Podcast appearances and mentions of Chris Stedman

Katy Perry's latest album 143 lit the internet ablaze for all the wrong reasons when it dropped earlier this year, mostly because of how wrong it got nearly everything and how hard it underperformed as a result. 143 was a capital-F flop in the classic sense of the term. But what exactly does the moniker "flop" mean when it comes to pop music? What constitutes a true flop? How do pop fans use it? Where did it originate and how has it morphed over time into a term of endearment for diehards, especially queer ones? All that and more in this fascinating conversation. Buy tickets to Pop Pantheon: Best Pop Of 2024 LIVE IN NYC on Dec. 2 AND Dec. 3Join Pop Pantheon: All Access, Our Patreon Channel, for Exclusive Content and MoreShop Merch in Pop Pantheon's StoreCome to Gorgeous Gorgeous Halloween in NYC (11/1)Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on Instagram

Well I've had some scheduling conflicts the last few weeks but everything's back on track, however in the meantime I'm unlocking a bonus episode. It fits the season and it was just sitting right there. I'm joined once again by author Chris Stedman (@ChrisDStedman), host of the Unread podcast, and Vulture's Craig Jenkins (@CraigSJ) to talk about the very 2001 QUEEN OF THE DAMNED.Check out Unread here: https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/unread/Some of Craig's stuff can be found here, but I suggest looking into anything he's written: https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/mac-miller-profile.htmlhttps://www.vulture.com/article/ka-rapper-remebrance-1972-2024.htmlhttps://www.vulture.com/author/craig-jenkins/Support the show on Patreon! It's the one thing that's gonna help keep the show going: www.patreon.com/soundtracker

A recent Pew Research study shows that religious “nones” are the largest single group in the United States. Twenty-eight percent of Americans check the box “none” when asked about their religious affiliation. The decline of religious life in America is not new. More than 40 million Americans have left religious life behind in the past 25 years. The reasons for that decline are complicated. In a new series, Faith in Minnesota, we'll talk to faith leaders across the state about what people are turning to instead, if anything.Chris Stedman spends a lot of his time thinking about people who check “none” box. He's a professor of religion and philosophy at Augsburg University and is working on a book that takes a look at religious “nones.”

Content Warning: This episode references mature themes including language, anxiety, depression, suicide and other themes that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. In this bonus episode, you'll hear a featured conversation from Juliet Patterson and Chris Stedman, authors and advocates who share their experiences with suicide loss through creativity, writing, podcasting, and speaking. Find Juliet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/julietpatterson; and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliet_patters Check out Juliet's work at https://www.julietpatterson.com/ Find Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisDStedman; and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisdstedman Check out Chris's other work at https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/ Find me on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/allinmyheadshow⁠⁠⁠⁠; and Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/itsallinmyhead.show/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music is Awakening by Alexey Anisimov, and is copyright free, courtesy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tunetank.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/itsallinmyhead/support

Chris Stedman joins the show to give his review of Britney's memoir! Also, we discuss the future of buffets and play Gameshow Roulette! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Britney Spears is an the iconic pop star and one of the most famous women in the world today. She released her highly anticipated memoir this week — it's called “The Woman in Me.” And our next guest will be talking all about it Thursday night at Subtext books in St. Paul.Chris Stedman is an author, activist and professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University. He is also writer and host of the Britney-themed podcast Unread. He joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here. 

Chris Stedman joins the show to give his review of Britney's memoir! Also, we discuss the future of buffets and play Gameshow Roulette! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chrissy Stroop (@C_Stroop), exvangelical writer/columnist & Chris Stedman (@ChrisDStedman) writer, professor, podcaster, join me for this special Pride episode, to talk about the recent surge in anti-lgbtq sentiment, ‘woke' corporations, the roles of the religious right & rightwing atheists in the current queerphobic Satanic panic & much more… If you enjoy this show please consider supporting via patreon.com/nicemangos & leaving a 5 star review on iTunes or Spotify to help others find the show! ——- Links: Trans legislation tracker: https://translegislation.com/ Messianic Judaism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism “The phrase “Diversity = White Genocide” is a white supremacist slogan coined by disciples of Bob Whitaker, a former Republican congressional aide and Reagan administration appointee who later embraced white supremacy and began writing for neo-Nazi publications.” https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/diversity-white-genocide Matt Walsh Is Selling Plush Toys of Himself in a Diaper “for Your Kids to Play With” https://newrepublic.com/post/173056/matt-walsh-selling-plush-toys-diaper-for-kids-play-with Chrissy's article that we mentioned in the conversation: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/us-pride-month-anti-lgbtiq-laws-celebration-joy/ Chris Stedman's previous appearance on Polite Conversations https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/pc-panel-14-are-too-many-atheists-veering-dangerously-towards-the-alt-right?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Find all of Chris' work at ChrisStedmanwriter.com Join Chrissy's discord community here: https://twitter.com/c_stroop/status/1586037341889900544?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw

Chris Stedman gets stuck scrolling Twitter at night. He knows why he does it – it makes him feel in control, it soothes his anxiety. But should he be sitting in that anxiety instead of soothing it?This week on Should I Quit? Vanessa and Chris explore our relationship to social media and how to counter perfectionism. Be sure to check out Chris's latest book, IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World, and his podcast Unread. (You can also find him on Twitter, of course, @ChrisDStedman.)--This show is completely funded by Patreon, and we are so grateful to our supporters who make it possible. If you can, please considering chipping in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Plus, Dawn's mad at Camila and Chris Stedman is raising funds for the Transcend Campagin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Plus, Dawn's mad at Camila and Chris Stedman is raising funds for the Transcend Campagin! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we're joined by Chris Stedman – a writer, activist, and professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World and the writer and host of Unread, named one of the best podcasts of 2021. The full episode is available now on patreon.com/ineedgod.Topics we cover:Sylvia PlathChris's nonreligious upbringingHomophobia in churchThe 4 categories of belief in GodHow to be a good AtheistTeaching religion to college students HumanismChris's books Faithiest and IRLAuthenticity and the internetPraise for I NEED GODTeaching religion to Gen ZChris's amazing grandmaAstrologyChris's Unread podcast Listen to full episodes at patreon.com/ineedgod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Podcast Playlist... Dylan Marron is an internet sensation. He's racked up millions of views and social media followers from his progressive-leaning viral videos. Unfortunately, with internet fame also comes internet hate. Over the years, Dylan has received many negative comments online. But instead of shying away, he decided to reach out to these people to chat. After recording phone conversations with his own detractors, one thing led to another and Conversations with People Who Hate Me was born. On his podcast, Dylan will either speak directly with people who have sent him hate mail, or he'll mediate conversations between others who have clashed in the comment section. The ultimate goal is to get to know the other person behind the screen. After a two year hiatus, Conversations with People Who Hate Me is back with a new season. Dylan has also released a new book by the same title, with takeaways on how to have your own difficult conversations. This week, Dylan joins us to share what he's learned throughout this social experiment. Plus, we'll listen to some of his favourite podcasts. Featuring: Conversations With People Who Hate Me: "A young trans man and his mother speak about her struggle to accept his gender identity." Song Exploder: "Carly Rae Jepsen released her third album, Emotion, in 2015. The closing track on the record is When I Needed You. In this episode, Carly tells the story of how the song was made. You'll hear the first demo for the song, a version she co-wrote with her longtime collaborator Tavish Crowe. And you'll hear how that led to the album version." Dead Eyes: "Actor/comedian Connor Ratliff embarks upon a quest to solve a very stupid mystery that has haunted him for two decades: why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO mini-series, Band Of Brothers. In this episode, Connor talks to Lead Writer and Supervising Producer Erik Jendresen, and learns the truth about Episode 5 "Crossroads" and Private John S. Zielinski." Love Thy Neighbour: "It's August 2020 in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Collier Meyerson is at a retirement party for an NYPD officer. Listening to speeches, chatting with guests, watching politicians hobnob with religious leaders, everything seems…all good. But as Meyerson steps back onto the streets of the neighborhood, just weeks after thousands mobilized to protest that Black lives matter, she's reminded of what happened here almost thirty years before. And she can't help but wonder how we got here." Terrible, Thanks for Asking: "Our language surrounding mental illness has evolved a lot over the past couple of decades … to a point. There are still some mental illnesses that exist outside of the bounds of most people's understanding and compassion, that are not so easily accepted and are really scary to people who don't have them. Illnesses that make the person seem "crazy," where people might not want to associate themselves with you. Today's guest -- Brettina -- has one of those." Podcast exclusive – Dylan shares what he loves about Unread: One evening in December of 2019, Chris Stedman opened an email no one ever wants to receive. It contained a suicide note from his good friend Alex. At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account and wrote "here's Alice recordings." Alex has mentioned Alice before. They met online in a Britney Spears fan forum and have been friends for years. Interestingly, Alice is famous herself among the Britney fan circle because she happens to sound like Britney herself. In Unread, Chris tries to uncover who Alice really is, and get in touch in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions that Alex couldn't. For more recommendations head to: www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastplaylist To send us a podcast you love, email us! podcastplaylist@cbc.ca

