalism is what you're getting, yeah?That that we have a certain problem here, or certain challenge with not fully being able to answer the question, yeah, but they have, I would say, a deeper challenge, that they don't have even the kind of categories to make sense of the question. So that's those are some of the directions I would go, and it's first stepping inside and kind of challenging against some of the assumptions. But then I'm as you, as you can tell, then I'm going to say how the Christian story does make sense of these deep intuitions, our moral intuitions, that are underneath the problem, or the challenge of evil and suffering. And then also going to Jesus in the Gospel. And the Gospel story,one of the questions I had on our on the list of questions was, how do we know the Bible is true? But I want to delve into more of this understanding of doubt and how that plays, because you've written a lot on this. But I'd like, could you just direct us to some resources, or some folks, if folks are interested in, how do we know the Bible is true? I'm thinking real popular apologist right now is Wesley. Huff is a great place to go. But are there other like, hey, how do I know that the Bible is true? Because you keep appealing to Christianity, which is in for is the foundation of that is the Bible. So could you give us a few resources so people could chase those down.Peter Williams has written a couple little good books on the Gospels. AndPeter Williams Williams, he's in Cambridge, right, orTyndale house, over there and over the pond. And he's written a book on the Gospels. And I can't think of the name, but if you put it on the internet, it'll show up. And the genius of Jesus as well. Okay, little books, and I think both of those are helpful as far as the Gospels go. Richard, Richard balcom is really good on this, Jesus and the eyewitnesses. As well as a little book that most people haven't heard of. It's a, it's an introduction to the Gospels in that off in an Oxford series, which is, you know, kind of a brief introduction to the Gospels. And he, especially at the very beginning, he gives us John Dixon, who's at Wheaton now, has written a lot of good books on on on this. And it's got this series called skeptics guide to and it does both Old Testament and New Testament kind of stuff. So that little series is, is really helpful. So those are some places I would start. And in my books, I typically have, you know, chapters on this, but I haven't, haven't written, you know, just one book, just on this. The early books, truth matters and truth in a culture of doubt, were, were engaging Bart airman. But really, Bart airman not to pick on on Airmen, but just because he was such a representative of a lot of the the views that that we were hearing, he ended up being a good kind of interlocutor. In those I would just say, I know you didn't. You just asked for books. And let me just say one thing about this is I, I think if you are trying to engage, I think if you take the approach of, let me prove the Bible, let me take everything and just, yeah, I don't think that's the best way. I think you often have to give people some you know, whether it's, you know, the beginning of Luke's Gospel, where he's saying, This is how I went about this. And I actually did my homework to kind of say, this is at least the claim of the gospel writers say, and then, but the real way that you you come to see and know, is you have to step into it and read it. And I think one of the apologetic practices I would want to encourage, or just evangelistic practices, is is offering to read the gospels with people and and working through it. And then certain things come up as you read them, apologetically that you'll, you'll want to chase down and use some of those resources for but I think often it's, it's saying, hey, the claims are, at least that, you know, these guys have done their homework and and some of the work Richard welcome is doing is saying, you know, the Gospel traditions were, were were pinned within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and this. And so that's some of the work that that balcom has helpfully done that kind of help us get off the ground in some of these conversations.Would that be your go to gospel Luke or, like, if you're walking with players, or a go to like,some people say more because of the shortness or John, I I'm happy with them. Allfour should be in the canon. Yeah, no, that's great. And I think a couple other books I'm thinking of Paul Wagner's from text from text to translation, particularly deals with Old Testament translation issues, but then text critical pieces, but then also FF. Bruce's canon of Scripture is a real, solid place to go, if people are interested in those big pieces, but those, I mean, yeah, Richard Bauckham work was really helpful for me when I was like, How do I even know, you know the starting place is a good starting place. So, yeah, thank you for that. Sowhat the challenge is, people have got to make up their mind on Jesus. Yeah. I mean, I think that's where I want to kind of triage conversations and say, Hey, I know the Bible is a big book and there's a lot going on. First things you gotta make a call on. So that's where I'm going to focus on, the Gospels. That'sgreat. No, that's great. Well, you know, a lot of times you, and you've mentioned this earlier, that sometimes in our attempts to give reasons for our faith, we can come to simplistic answers like, Okay, this is, here you go. Here's the manuscript evidence, for example. Or, hey, here's the evidence for the resurrection. Oh, here. You know, this is pain and suffering, Romans, 828, you know, having these quick answers. And I think it stems from a desire to want to have a foundation for what we stand on. But a lot of times, and I think what we're seeing in our culture, and this is not anything new, this topic of deconstruction is not really a new topic is, you know, it's what's been called in the past, apostasy, or just not believing anymore. But now it's gotten a more, you know, kind of sharper edges to it. And and I would love for you to you know how you would respond to someone who is deconstructing from their faith because it didn't allow for doubt or because they were raised in perhaps a really strict Christian home. So how would you respond to somebody who says, I don't I don't like the. Had answers anymore, and I don't, you know, it's just too simplistic, and it doesn't, it's not satisfying. So how would you, because I encounter a lot of folks that are in that vein, the ones who are deconstructing, it's, it's not, you know, there's definitely intellectual arguments, but there's something else in back of that too, I think. So I'd love to hear you just kind of, how would you respond to someone who is deconstructing or has deconstructed in their faith?Yeah, yeah. And of course not. In that situation, my first response it's going to be, tell me more. Let's, let's talk more. I want to hear, I want to hear your story. I want to hear your deconversion story, or where you're at and and to have some real curiosity. Rather than here, let me tell you what your problem is. And let me tellyou, yeah, you just don't want to believe because you got some secret sin or something. Yeah? Oh, goodnessno. I mean, it's right faith, unbelief and doubt is complex, and there's lots of forms of doubt. And we use that word I mean, it has quite the semantic range, and we use in lots of different ways. And of course, the Bible, by no means, is celebrating doubt. The Bible, it's, you know, that we is saying we should have faith. It calls us to faith, not to doubt, but doubt seems to be a couple things to say. We talk about, we talk about ourselves as Christians, as new creations in Christ, but we also recognize that we still sin, we still we still have sinful habits. We're still sinful, and in the same way we we we believe, but we can struggle with doubt, and that's a reality. And it seems to me that that doesn't mean, though, that then we celebrate doubt, as if doubts this great thing, no, but at the same time, we need to be realistic and honest that we do. And there's certain things culturally that have happened, because we now live in a pluralistic world where people seem very sane and rational and and lovely, and they believe radically different things than we do. And just that proximity, Peter Berger, the late sociologist, did a lot of work on this area. This is just it. It creates these kinds of this kind of contestability, because, well, we could imagine even possibly not believing, or kids not believing, in a way that, again, 500 years ago, you know you Luther was wrestling with whether the Roman Catholic Church had everything right, but he wasn't wrestling and doubting the whole the whole thing, yeah, God. So that creates certain pressures that I think we need to be honest about, and but, but with, and part of that honesty, I think, in that kind of conversation to say, Hey, you're not alone and you're not just simply crazy because you're you're raising some of these things because, I mean, that's in many ways, understandable. Yeah, okay, yeah. I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's understandable. And I hear what you're saying, and I'm, let's talk about it now. The the kind of metaphor that that I use is to think about Christianity as a house. Of course, that's not my metaphor. I'm I'm borrowing from CS Lewis, who talked about Christianity as a house and in Mere Christianity, Lewis said he wanted to get people through non Christians into the hallway, and so he wanted to get them into the door so that they would and then they could pick up a particular tradition, they could enter a room. But his approach in Mere Christianity was to represent kind of the whole house. And what I think is happening in many cases is that people, now, I'm riffing off of his metaphor, people in the church. People have raised in the church, so they've grew up their whole life in the house, but it's actually in the what I would call the attic. And the attic as as I talk about it is, is in the house. It's, it's a Christian community, but it was, it was many times they're built out of a kind of reactionary posture against culture, without a deep connection to the rest of the house. It's kind of like, Hey, we're scared, and understandably so, the kind of decadent morality, certain shifts happening in the west with Can you giveus a couple examples of what you're thinking like? What would a person living in the attic like? What would their tradition kind of. Look like,yeah. So a couple of things. One in response to, in some cases, in response to the kind of intellectual movements, the kind of sex, secular and, you know, thinking they would say, you know, intellectualism is bad, that would be one response from the attic, like, don't worry about, you know, thinking. Just believe your problem is you're just thinking too much. So that would be one response, a kind of anti intellectualism. The other response is what I would call a kind of, depending on what kind of mood I'm in, I would call it a kind of quasi intellectual that, and that sounds harsh that I say what kind of mood I'm in, but a kind of quasi intellectual response, which is like, Oh, you want arguments. You want evidence. We'll give you two plus two equals equals God, and we'll kind of match, you know, fire with fire, and we can prove God's existence. And oftentimes, those kinds of apologetic reactions, I would call them, sometimes they're kind of quasi intellectual, because I don't think that's how the kind of bit we come to the big decisions. I don't think it's rational enough about a rationality about kind of what type of humans we are, and how we come to the big decisions and the big truths and and so I think that's one response, and that's why you have a kind of industry of apologetics sometimes. And the way they do it, I'm not saying in some ways it can be helpful, but in other ways, it can cause problems down down the road, and we've seen that at least, like, for instance, with the evil and suffering kind of conversation we were having before. If people say, actually, those arguments actually don't make, don't fully do what they were. We you claim too much for your arguments. Let's just say, like that. Okay, so that's one kind of, so there's a there's a kinds of, well, Christianity, in that side can kind of become this kind of intellectual, sterile work where you're just kind of trying to prove God, rather than this, than this way of life, where does worship come in? Where does devotion come in? What is And so very quickly it becomes, you know, this intellectual game, rather than communion with the living God. And so the emphasis understandably goes a certain way, but I would say understandably wrong goes a certain way, and that argument should be part of this deeper life of faith that we live and so we again, I'm wanting to say the motives aren't necessarily, aren't wrong, but where we get off because we're too reactionary, can go off. Let me give you one other ones. And I would say, like the purity culture would be another kind of side of this where we see a morally decadent culture of sexuality, and we want to respond to that we we don't want our kids to grow up believing those lies. Yeah, as as a friend of mine says, you know that the sexual revolution was actually and is actually bad for women, and we need to say that. We need to say that to people in the church, absolutely. But in response to that, then we create what, what has been called a purity culture, which, which has, has kind of poured a lot of guilt and have made have over promised again, if you just do this, you'll have a wonderful life and a wonderful marriage if you just do this, and then if you mess up, oh, you've, you've committed this unpardonable sin, almost. And so there's a lot of pressure being put on, particularly young women and then, and then over promising and so all of this,can people see that the House of Cards is coming down because they're like, Yeah, my marriage is horrible.It creates this pressure, right where you have to. You have to think a certain way. You have to behave this very kind of way. It's reaction to want to protect them. So again, I'm saying, Yes, I understand the reactions, yeah, and, but, but, and this is, I think, a key part of this, because it's not connected well to the rest of the house. It often reacts, rather than reflected deeply on the tradition and helps fit your way, the centrality of the Gospel, the centrality of what's always been, Christian teaching and coming back to the main things, rather than kind of reacting to culture because we're nervous, and doing it in such a way that, you know, well, people will begin to say, That's what Christianity is about. Christianity is really about, you know, your politics, because that's all my pastor is talking about, interesting, you know, and this is all they're talking about. So that becomes the center,even though the ethic is is, is, becomes the. Center, as opposed to the the philosophy and theology guiding the ethic, is that, would that be another way to put it, like how you live, become, becomes preeminent to, you know, wrestling with doubt and and trying to bring God into the space of your doubt and that kind of stuff is, that, is that?Yeah, I mean, so that, I think one of the things that the the early creeds help us to do is it helps us to keep the main thing. The main thing, it helps us to keep, rather than saying, well, because culture is talking about this, we're going to, you know, kind of in our churches, this becomes the main thing, is reacting or responding, maybe, whether it's with the culture and certain movements or against the culture, yeah. But if you're anchored to the kind of the ancient wisdom of the past you're you do have, you are at times, of course, going to respond to what's going on culturally, yeah, but it's always grounded to the center, and what's always been the center, yeah? And I think so when you're in a community like this, like this, the pressure of, I've gotta think rightly. I've gotta check every box here, yes, and oh, and I've, I've been told that there is proofs, and I just need to think harder. I just, you know, even believe more, even Yeah, if I just, if I just think harder, then I'll eliminate my doubt, but my doubts not being eliminated. So either I'm stupid or maybe there's a problem with the evidence, because it's not eliminating all my doubt, but this creates this kind of melting pot of anxiety for a lot of people as their own Reddit threads and their Oh, and then this, trying to figure all this out, and they're Googling all these answers, and then the slow drip, oh, well, to be honest, sometimes the massive outpouring of church scandal is poured into this, yeah. And it just creates a lot of anxiety amongst young people, and eventually they say, I'm just going to jump out of the attic, you know, because it looks pretty freeing and it looks like a pretty good way of life out there. And what, what I say to people is two things. Number one, rather than simply jumping out, first look what you're about to jump into, because you have to live somewhere, and outside the attic, you're not just jumping into kind of neutrality, you're jumping into cultural spaces and assumptions and belief. And so let's, let's just be just as critical as, yeah, the attic or house as you are will be mean, be just as critical with those spaces as you have been with the attic. So you need to explore those. But also, I'm wanting to give them a framework to understand that actually a lot of the ways that you've kind of grown up is actually been in this attic. Why don't you come downstairs, and if you're going to leave the house, explore the main floor first.And what would be the main floor? What would you say? The main floor?Yeah. I would say themain orthodox historic Christianity, like, yeah. Orthodox historic Christianity, Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, just kind of go into the Yeah. And whatI would say is, for instance, the apostle creed gives us kind of what I would call load bearing walls in the house. So it gives us the places where you don't mess like load bearing walls. You don't you don't knock those down if you're going to do a remodel, and, and, and. So you would recognize the difference between load bearing walls, walls that are central versus actual different rooms in the house, and how? Well, these aren't load bearing walls, but they're, they're, they're, they're how certain people in Christian communities, churches at particular times, have articulated it and and some of these, you could deny certain things, but you could, but those are more denominational battle lines, rather than the kind of load bearing things that you if you pull out the resurrection of Jesus, if you pull out the the deity of Christ and the full humanity of Christ, If you pull out the Trinity. So let's go back to the core. And if you're going to reject, if you're going to leave, leave on the basis of those core things, not okay. I've had these bad experiences in the church now, yeah, what I think this to kind of wrap this up on this is what often happens, or what can happen if someone says, Well, yeah, I've done that, and I still don't, I don't believe Okay, yep, that's going to happen. Yep. But one of the things I suggest, in at least some cases, is that the addict has screwed people up more than they realize, and that the way that they approach. Approach the foundation and the the main floor, it's still in attic categories, as in, to go back to our first question, well, I can't prove this, yeah. And I was always told that I should be able to prove it. Well, that's not how this works, yeah. And so they they reject Christianity on certain enlightenment terms, but they don't reject Christianity as Christianity really is. So people are going to interact with Christianity, I would say sometimes your people are investigating, say the resurrection, and reflecting more on on these central claims, but they're still doing it as if, if it doesn't reach kind of 100% certainty that I can't believe. And that's just not how this works.Yeah, that's, that's food for thought, because there, there's so many people that I interact with that I try to encourage. Like, yeah, your experience was really bad, like I'm affirming that, and that was messed up. That's not That's not Christianity, that is a branch on this massive tree trunk that stinks and that needs to be lamented and grieved and also called out as wrong. So I'm using another metaphor of a tree instead. But I love the because the house metaphor is something that you use in the telling a better story. Isn't that surprised bydoubt? Surprised by doubt? Yes, that's that's what we use, and we march through things, and we use that as, really our guiding metaphor through all the chapters. And that's what I would encourage if you're if you have somebody who's struggling with this, or you're struggling with this yourself, that's That's why a friend of mine, Jack Carson, that's why we wrote the book together, because obviously this is a we had a lot of friends and acquaintances and people who were coming to us and we weren't fully satisfied with all of the kind of works, yeah, that were responding and so this, this was our attempt to try to helppeople. Well, the book right after that was, is telling a better story. And one of the things I've really appreciated in your emphasis over the last few years has been, I would call a more humane apology, apologetic in that, you know, not giving into, okay, we're gonna give you want evidence. We're gonna give you evidence, as opposed to like, okay, let's just talk about being a huma