We were so honored to have Chris Stedman stop by for a powerful chat on religion, writing, storytelling, and the multitudes of being human, online and off. Chris Stedman is a writer, activist, and professor who teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. He is the author of IRL and Faitheist, and the creator and host of Unread, named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by the Guardian, Vulture, HuffPost, Mashable, and the CBC, and honored by the 2022 Webby Awards. Additionally, Chris has written popular essays for outlets including the Atlantic, Pitchfork, BuzzFeed, VICE, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Washington Post.  Check out Chris' work at chrisstedmanwriter.com and be sure to follow up on Twitter and Instagram @ChrisDStedman

Chris Stedman is a writer, activist, and adjunct professor who teaches in the Dept. of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. Previously the founding director of the Yale Humanist Community, he also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University. He is the author of a new book titled: IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World.  In this episode we discuss why people are leaving religious institutions in pursuit of finding connections online and what it means to be real in a digital space.

Chris Stedman studies the way people are re-imagining religion online. He says that while current fashions like the Holy Trinity Bikini with the words Father and Son on the top and Holy Spirit on the bottom seem to be mocking religion, something more profound might be going on. Kyle Hide is the co-creator of the Instagram account I NEED GOD IN EVERY MOMENT OF MY LIFE. They say that despite the humorous - though some may say sacrilegious - images, there's a real yearning for new ways to experience religion. The new surge of interest in Catholicism for young people online has also taken another unexpected turn with a group calling themselves “trad caths” short for “traditional Catholics.” They are new converts, or reverts to an older style of Catholicism, one that the church thought it had put behind it with Vatican II. Molly Olmstead explains

In what ways are atheists stigmatized, and what are some reasons for social divisions among atheists? Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious, joins us to discuss the 10th anniversary of his landmark book. We explore how atheists have partnered with religious communities to address social issues, why some atheists have been drawn to right-wing politics and white supremacy, and how atheists can respond to rising Christian nationalism in the United States.

Author and professor Chris Stedman joins the guys to talk about his book IRL, and to muse about our society's collective relationship with the internet, and all the good and bad that comes with that! Spoiler alert: Brent focuses pretty intensely on the bad. But first, the guys chat about Aaron Schock's recent trip to a gay bar in Manhattan and whether he should be allowed indoors in shorts so unfathomably tight. And finally, they reveal what their most gluttonous, lazy, heathenistic Goblin Mode day looks like and, turns out, for Eliot it just means eating dinner off paper plates! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Soundtracker, I'm joined by Unread's Chris Stedman  (@ChrisDStedman on IG and Twitter) to talk about Britney Spears' unfairly maligned (even at the time of release) film CROSSROADS. It's a much darker movie than I expected, and a movie that takes on an entire new light in 2022. It's one worthy of reevaluation. In this episode we talk about the (not so subtle given what we know now) relationship she has with her parents in the film, how poorly she was treated around the time it came out, how great it is seeing her finally find a happy place, and wonder why this movie hasn't benefitted from her recent outpouring of love and support. On top of that, the soundtrack is a jaw-droppingly cynical move by Jive Records, one I'll probably never see the likes of again on this show. There's a lot of meat to this episode, so I'm hoping you'll join us as we cover a movie I never would have expected to cover on the show, but I'm so glad I did.Check out Unread here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unread/id1568341860Preorder his upcoming book IRL here: https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/order/Chris's Buzzfeed article on Britney can be found here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisstedman/britney-spears-queer-fans-have-always-had-her-back

Kelly talks to Chris Stedman, author of IRL: Finding Our Real Selves in a Digital World and host of Unread a podcast about looking for answers in the digital breadcrumbs people leave behind. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a podcast about a podcast! Alexis and Dawn explore Unread, with the creator, writer, host and executive producer Chris Stedman. Unread is a narrative podcast about friendship, grief, Britney Spears and the digital breadcrumbs people leave behind. This series discusses discusses topics that may be triggering to some listeners, including depression and suicide. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741 to speak to someone immediately.