Join us for an engaging celebration of Juneteenth this Thursday morning! We kick off the festivities with renowned historian Michael Imhotep, who will reveal why Juneteenth wasn't the final day of slavery, backed by compelling evidence that will deepen your understanding of this crucial moment in history. Following him, we’ll hear from Dr. Charles Taylor, the esteemed author of "Juneteenth: The Promise of Freedom," who will share his insights and perspectives on the significance of this historic day. Our celebration will culminate with former FBI agent Dr. Tyrone Powers, who will examine the evolution of Maryland's juvenile justice system and discuss the critical role federal agents are playing in both national and international conflicts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So we're back with my buddy Dr. Andrew Root and his brand new book Evangelism in the Age of Despair - and no, before you ask, this is definitely not your typical door-to-door evangelism handbook. Andy's doing what he does best here, which is taking some heavy theological machinery (theology of the cross, Charles Taylor, French philosophers you've never heard of) and making it speak to the very despair of our concrete cultural moment. The basic argument? Our whole pursuit-of-happiness project has been a spectacular failure, leaving us isolated and constantly chasing distractions. Perhaps the church's calling isn't to add happiness to people's lives but to accompany them into their sorrow. It's evangelism as consolation rather than conversion, which sounds both obvious and revolutionary at the same time. We dive into why the optimistic 90s crashed into our current age of anxiety, how social media turned authenticity into competitive rage, and what it might mean for pastors to be professionally human rather than professionally shiny. Plus, we got questions from actual Substack subscribers who read the thing, which is always dangerous territory. This will not make you feel better about anything, but it might make you think differently about what the gospel actually is. Join us at Theology Beer Camp this October 16-18 in St. Paul, MN.⁠⁠⁠ (Andy is coming too!) Andrew Root is the Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary, USA. He writes and researches in areas of theology, ministry, culture, and younger generations. Check out some of his most recent books  Andy has worked in congregations, parachurch ministries, and social service programs. He lives in St. Paul with his wife Kara, two children, Owen and Maisy, and their dog. When not reading, writing, or teaching, Andy spends far too much time watching TV and movies. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Previous Visits with Andy Root Incarnation as Resistance Life Together in Turmoil & Bonhoeffer's Experiment in Community Resonance in an Accelerated Age Secular Mysticism & Identity Politics the Church after Innovation Churches and the Crisis of Decline Acceleration, Resonance, & the Counting Crows Ministry in a Secular Age Christopraxis with Andy Root Faith Formation in a Secular Age the Promise of Despair ⁠⁠Theology Beer Camp ⁠⁠⁠⁠is a unique three-day conference that brings together of theology nerds and craft beer for a blend of intellectual engagement, community building, and fun. This event features a lineup of well-known podcasters, scholars, and theology enthusiasts who come together to "nerd out" on theological topics while enjoying loads of fun activities. Guests this year include John Dominic Crossan, Kelly Brown Douglas, Philip Clayton, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Jeffery Pugh, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Andy Root, Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Noreen Herzfeld, Reggie Williams, Casper ter Kuile, and more! ⁠⁠⁠⁠Get info and tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Online Class:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rediscovering the Spirit: Hand-Raisers, Han, & the Holy Ghost⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ _____________________ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hang with 40+ Scholars & Podcasts and 600 people at Theology Beer Camp 2025 (Oct. 16-18) in St. Paul, MN. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Homebrewed Christianity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ production. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Homebrewed Christianity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Theology Nerd Throwdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rise of Bonhoeffer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 80,000 other people by joining our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Substack - Process This!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get instant access to over 45 classes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.TheologyClass.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow the podcast, drop a review⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, send ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠feedback/questions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠member of the HBC Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Theology Beer Camp | St. Paul, MN | October 16-18, 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we discuss Chapter 5 of Cusk's Outline alongside Chapters 3 to 5 of Taylor's book, The Ethics of Authenticity. Taylor identifies a tension between sense of identity derived from belonging to a community and contemporary culture's emphasis on the importance of individual self-creation. We reflect on the ways in which Cusk's book represents this tension. Speaker names: • Dr. Scarlett Baron, Associate Professor in the English Department at UCL. • Alice Harberd, PhD Student in the Philosophy Department at UCL.