Welcoming Nora McInerny to The Pod Club! In this week's episode, host Jo Piazza is joined by friend and host of Terrible, Thanks for Asking Nora McInerny to discuss her favorite podcasts. As a podcast listener since 2009 when shows were downloaded onto iPods, not streamed from an app, McInerny is the go-to person for this kind of advice. While her own podcast is often emotional and deep, Nora's podcast recommendations cover all genres, with topics ranging from white collar crime, to Mother Teresa, and childless millennials. When Jo recommends Unread with Chris Stedman to Nora, they decide to have him on this episode too. Because why not? It's The Pod Club and we'll do whatever we want.Shows mentioned: Scam Goddess, "Hilaria hoax", "The Real Housewives of Scams, Shams and Fraud with Anna Hossnieh"The TurningBe There in Five, "Childless Millennials" Heavyweight, "Gregor"Nora's Show:Terrible, Thanks for AskingChris's Show: Unread Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Keaton won a Golden Globe for "Dopesick," a series on Hulu about the opioid crisis in the 90s; myTalkers sing its praises. We are collecting Valentines for our friend Liz. We had some breaking Vikings news that wasn't a complete surprise. Dawn listened to the podcast Alexis told us about last week, Chris Stedman's "Unread."

Alexis shared an AbFab podcast: Unread by Chris Stedman. Dawn shared an AbFab book: Keep Sharp by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Was the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary good? We want to bring our friend Liz a bunch of Valentines when we visit her next and we need your help!

Alexis binged a 4 hour 4 episode podcast called Unread: Eat Pray, Britney. This is a story seen through the eyes of the creator and storyteller, Chris Stedman. This could be triggering for people grieving about the loss of a friend who has died by suicide. This podcast is at the top of the list for best podcast of the year by many news outlets. Alexis's brother went to high school with Chris, fun fact!

In this bonus episode, released on International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day, Joel chats with the legendary and adorably sweet Chris Stedman. Chris is the author of IRL, host of Unread, and a suicide loss survivor. Chris and Joel talk all things healing, identity, loss and how they find connection and belonging during these tough times. Content/Trigger Warning: This episode references mature themes including anxiety, depression, religion, sexuality, suicide, and other themes that may not be appropriate for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Find Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisdstedman; and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisdstedman/ Subscribe to Unread Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unread/id1568341860 Follow Unread on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unreadpod; and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unreadpod/ Purchase Chris's latest book, IRL: https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/irl/order/ Check out Chris's work: https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/ Find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/allinmyheadshow; and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsallinmyhead.show/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/itsallinmyhead/support

Pod Crashing Episode 127 with Chris Stedman from UnreadOne December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while-was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that."Listen," the note read. "i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive." At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. "here's Alice recordings," he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason-she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.

Pod Crashing Episode 127 with Chris Stedman from Unread One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while-was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. "Listen," the note read. "i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive." At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. "here's Alice recordings," he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason-she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.

Pod Crashing Episode 127 with Chris Stedman from Unread One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while-was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. "Listen," the note read. "i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive." At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. "here's Alice recordings," he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason-she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.

In this episode we have the pleasure of hosting author Chris Stedman. We discuss his Britney-related podcast, Unread, where he explores the devastating loss of his friend Alex.  Alex and Chris shared a love of Britney that bonded them forever.  Chris opens up to us about his experience, Alex's life, and, of course, his devotion to Britney Spears.  This episode contains discussions related to depression and suicide.  Please listen with care. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741 to speak to somebody immediately.

Pod Crashing Episode 127 with Chris Stedman from Unread One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while-was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. "Listen," the note read. "i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive." At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. "here's Alice recordings," he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason-she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.