This is part two of a series about Jonathan Pageau (  @JonathanPageau  ) and John Verkvaeke (  @johnvervaeke  ) and their respective views on Spirit and pneumatology. I mention Jonathan Pageau, John Vervaeke, Paul Vander Klay, Elizabeth Oldfield, Kale Zelden, Rod Dreher, Grim Grizz, , Ed Hutchins, Tucker Carlson, St. Anthony of the Desert, Athanasius, David Sloan Wilson, John Calvin, Tanya Luhrmann, Charles Taylor, Chuck Colson, Will Barlow, Scott Alexander, Robert Falconer, Richard Schwarz, Chris Masterpietro (Vervaeke's collaborator), Jung (Carl Jung), Michael (Archangel), Jesus Christ, Satan, Andre Antunes, Daniel (prophet), Mary Harrington, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Meno, Gregory of Nyssa, Father John Bear, Hank (presumably Hank Green from a referenced conversation), Barack Obama, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, George Cybenko, Kurt Hornik, Jonathan Losos, Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, Baldwin (James Mark Baldwin), Alex O'Connor, Nero Caesar, Adam, Plotinus, Spinoza (Benedict de Spinoza), Dan Wagenmaker, (Upton) Sinclair, Bishop VT Williams, Raphael (Raff), Anderson Day, William Desmond, Charles StangMidwestuary Info and Tickets - https://www.midwestuary.com/Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMjEY3BOPPI&t=928sDavid Sloan Wilson Dialogue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CAyvVdNSzIWill Barlow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DoIgcSWJnE&t=4065s

Nous recevons Glenn Smith, professeur au Collège Presbytérien, qui travaille aussi en théologie pratique en contexte urbain. Glenn enseigne un cours sur la pensée de Charles Taylor, et invite même M. Taylor en classe à l'occasion. Notre discussion explore certaines idées fondamentales chez Taylor, tout en se penchant sur des pistes pratiques qui en émergent, pour l'Église avec un grand E... Apparence de déclin. Prépondérance des immigrants. Importance des communautés missionnaires. Place du religieux dans l'espace public. On apprend même que ce sont les évangéliques qui, les premiers, ont utilisé le terme oecuménique (ce qui signifie « universel », dans le sens où différentes dénominations collaborent quand il s'agit d'un projet « oecuménique »).

Documentary filmmaker Lena MacDonald joined me for #CarolynTalks to discuss her film BETRAYAL, about the life and isolation of Cindor Reeves, a man who risked and lost everything when he decided to turn state's evidence against his brother-in-law, Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia tried and convicted of committing war crimes by The Hauge. #BetrayalDocumentary #HotDocs #FilmCritic #Interview *Images courtesy of @HotDocsFest and Rout504 PublicityFor screening information on the film and the festival visit the official website at https://www.citizenminutes.ca/Follow me on social media @CarrieCnh12paypal.com/paypalme/carolynhinds0525My Social Media hashtags are: #CarolynTalks #DramasWithCarrie #SaturdayNightSciFi #SHWH #KCrushVisit Authory.com/CarolynHinds to find links to all of my published film festival coverage, writing, YouTube and other podcasts So Here's What Happened!, and Beyond The Romance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Doing the right thing is never as easy as it seems.As we pick up the pieces of the latest installment of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival we're still coming to grips with the myriad of wonderful films that we got to take in at the festival.  One in particular had it's world premiere.'Betrayal' is the story of Cindor Reeves whose sister married Charles Taylor; a young idealistic rebel whose methods quickly elevated himself to be the authoritarian leader of Liberia who would commit war atrocities and crimes under his watch.  Reeves initially supported Taylor but as time quick passed his well defined sense would lead him to be a whistleblower, essentially against his own family.  At great risk to his family and friends he did the right thing and got Taylor imprisoned for War Crimes.  Now years later Reeves reflects on his life and what the true cost of doing the right thing actually was as 'Betrayal' truly gives a human face and a human cost on doing what is morally right...We had the pleasure of sitting down with director Lena Macdonald to talk about the film, how she had heard about this story and the not only insidious but true nature of it all as it unfolded in front of her....

VERSONO Medical Ltd is delighted to announce that it has been named Dragons' Den winner of the CX Innovation Prize at the international CX Symposium in London last week. The competition was between nine companies from the US, Germany, Israel, Singapore and Ireland, all of which have developed innovative technologies in the field of vascular and endovascular treatment. The US/Galway-based firm faced off in a Dragons' Den-style event in which VERSONO Medical CEO Finbar Dolan presented on the company's plans for its revolutionary FastWire Technology Platform, including its progress on enabling the endovascular treatment of chronic complex total occlusions (CTOs), and the latest developments in its FREEFLOW pivotal study. VERSONO was judged the winner by a panel of Dragons including Robert Mitchell, General Manager of global healthcare company Organon; Prof. Frans Moll, vascular surgeon; Prof. Tilo Kolbel, Director of the German Aortic Centre in Hamburg; Jeffrey B. Jump, founder of Casper-Medical; and Charles Taylor, CEO of Veryan Medical. The event was chaired by Baron Stephen Greenhalgh. FastWire is a truly disruptive technology designed to quickly access previously untreatable complex blockages in arteries, increasing success rates and reducing risk of amputations via endovascular techniques. It uses a novel proprietary ultrasonic technology developed and patented by the company to cross through severe, complex blockages in patient's arteries, above, and below, the knee with Critical Limb Threatening Ischemia (CLTI). The technology has huge potential application in endovascular procedures. VERSONO Medical is in the process of completing the FREEFLOW pivotal study for its FastWire System. Designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the FastWire device through the FDA-approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study, FREEFLOW is being performed in three centres the Vascular Institute of the Midwest (VIM) in Davenport, Iowa; the Cardiovascular Institute of the South (CIS) in Houma, Louisiana; and the Vascular Institute of Chattanooga (VIC) in Tennessee. Subject to the successful completion of the study, the company will seek US market approval to launch FastWire. The Charing Cross (CX) Symposium took place from April 23-25th at the ExcCeL in London. The event brings together world-leading experts in the treatment of vascular and endovascular disease to discuss the challenges and emerging trends in the field. Hosted every three years, the CX Symposium is a prestige event which holds education, innovation and evidence as core values. VERSONO CEO Finbar Dolan says: "It's an honour to win the Dragons Den innovation prize at the CX Symposium in London. This is one of the prestige events in the field of vascular and endovascular treatment and we are thrilled to be selected as the standout candidates in a highly competitive group of companies developing innovative technologies." See more stories here. More about Irish Tech News Irish Tech News are Ireland's No. 1 Online Tech Publication and often Ireland's No.1 Tech Podcast too. You can find hundreds of fantastic previous episodes and subscribe using whatever platform you like via our Anchor.fm page here: https://anchor.fm/irish-tech-news If you'd like to be featured in an upcoming Podcast email us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie now to discuss. Irish Tech News have a range of services available to help promote your business. Why not drop us a line at Info@IrishTechNews.ie now to find out more about how we can help you reach our audience. You can also find and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

In December 2011, Leymah Gbowee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her role in helping to end the devastating civil war in Liberia.She had mobilised thousands of women to take part in daily, non-violent public protests calling for peace – which pressurised ruthless President Charles Taylor into meeting them.When he agreed to peace talks, a delegation from The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace followed Taylor to Ghana. When talks stalled, they barricaded the room, refusing to let anyone leave until a peace deal was reached. Within weeks, after continued pressure from the US and other West African nations, the former warlord had resigned and gone into exile.Jacqueline Paine speaks to Leymah about her pivotal role in securing peace for Liberia.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Leymah Gbowee with fellow activists. Credit: Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Images)

When you scroll through social media feeds today, you'll find countless posts about “living your truth” and “being authentic.” These ideas feel so natural to us now that we rarely stop to ask where they came from or what they really mean.The concept of identity — how we understand ourselves — has undergone a radical transformation over the centuries. What once was defined primarily by external markers like family, profession, and community has shifted dramatically toward inner feelings, desires, and psychological experiences.Today on the show, Carl Trueman unpacks this profound change and how we got to the lens through which we view ourselves today. Carl is a professor, theologian, and the author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Throughout our conversation, he explores the insights of three key thinkers — Charles Taylor, Philip Rieff, and Alasdair MacIntyre — who have mapped the historical and cultural shifts that have transformed our ideas of identity. We discuss how this transformation has reshaped politics, education, and religion, while considering whether we've lost something essential in moving from a shared understanding of human nature to an increasingly individualized conception of self.Resources Related to the PodcastThe Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud by Philip RieffSources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by Charles TaylorAfter Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory by Alasdair MacIntyreThe Abolition of Man by C.S. LewisAoM Podcast #723: Men Without ChestsAoM Article: 3 Essential Books for Understanding Our Disorienting Modern WorldAoM Article: Why Are Modern Debates on Morality So Shrill?Carl's writing at First ThingsConnect With Carl TruemanCarl's faculty page 

Owen Barfield was the genius Inkling, said CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. But why does he so much matter today?They consider how Owen Barfield addresses the idea of secularism developed by Charles Taylor and why that might matter in a cultural moment that feels like a folk in the road. They speak personally of how Barfield touched them and why his insights might matter to the psychedelic renaissance.A central idea is that of polarity - moving beyond the dualisms that trap people, on the left and on the right, in a flatland mentality.They ask how Barfield's vision of final participation can be understood, even experienced, in language, in nature, with Indigenous traditions, in sacrament. They also consider how Rudolf Steiner, so important to Barfield, might be appreciated critically.Fundamental is the Christian insight that the transcendent is also immanent, the many are reflections of the one, and that humanity shares in divine purposes.For more on Mark, including his book on Barfield's understanding of Christianity - www.markvernon.comFor more on Ashton - https://ciis.academia.edu/ashtonkohlarnoldy0:00 Barfield's relevance today06:47 Monotheism and the singular self12:02 Encountering worlds of spirit20:26 The task of integration27:49 The ongoing Christian revelation32:34 Steiner and politics today44:03 The experience of polarity49:22 Barfield and ecology53:03 Taylor's interspace and imagination56: 29 The divine power of language01:01:08 Poetry and the evolution of consciousness01:06:54 The past in the present and the future01:11:09 Questions of identity01:16:44 The future orientation of Christianity01:21:09 Residual unprocessed positivism01:25:38 Critical readings of Steiner01:30:42 Concluding remarks

Did you know that Liberian dictator and international war criminal Charles Taylor broke out of prison in Massachusetts? He also earned an accounting degree, lived in Roxbury, and smuggled illegal goods from Southie's ports. Journalist Nate Horman has all the details about this wild corner of Boston history. Milt Williams to the Patriots. Celtics City on HBO.  "Diamonds and Guns: AN INFAMOUS WEST AFRICAN WARLORD'S BAY STATE JAILBREAK" by Nate Homan. Have feedback on this episode or ideas for upcoming topics? DM me on Instagram, email me, or send a voice memo.

In this episode, Megan and Frank discuss the philosophical dimensions of prehistory. What and when is the “prehistoric”? How was prehistory "discovered", and what explains our fascination with it? Is ancient archeology safe from our biases? And how did archaic man's meaning-making differ from our own? Thinkers discussed include: Colin Renfrew, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Mircea Eliade, and Wittgenstein.-----------------------Hosts' Websites:Megan J Fritts (google.com)Frank J. Cabrera (google.com)Email: philosophyonthefringes@gmail.com-----------------------Bibliography:Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind - Colin RenfrewHegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of HistoryCave of Forgotten Dreams - Official Trailer | HD | IFC FilmsBewitched by an Elf Dart: Fairy Archaeology, Folk Magic and Traditional Medicine in Ireland - DowdA Secular Age — Harvard University PressTheory and Observation in Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)From things to thinking: Cognitive archaeology - Currie & KillinCognitive Archaeology and the Minimum Necessary Competence Problem - Killin & Pain An Ape's View of the Oldowan - Wynn & McGrewNeuroscience, evolution and the sapient paradox - Colin RenfrewSapient paradox: Why humans got stuck in prehistory -Gossip Trap- Big ThinkThe Myth of the Eternal Return | Princeton University PressEliade_Mircea_The_Sacred_and_The_profane_1963Wittgenstein - Notebooks, 1914 - 1916, 2nd Edition | Wiley-----------------------Cover Artwork by Logan Fritts-------------------------Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):https://uppbeat.io/t/simon-folwar/neon-signsLicense code: AAO0Q7IZMGVTLFJH

Beau Bishop, senior vice president of catastrophe operations, Charles Taylor, discusses the unique complexities of wildfire recovery, the critical role of insurance in safeguarding properties, and how agents can use these events as educational tools.

This Day in Legal History: Milošević Stands TrialOn February 12, 2002, the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević began at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. It was the first time a former head of state was tried for war crimes by an international tribunal. Milošević faced 66 charges, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws of war, stemming from conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo during the 1990s. Prosecutors accused him of orchestrating ethnic cleansing campaigns that led to mass killings, deportations, and atrocities, particularly against Bosniaks, Croats, and Kosovar Albanians. Defiantly refusing to recognize the tribunal's legitimacy, Milošević insisted on representing himself in court. The trial, one of the most complex in modern history, lasted over four years, involving thousands of documents and hundreds of witnesses. His defense centered on denying personal responsibility, blaming NATO, and portraying himself as a protector of Serbs. However, the proceedings never reached a conclusion—Milošević died of a heart attack in his prison cell on March 11, 2006, before a verdict could be issued. His death frustrated victims who sought justice and left legal scholars debating whether the trial had succeeded in advancing international accountability. The case, despite its abrupt end, set a precedent for prosecuting heads of state for war crimes and influenced later trials, including those of Charles Taylor and Omar al-Bashir.The U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump has significantly reduced its anti-corruption enforcement, halting prosecutions and weakening key laws. Officials have pulled back on enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans corporate bribery abroad, arguing that American companies should not be penalized for standard international business practices. Prosecutors were also ordered to drop a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat with ties to Trump, citing his re-election campaign and other priorities. In addition, the department has disbanded efforts to sanction Russian oligarchs and dismissed veteran prosecutors who handled cases against Trump. Attorney General Pam Bondi framed these actions as an attempt to root out political bias in the justice system. Ethics officials and independent government watchdogs have been fired or reassigned, including inspectors general and whistleblower protection leaders. Critics, including legal scholars and former officials, warn that these moves align law enforcement with Trump's political agenda and weaken anti-corruption safeguards established after Watergate. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has expressed concern and vowed to investigate, while some Democrats and former prosecutors see the changes as an effort to dismantle legal mechanisms designed to hold public officials accountable.Trump's Justice Department hits the brakes on anti-corruption enforcement | ReutersGail Slater, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division, is set to face tough questioning from the Senate during her confirmation hearing. As a former economic adviser to Vice President JD Vance and a veteran antitrust attorney, Slater would oversee major cases against tech giants like Google and Apple if confirmed. Senate Democrats are expected to press her on maintaining enforcement and independence, especially amid concerns that the administration is undermining the DOJ's traditional nonpartisanship. Senator Cory Booker has raised alarms about potential staffing cuts at the DOJ's antitrust division, warning they could weaken protections for consumers. Other Democrats, including Senators Peter Welch and Amy Klobuchar, plan to question Slater on her commitment to continuing efforts to lower prices in healthcare, housing, and agriculture. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Mike Lee has voiced support for Slater, expecting her to carry on Trump's push against Big Tech monopolies. Slater's background includes roles at Fox Corp, Roku, and a now-defunct tech industry lobbying group, raising further concerns about her potential ties to the companies she would regulate. Her confirmation will be a key test of the administration's approach to antitrust enforcement and corporate consolidation.Trump's DOJ antitrust nominee to be grilled on enforcement | ReutersTom Goldstein, co-founder of SCOTUSblog, has asked to be released from jail after prosecutors accused him of violating his release conditions by secretly moving millions in cryptocurrency. Goldstein was arrested after a Maryland federal court found probable cause that he had misled officials about his finances. The government claims he used undisclosed crypto wallets for large transactions while arguing in court that he needed his home's equity to fund his defense.  Goldstein's attorneys argue the government is mistaken, stating that he does not own the wallets in question. They claim text messages cited by prosecutors actually show Goldstein directing funds to a third party to settle a debt, not controlling the wallets himself. Goldstein faces charges of tax evasion, aiding false tax returns, failing to pay taxes, and lying on a loan application, with prosecutors alleging he concealed gambling income and misused his firm's funds. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains he will be exonerated at trial. His legal team, including lawyers from Munger Tolles & Olson LLP, has filed an emergency motion for his release, and he has also been permitted to represent himself in court.Tom Goldstein Seeks Release, Denies Control Over Crypto WalletsNew Jersey's proposed bill, S1756, is a smart adjustment to the state's senior property tax relief system, allowing older homeowners to downsize without losing their eligibility for tax benefits. Right now, seniors who move must restart the tax reimbursement process, which can mean higher property taxes and a financial disincentive to selling. By making these benefits portable, the bill removes an unnecessary barrier to housing mobility, freeing up larger homes for younger families without adding excessive costs to the state budget.  This approach is a model for other states struggling with housing shortages and inefficient tax incentives, but it's not perfect. The bill's $500,000 income cap is too high, providing relief to seniors who may not need it. A more reasonable threshold—like 500% of the federal poverty level—would better target those on fixed incomes. Additionally, a cap on home values would ensure benefits don't go to wealthy homeowners with expensive properties but low taxable income. A reasonable solution would be to apply tax relief only to the first 150% of a state's median home price, preventing subsidies from disproportionately benefiting the wealthy.  Ultimately, this bill corrects a major flaw in New Jersey's tax policy without overhauling the system or eliminating relief for seniors who need it. But states following this example should refine their programs to ensure they help those who truly need assistance, rather than offering broad-based entitlements that distort housing markets.NJ Senior Property Tax Relief Needs Nuance to Be Most Effective This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

In this episode Truth talks with Nate Homan,  author of “Diamonds and Blood : An Infamous West African Warlord's Bay State Jailbreak.”  Nate is a south Shore-born punk rock amateur boxer who graduated from Emerson College and has written for the Boston Phoenix, Metro Boston/NYC/ Philly, Front Page Detectives, DigBoston, and the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. The two discuss the plight of Charles Taylor – and his rise from college campus radical to mass-murdering megalomaniac.   This began the night he slipped out of the Plymouth House of Correction in Plymouth, MA and made his way across the Atlantic Ocean to his homeland of Liberia, and he led a brutal coup d'etat in 1989. In 1991, Charles Taylor bankrolled a ruthless rebel army in Sierra Leone known for the abundance of child soldiers who hacked the arms off of enemies and innocent civilians alike. By conquering the mountains along the Liberian border, Charles Taylor hijacked the international diamond trade for nearly 15 years. After a bogus election in 1997, Charles Taylor became the 21st Commander in Chief of theRepublic of Liberia.  Perched on a throne of blood, Charles Taylor stacked fortunes in Swiss bank accounts. He broke bread with world leaders, Fortune 500 executives, mercenaries, mass murderers, gem trading jihadis, and big time American televangelists. At the end of his reign, Charles Taylor was convicted of international war crimes in 2012.   For more info: IG: @natehomanboston WEB: https://binj.news/2024/01/07/an-infamous-west-african-warlords-bay-state-jailbreak-2/   As always, please hit the subscribe button if you like and support what we do! You'll get early access to new episodes! Also please leave a review!   Follow us on IG: @bigtruth TikTok: @bigtruthpodcast YouTube: @thebigtruthpodcast   For feedback, questions, sponsorship info contact: bigtruthpodcast@gmail.com For more info: http://www.bigtruthpodcast.com To support the show: http://www.patreon.com/bigtruth   The Big Truth Podcast is proudly sponsored by: - Choppahead Kustom Cycles (IG: @choppahead / www.choppahead.com) - Jeffrey Glassman Injury Attorneys ( www.jeffreyglassman.com )  IG: @gottagetglassman - Tattoo Flash Collective – www.tattooflashcollective.com – use promo code: BIGTRUTH for 10% off your order - Omerta (IG: @omertamia / www.omertamia.com) - use code: BIGTRUTH at checkout for 20% off your order! - Heavy (IG: @heavyclothing / www.heavy.bigcartel.com)

In this interview with Charles Taylor, an enterprise SEO expert, we discuss a range of critical topics in SEO, including enterprise SEO and website migrations. We discuss the nuances of enterprise SEO versus traditional SEO, the complexity of large-scale migrations, and the importance of risk management. Charles also reveals some best practices for handling URL changes, the significance of internal linking, and the strategic use of AI in SEO. Additionally, we touch on the technical challenges of rendering JavaScript for search engines and how to effectively use Google's tools. This episode is packed with actionable insights for anyone looking to excel in enterprise SEO. Want to learn more about website migrations? https://seosly.com/blog/seo-migration-checklist/ https://seosly.com/blog/how-to-migrate-without-losing-traffic-seo/ Follow SEO Consultant Olga Zarr or hire Olga to help you with SEO:

"The absolute key thing which God needs from the Church is a commitment to the Word of God."—Rev Phill Sacre We are joined once again by Rev Phill Sacre—an ordained minister (Church of England), housechurch leader, and blogger on Substack—for a conversation on "Plausibility Structures and the Church." Our conversation grows out of a podcast series that Phill produced late last year called "How the church was sabotaged", in which he reflected upon a 1980s book by the famous Christian thinker and writer Os Guinness. Though published over 40 years ago, Guinness's "The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church" caught Phill's attention because of its apparent prescience on a number of important cultural issues facing the church today. So, please join us as I "get in on the conversation", and we discuss what's happened to so many modern churches, and think about ways in which we might "push back" in the culture to reveal the Gospel's "plausibility structure" to church and world alike. (Phill is a Christian minister. Ordained in the Church of England, he formerly served in a parish on the Essex coast, but now leads an independent housechurch. He also runs the online ministries "Understand the Bible" and "Sacred Musings : Thinking Christianly about the World" on Substack.) [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]

This week on Madison's Notes, we sit down with philosopher and author Charles Taylor to discuss his latest work, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Belknap Press, 2024) . Taylor dives into the profound role of poetry in reconnecting us to a sense of wonder and meaning in a world often characterized by disillusionment. Drawing on his […]

This week on Madison's Notes, we sit down with philosopher and author Charles Taylor to discuss his latest work, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Belknap Press, 2024) . Taylor dives into the profound role of poetry in reconnecting us to a sense of wonder and meaning in a world often characterized by disillusionment. Drawing on his vast expertise in philosophy, Taylor explores how poetry serves as a bridge between the mundane and the transcendent, offering a counterpoint to the rational, scientific worldview that dominates modern life. This conversation offers a deep dive into the power of language, imagination, and the poetic tradition in addressing the spiritual and existential challenges of our time. Join us for a reflective exploration of how poetry can restore enchantment in an age of disenchantment. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This week on Madison's Notes, we sit down with philosopher and author Charles Taylor to discuss his latest work, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Belknap Press, 2024) . Taylor dives into the profound role of poetry in reconnecting us to a sense of wonder and meaning in a world often characterized by disillusionment. Drawing on his vast expertise in philosophy, Taylor explores how poetry serves as a bridge between the mundane and the transcendent, offering a counterpoint to the rational, scientific worldview that dominates modern life. This conversation offers a deep dive into the power of language, imagination, and the poetic tradition in addressing the spiritual and existential challenges of our time. Join us for a reflective exploration of how poetry can restore enchantment in an age of disenchantment. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

This week on Madison's Notes, we sit down with philosopher and author Charles Taylor to discuss his latest work, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Belknap Press, 2024) . Taylor dives into the profound role of poetry in reconnecting us to a sense of wonder and meaning in a world often characterized by disillusionment. Drawing on his vast expertise in philosophy, Taylor explores how poetry serves as a bridge between the mundane and the transcendent, offering a counterpoint to the rational, scientific worldview that dominates modern life. This conversation offers a deep dive into the power of language, imagination, and the poetic tradition in addressing the spiritual and existential challenges of our time. Join us for a reflective exploration of how poetry can restore enchantment in an age of disenchantment. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

This week on Madison's Notes, we sit down with philosopher and author Charles Taylor to discuss his latest work, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Belknap Press, 2024) . Taylor dives into the profound role of poetry in reconnecting us to a sense of wonder and meaning in a world often characterized by disillusionment. Drawing on his vast expertise in philosophy, Taylor explores how poetry serves as a bridge between the mundane and the transcendent, offering a counterpoint to the rational, scientific worldview that dominates modern life. This conversation offers a deep dive into the power of language, imagination, and the poetic tradition in addressing the spiritual and existential challenges of our time. Join us for a reflective exploration of how poetry can restore enchantment in an age of disenchantment. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor speaks to Nahlah Ayed about his life's journey, from growing up in Montreal in the 1930s, his 1991 CBC Massey Lectures, and why he turned to Romantic poetry to re-enchant our sense of the meaning of life in his book, Cosmic Connections.

In this episode, I team up with our producer, Josh Gilbert, for an experimental format inspired by our podcast planning sessions, where Josh often brings up intriguing questions he's gathered while editing. Together, we explore how our initial infatuation with ideas can grow into a deeper understanding and mastery and how our personal biases inevitably shape our philosophical inquiries.   We discuss the significance of philosophy in making sense of existence, agency, and how we apply ideas in everyday life. We talk about the value of curiosity and the ongoing journey of learning across the humanities, emphasizing the need to engage with philosophical texts critically and passionately. Josh pressed me on the distinction between plausibility and intensity of faith commitments, the existential register's importance in understanding religious identity, and how modern empiricism and cultural narratives influence individual agency.   Throughout the conversation, we weave in insights from thinkers like Alfred North Whitehead, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Søren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Martin Heidegger, Philip Goff, and Charles Taylor. Together, we explore how these voices create a community of inquiry that invigorates our understanding of life and existence, showing how philosophy can shape what we think and how we live. To get the entire conversation, all podcast episodes ad-free, and support our work, consider joining the Process This on SubStack or get access to our entire catalog of classes & all the rest by joining up at Theology Class. UPCOMING ONLINE CLASS - Truth in Tough Times: Global Voices of Liberation I am thrilled to announce our upcoming class with Joerg Rieger and a host of liberation theologians from across the globe. Our goal is to create an experience where participants will get a clear and compelling account of contemporary liberation theology and meet the most critical voices of our generation. As always, then lass is donation-based, including 0. Get info and join up at www.TruthInToughTimes.com _____________________ Join my Substack - Process This! Join our class - THE RISE OF BONHOEFFER, for a guided tour of Bonhoeffer's life and thought. Spend a week with Tripp & Andrew Root in Bonhoeffer's House in Berlin this June as part of the Rise of Bonhoeffer Travel Learning Experience. INFO & DETAILS HERE Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is the first of a series of presentations from an International Symposium on “Spiritual Yearning in a Disenchanted Age” held at McGill University in Montreal in November 2024.In this first episode, Dr. Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University, shares the motivations and long history behind his new book Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment.Prof. Taylor is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in political philosophy, social theory, and intellectual history. Over the years, he has received numerous prestigious honors, such as the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize. In 2007, together with Gérard Bouchard, he co-led the Bouchard–Taylor Commission, which examined how to accommodate cultural differences in Quebec. Taylor has authored or edited more than thirty books, including Sources of the Self and A Secular Age. In this episode, Prof. Taylor talks about:The origins of humanity's deeper spiritual searchWhy poetry re-enchanting a disenchanted worldHow the study of comparative religion shaped his own spiritual lifeCosmic longing explored across diverse culturesBeauty unites communities in transformative experiencesHow a secular age can spark religious rediscoveriesTo learn more about Dr. Charles Taylor's work, you can visithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taylor_(philosopher)Cosmic Connections: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674296084Follow us on social media for more updates:X: https://x.com/brvnathanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/brvnathan/This episode is sponsored by:John Templeton Foundation (https://www.templeton.org/)Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/)Support us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/BeautyatWorkPodcast#beauty #beautyatwork #podcast #symposium #science #connection #spiritual #CharlesTaylorSupport the show

As you MUST know by now we are retiring A Very Good Year after 2 very good years of the show and over 100 episodes (if you count the bonuses, and why not?). There will be an all new show starting in 2025 with an incredible guest list, tons of great movies, and a bunch of new bonus features available.But before we do that we're looking back on A Very Good Year with some highlight shows. This week it's the 1960s with director Alexandre Phillipe, writer Larry Karaszewski, authors Stephen Farber and Michael McLellan, MST3k's Frank Conniff, TV host and historian Ben Mankiewicz, critic Robert Daniels, professor Charles Taylor, author Mark Harris, programmer Millie di Cherico, critic David Fear, and author Willow Catelyn Maclay. Thank you for listening! For show notes - including where to stream this week's movies, links to referenced media, and more - subscribe on Buttondown at https://buttondown.email/AVeryGoodYear. https://plus.acast.com/s/a-very-good-year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Damir Marusic has been reading the Bible this year for the first time. So Christine Emba and Santiago Ramos decided it was the perfect occasion for interrogating him about what he's learned and what he's been thinking about. In the ensuing conversation, the three discuss Freemasonry, Protestantism, Catholicism, Predestination and how Christianity is receiving new attention in Silicon Valley. Then, the conversation turns to Christmas traditions, and how the contemplative and party-going sides of Christmas complement each other.In the spirit of Christmas, we have made this a free episode for all subscribers. The conversation culminates in a discussion about time itself: what makes some moments in time different from others, and how Christmas is a necessary “break” from chronological time. Required Reading:* Damir Marusic, “The Protestant Deformation in America” (WoC).* King James Version (Bible Gateway). * Ruth Graham, “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women.” (NYT).* “Christians in tech drive religious revival in SF” (San Francisco Standard).* Peter Thiel, “Against Edenism” (First Things). * CrowdSource: “Tech-Trad Synergy” (WoC). * Charles Taylor on secular time and higher time. Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

On Point news analyst Jack Beatty has been finding his own sense of spiritual fullness in poetry, inspired by philosopher Charles Taylor's recent book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment.

In the ​latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Charles Taylor, joins in to discuss his new book, “Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment​.” Donate now at www.firstthings.com/campaign Intro music by Jack Bauerlein.

In the ​latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Charles Taylor, joins in to discuss his new book, “Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment​.” Donate now at www.firstthings.com/campaign Intro music by Jack Bauerlein.

In this episode of Moment of Zen, host Rudyard Lynch engages in a thought-provoking discussion with Samo Burja, exploring the breakdown of traditional power structures and drawing parallels between modern times and the religious wars of the 1600s. They delve into topics such as the aftermath of Trump's election victory, the rise of private military companies in Africa, and the evolving dynamics of global power. For full shownotes, visit highlight: https://highlightai.com/share/4f3ff1c4-1c9e-451c-b2d5-54bc06f8a87f -- Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess --

Joe Rogan, once a vocal evangelist of New Atheist talking points on religion, recently expressed how he yearns for the "just and righteous" Kingdom of God and believes the world "needs Jesus...for real." That's quite a change for Rogan, but his journey is emblematic of a broader shift in attitudes towards religion. In this episode, I'll explain why this cultural shift is happening, and we'll engage with the work of Charles Taylor, Jonathan Haidt, Paul Tillich, and others to help us better understand what religion actually is.   Deep Talks is a listener-supported podcast that is free of advertisements. Become a member on Patreon today: https://www.patreon.com/deeptalkstheologypodcast

Has modern humanity lost its connection to the world outside our heads? And can our experience of art and poetry help train us for a more elevated resonance with the cosmos?In today's episode, theologian Miroslav Volf interviews philosopher Charles Taylor about his latest book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment. In it he turns to poetry to help articulate the human experience of the cosmos we're a part of.Together they discuss the modern Enlightenment view of our relation to the world and its shortcomings; modern disenchantment and the prospects of reenchantment through art and poetry; Annie Dillard and the readiness to experience the world and what it's always offering; how to hold the horrors of natural life with the transcendent joys; Charles recites some of William Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey” and Gerard Manley Hopkins's “The Windhover”; how to become fully arrested by beauty; and the value we find in human experience of the world.Production NotesThis podcast featured Charles Taylor and Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Emily Brookfield, Alexa Rollow, Kacie Barrett, and Zoë HalabanA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

What if Martin Luther's 95 Theses still hold the key to understanding our modern world? Reverend Dr. Joel Okamoto joins us to uncover the timeless significance of Luther's challenge to the Roman Catholic Church, initially meant to ignite scholarly debate yet resulting in a revolutionary shift. We engage with the importance of open dialogue within church bodies and the role of academic thought leaders in fostering meaningful conversations that can lead to transformative change.Explore how Nietzsche's provocative claim that "God is Dead" parallels Luther's first thesis, reflecting a societal shift toward secularism and disorientation. We confront the unsettling concepts of divine sovereignty, election, and justification by grace alone, encouraging both believers and non-believers to reexamine their assumptions about faith, sin, and trust in God's word. Our conversation also dives into the complex relationship between Christianity and secularism, drawing insights from Nietzsche and Charles Taylor to navigate the post-Christendom world with courage and confidence.Finally, we tackle the relevance of Lutheran theology in today's spiritual landscape, emphasizing the paradigm shift from a theology of glory to a theology of the cross. Reverend Dr. Okamoto shares insights on how engaging with diverse spiritual narratives can bridge gaps and enrich our understanding of faith. Through examining the transformative power of baptism and justification, we strive to foster unity and mutual respect within the Lutheran community, highlighting our shared identity as children of God. Join us in this compelling exploration of Luther's legacy and its profound impact on living out faith today.Do you have a dream to reach people with the gospel, but feel stuck? There is hope for you.Join us on an incredible learning journey to discover, develop, and deploy your calling to bless the world around you with the love of Jesus!All NEW ULC Missions ClassFor a 10% off discount - use code LEADTIME10 For a 25% off discount - join our LeadSupport the showJoin the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletterVisit uniteleadership.org

Nice and uplifting movies like The Straight Story are a welcome sight in a world that's evermore cynical and meanspirited. David Lynch, a man known for sex and violence, was an usual choice to direct a real-life story about an elderly man riding his lawnmower across state lines just so he could visit his ailing brother. Still, despite some wonky acting from some of the non-professional actors, this is one of the director's finest film. Sissy Spacek is pretty great in her limited screen time as Richard Farnsworth's daughter, while Farnsworth's last performance is probably his BEST performance. He's just remarkable, playing a thoughtful man who's near the end of his life. His often-watery eyes have often inspired one of us to have watery eyes watching this film. So spend some quiet time looking up at the stars as you slowly motor across the heartland while our 623rd podcast glides through the G-rated loveliness of The Straight Story. Well, Actually: to clarify what the Salon reviewer Charles Taylor wrote about this movie, he said "it's as wonderfully strange as anything Lynch has done". Preparing for a long road trip across the midwest? Buy some Sparkplug Coffee! They give our listeners a onetime 20% discount. Just our "HYES" promo code. So it's "sparkplug.coffee/hyes". Rate and review our podcast on your app. Look for our shows on YouTube. The address in your browser should be "@hyesellis". Comment, like and subscribe to our channel. We're also on Twi-X (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis). Bev is on Threads with that same handle. And hit us with an email or two (haveyoueverseenpodcast@gmail.com).

On this episode, Jennifer Moe, a professor and former bookseller, discusses her love for books that fully envelop the reader in a setting. We reminisce about our adventures with Twilight, our shared love for library magazines, and when it might be ok to leave a note or two in a library book. She also gives some    Preorder Nobody's Perfect, the book in which Jennifer has a chapter.    Books mentioned in this episode:    What Betsy's reading:  My Friends by Hisham Matar  Shred Sisters by Betsy Lerner  Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo    Books Highlighted by Jennifer: The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn  The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling Open Book by Jessica Simpson Educated by Tara Westover  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov  Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment by Charles Taylor    All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.   Other books mentioned in this episode: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer  Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling  Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder  Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen  Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny  Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  Becoming by Michelle Obama  Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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[SEGMENT 2-1] Define extremism (best of) [X] SB – Black man says in 1000000 years he wouldn't vote for Harris What is an extremist to the Left? Grow up in a two-parent household Not be molested by an uncle or a coach To get a decent real education with NO indoctrination To find a career that you love To find a life-partner that you love and respect To have friends you can count on, and with whom you might not necessarily agree all the time. To enjoy the things in life that you desire, e.g. travel, woodworking, hunting, fishing, or whatever as long as it doesn't infringe upon others. To live in decent environs and be left alone. What's so bad about that?  [SEGMENT 2-2] Kamala Harris exposed [X] SB – Black man says in 1000000 he wouldn't vote for Kamala Harris [X] SB – Black rapper [X] SB – CNN calls out Kamala Harris for energy hypocrisy        [SEGMENT 2-3] More on the identity crisis We have services that protect our identity, Life Lock, for example. We even know the importance of identity, as the government established HIPAA laws to protect our identity. Corporations are told to protect our data, i.e. our identities online, and we receive many cautions to that effect all the time. To have one's identity stolen can wreak havoc in your life.   What Musk insightfully points out is the identity crisis in America. And the identity crisis of today touches on timeless philosophical debates about self, individualism, and collective identity. From ancient to modern thinkers, the struggle to understand the self has been at the core of human inquiry. And many would agree that today's crisis reflects both a departure from and a misunderstanding of these deeper philosophical traditions. The Search for the Self: Ancient Philosophers The quest to "know oneself" has deep roots in philosophy, epitomized by Socrates, whose aphorism "Know thyself" urges us to explore our own nature. For Socrates, this exploration was not merely about personal identity but understanding our place in the moral universe. The self, to him, was intimately tied to wisdom and virtue rather than external categories like race or gender. Similarly, Plato viewed the self as a reflection of universal truths, suggesting that the soul (the essence of self) exists beyond material distinctions. Like Socrates, Plato's ideas oppose today's focus on identities like gender or sexuality, instead calling for an understanding of self that transcends physical and social categories. I recall a family road trip where we picked up a man whose 18-wheeler had broken down. He was a 20-something white guy, and very chatty. He said something profound during his time with us. Interestingly, he mentioned that he was only driving a truck until he found something better. He said that he still needed to "find himself". After we let him out at a truck stop, I asked my grandmother why he said he needed to "find himself". She said that he was searching for meaning in his life, and that's what he meant. I joked that he was "right here!" Little did I know how this would impact me later, as I needed to find myself. Nature vs. Nurture: Enlightenment Thinkers The tension between nature and nurture has been another longstanding philosophical debate. John Locke, the English Enlightenment thinker, famously argued that the mind is a "blank slate" (tabula rasa) upon which experience writes. In contrast, Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed that humans are born inherently good, but society corrupts them. Both philosophers emphasized that individual experience and societal influence jointly shape identity. However, modern society's obsession with social categories may suggest an inversion of this idea. Collectivism—the pressure to conform to social groups based on external identity markers like race or gender—has, in the eyes of critics, stifled individualism. This sentiment is echoed by Alexis de Tocqueville, who warned that democracy could, paradoxically foster a "tyranny of the majority" where societal pressures subdue individual liberty. I suggest that we all struggle with this concept from time to time. Perhaps you are stuck in a rut, and can't seem to deprogram. Is it genetic or have you learned from experience to procrastinate, for example?  [SEGMENT 2-4] More on the identity crisis 2 That's not who we are. In my case, I chronicled in my first book, The BIG Black Lie how I always felt the tug of my father's DNA, as I assessed my place in the world. My father was not a good man, and I often felt like I would undoubtedly follow in his footsteps. It took far too long for me to dismiss this notion, and allow the nurture of my maternal family assuage my angst. Freud and Jung: Inner and Outer Identity The duality of man is something I thought about at a young age. And for the reasons stated earlier this duality involved my father. Funny how most of life's problems do revolve around childhood. Which brings me to Sigmund Freud. In what was validated by Freud and Jung, I noted how I had one public facing me, and the other me that I hid. I learned later that Freud introduced another layer to identity by focusing on the unconscious mind. He argued that unresolved internal conflicts shaped our sense of self more than societal categories. Carl Jung, a contemporary of Freud expanded on Freud's theory. Jung emphasized that individual identity must reconcile both our conscious persona and our collective unconscious (archetypes shared by humanity). This need to balance personal individuality with collective archetypes aligns with my observation that we belong to broad collectives like being human and being American, while still retaining individuality. I propose further that one's individuality must be well-balanced with the various collectives. For example, I am human, however I don't espouse to all human nature. Ergo, my individual, my self as it were will not give into the collective if I believe the collective to be flawed. Criticism of Modern Identity Politics Many critics of modern identity politics argue that identity politics diminishes the importance of individuality. George Orwell warned in his novel 1984 of the dangers of collective identity leading to oppression. Today, some, like Jordan Peterson argue that by emphasizing identity categories like race, gender, or sexuality, modern society risks reducing people to labels rather than focusing on their personal virtues and capabilities. I happen to agree. My question about why society wants so desperately for me to be part of the "alt collectives" can be understood when illuminated as the tension between individualism and collectivism. While Western societies historically valorized the individual, as reflected in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance," today's focus on identity politics often prioritizes group membership over personal agency. The collectivist trend I observe can thus be seen as a reversal of this traditional Western emphasis on the individual. In this reversal, the individual is at risk of being destroyed. The Crisis of Individualism The modern obsession with identity that I observe turns what should be private traits—like sexuality—into public markers of social distinction. Charles Taylor refers to this as the "politics of recognition." Thus, today society increasingly demands that personal identities be publicly acknowledged and validated, most notably with the use of self-ascribed pronouns. However, this emphasis on group identities can overshadow the deeper, more universal aspects of human experience that bind us all together. What is the collective, if we can subcategorized to the nth degree?    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-kevin-jackson-show--2896352/support.

Sign up for the Persuasion panel event in London: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/trump-vs-harris-what-next-for-america-and-the-world-tickets-1026768591497 Yascha Mounk and Charles Taylor discuss the modern struggle for meaning and belonging. Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher and Professor Emeritus at McGill University. Taylor is the recipient of both the Kyoto and Templeton prizes, and is the author of major works including A Secular Age and Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. His most recent book is Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Charles Taylor discuss how the modern notion of identity differs from that of the past; the role of religion and religious belonging in today's societies; and the “post-liberal” critiques of liberalism, including the claim that it's impossible to be truly religious or devout in a liberal democracy. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: podcast@persuasion.community  Website: http://www.persuasion.community Podcast production by Jack Shields, and Brendan Ruberry Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasion Youtube: Yascha Mounk LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am thrilled to share my conversation with the renowned sociologist Hartmut Rosa. It was a unique and thought-provoking dialogue delving into the intricacies of modernity, control, and resonance. Rosa touches on various elements, from the role of resonance in a fulfilling life to the necessity of a common good in society, providing an insightful exploration into contemporary socio-political and spiritual issues.  This conversation took place at Princeton Theological Seminary as part of The Church, The Pastor, And Resonance In An Accelerated Age event. The team at The Center for Barth Studies did a fantastic job hosting the event, I am grateful for all the energy they put into it. Hartmut Rosa is professor of sociology at the Institute of Sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena and director of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany. He has worked with the New School for Social Research in New York and the universities of Augsburg, Duisburg-Essen and Manheim, among others. Often considered a leading representative of the new critical theory, his research interests include the sociology of time and identity formation. Notable among his publications are Social Acceleration, The Uncontrollability of the World , Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World, and his newest book, Democracy Needs Religion. If you want to get an introduction to Rosa's main concepts and how they inspired the gathering at Princeton, you can listen to Andrew Root talk to me here. If you are interested in a deep dive into the work of Hartmut Rosa and Charles Taylor, then check out my class with Dr. Root - Religion & the Spiritual Crisis. _____________________ Join my Substack - Process This! Join our upcoming class - THE RISE OF BONHOEFFER, for a guided tour of Bonhoeffer's life and thought. Come to THEOLOGY BEER CAMP. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Hood and Charles Taylor review the "Mr. McMahon" documentary about the life and times of former WWE Owner and Chairman, Vince McMahon.

“The whole of human existence is like some sweet parable told in the most improbable place and circumstances. … God values our humanity. … One of the things that's fascinating about the Hebrew Bible is that it declared and was loyal to the fact that God is good and creation is good.”Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson joins Miroslav Volf to discuss her latest book, Reading Genesis. Together they discuss why she took up this project of biblical commentary and what scripture and theological reflection means to her; how she thinks of Genesis as a theodicy (or a defense against the problem of evil and suffering); the grace of God; the question of humanity's goodness; how to understand the flood; the relationship between divine providence and working for moral progress; and much more.About Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson is an award-winning American novelist and essayist. Her fictional and non-fictional work includes recurring themes of Christian spirituality and American political life. In a 2008 interview with the Paris Review, Robinson said, "Religion is a framing mechanism. It is a language of orientation that presents itself as a series of questions. It talks about the arc of life and the quality of experience in ways that I've found fruitful to think about."Her novels include: Housekeeping (1980, Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist), Gilead (2004, Pulitzer Prize), Home (2008, National Book Award Finalist), Lila (2014, National Book Award Finalist), and most recently, Jack (2020). Robinson's non-fiction works include Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989), The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998), Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (2010), When I was a Child I Read Books: Essays (2012), The Givenness of Things: Essays (2015), and What Are We Doing Here?: Essays (2018). Her latest book is Reading Genesis (2024).Marilynne Robinson received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brown University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977. She has served as a writer-in-residence or visiting professor at a variety universities, included Yale Divinity School in Spring 2020. She currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. She has served as a deacon for the Congregational United Church of Christ. Robinson was born and raised in Sandpoint, Idaho and now lives in Iowa City.Show NotesGet your copy of Reading Genesis by Marilynne RobinsonMarilynne Robinson's New York Times article, “What Literature Owes the Bible” (2011)Reading Genesis as the singular ancient literature that it isThe Bible (and Genesis) as theodicyHow Calvin and Luther influenced Robinson's approach to GenesisThe benefit of reading Genesis as a wholeThe story of JosephThe fractal nature of the bibleUnsparing, honest descriptions of the characters“I think that the fact that they are recognizably flawed creatures is, what that reflects is the grace of God. He is enthralled by these people that must have been a fairly continuous disappointment, you know? We have to understand humankind better, I think, in order to understand what overplus there is in a human being that God loves them despite their being so human.”“An amazing little theater of domestic dysfunction.”Abraham and Isaac: “Poor Isaac … or he could just be a plain old disappointing child.”“The Bible is a theodicy.”God's goodness, and a defense of GodGod's value of humanity and the conservation of the human self“God stands by creation.”Humanism in Genesis“Humanity sinks so deep into evil. that they become near incarnations of evil.”Genesis 6: “Every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was Only evil and continually.”Total depravity and the bleak view of humanityNoah and the Flood“… there's a kind of a strange lawlessness of Genesis.”“When God remakes the world after Noah, after the flood, he does not change human beings. He gives them exactly the same blessings and instructions that he did originally, which is simply another statement of his very deeply tested loyalty to us as we are.”“Finding a humane way to deal with the inhumanity of human beings.”Genesis 8: “Because human beings are evil, I will never destroy them.”Grace as a condition of possibility for all lifeThe similarities between Hebrew Bible as a philosophic text, drawing influences from cultures around them“what is a greater question of theodicy than the fact that populations are wiped off the face of the earth every so often—it must have been so common in the ancient world with plagues and wars and all the rest of it.”“Every human, every thought, all the time: evil.”“Genesis is a preparation for Exodus because the solution to human wickedness, which nevertheless does not violate human nature, is law.”What is the moral purpose of humanity?The roaring cosmos and modern atheisms: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on moral purpose is gone, humanity is just a little boat amidst a storm“The whole of human existence is like some sweet parable told in the most improbable place and circumstances.”Charles Taylor's Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of DisenchantmentProvidence and moral progress“We're still terribly violent. Terribly violent people.” “And terribly blind to our violence.”Revelation and God's control of an otherwise nasty worldThe possibility of human encounterProduction NotesThis podcast featured Marilynne Robinson and Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Emily BrookfieldA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give