Content warning: This episode contains discussions of suicide Have you heard the one where the atheist walks into the divinity school? Oh, it's not a joke, it's the lived experience of humanist chaplain Chris Stedman. Phill and Chris talk about the pros and cons of organized religion, cultivating community and ritual outside of religious contexts, using the internet to heal after personal tragedy, and finding the divine in pop divas. Required listening for the “spiritual vibes of non-religious people.”   Resources: National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255 or text HELLO to 741741 For a transcript of this show, please visit crooked.com/unholierthanthou. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” Welcome to Unread, a podcast from iHeart that has landed on many best-of-2021 lists while striking a deep chord with its audience. Inside today's episode, Jay speaks with Chris Stedman, creator and writer of Unread, a show with a unique approach toward mental health and cultural icons. Chris breaks down the process of conceptualizing an intimately personal project with a team, and how podcasting differs from the written word. Chris Stedman is a Minneapolis-based writer, speaker, and professor who currently teaches in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Augsburg University. He is the author of IRL and Faitheist, and Unread is his first podcast. EXPLORE THE SHOW Visit https://3clipspodcast.com for all episodes of the show. LEARN MORE ABOUT 3 CLIPS HOST JAY ACUNZO Subscribe to his newsletter, explore his course for podcasters, or watch and listen to all of Jay's shows and projects at http://jayacunzo.com LEARN MORE ABOUT CASTOS 3 Clips is a Castos Original Series. Castos provides tools for public and private podcasts and believes podcasters should own their turf to provide the best possible audience experience. Visit http://castos.com INSIDE THIS EPISODE: Unread can be found at: https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/unread/ Tweet at Unread host Chris Stedman here: https://twitter.com/ChrisDStedman Follow 3 Clips host Jay Acunzo on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/jayacunzo/ This episode was produced by Jude Brewer. Learn more: www.judebrewer.com Music provided by Tyler Littwin

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't. Listen to Unread on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't. Listen to Unread on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote. Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't. Listen to Unread on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This week, Vanessa is joined by fellow podcaster and author of IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives, Chris Stedman, to discuss grief, fandom, and how online communities can help us process significant events in our lives.Thanks to Sam, Courtney, Brianna, Mallory, and Cathy for their beautiful voicemail contributions. On Thursday we'll be starting Book 2, Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets, and reading Chapter 1, The Worst Birthday, through the theme of bravery.Listen to Chris's podcast, Unread, and check out his new book here! --It's only two sickles to join S.P.E.W., and only two dollar to join our Patreon for extra bloopers every week! Please consider helping us fill our Gringotts vault so we can continue to make this show. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The guy who turns himself on with kidney beans,

Here's part 2 of the previous Panel episode I posted on here, discussing ‘merge-gate' and the unexpected defensive response to a Salon article claiming that New Atheists merged with the far right, from some in the ‘progressive' corners of the atheist scene. My lovely panel includes Chrisiousity, Vadim Newquist of the Creationist Cat YT channel, Daniel Harper of the I Don't Speak German Podcast, & also Youtuber Godless Cranium. —- If you enjoy the show pls consider supporting via Patreon.com/NiceMangos —- Links: Salon article: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/ Chris Stedman's Vice Article on Atheists veering towards the alt right Too Many Atheists Are Veering Dangerously Toward the Alt-Right My panel episode from 2018 with Chris Stedman & James Croft: https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/pc-panel-14-are-too-many-atheists-veering-dangerously-towards-the-alt-right Emoji references are in relation to this thread I linked in the previous panels shownotes: https://twitter.com/nicemangos/status/1406659660996825091?s=21 —— Find the panel here: @chrisiousity (twitter) https://youtube.com/c/chrisiousity @HeyitsVadim (Twitter) https://youtube.com/user/creationistcat @GodlessCranium (Twitter) https://youtube.com/c/GodlessCranium @DanielEHarper (Twitter) @IdsgPod (Twitter) https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/

Bradley and Holly chat with author and professor Chris Stedman about his podcast "Unread." This roller coaster of emotion and Internet sleuthing explores friendship, loss and the true meaning of Britney Spears.

I made this episode immediately after listening to the Unread podcast by Chris Stedman. You can find it on apple podcasts, I heart radio, or on Spotify. This is a 4 episode podcast where the creator shares his story of getting an email from a good friend after his friend has died by suicide. Included in an audio file are some of his friend's conversations with a woman called Alice, who may or may not be Britney Spears. This podcast is powerful and intense and it made me physically uncomfortable and gave me all the feelings. I felt it was incredibly well done and I encourage you to listen to it but be warned that it will take you on an emotional journey. https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/unread/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=2590eba7d7c081c9e304bf1c5137b55ec72d4cdb-1625869120-0-AcTPS8UDIm0rOu9Tgji0Q5X-hUxpCv79jTbU8CsOTGDdK9RKSjV1JPimivZqJ-vl3jo27u4bVdfnGmvPSO2wSpUYVXYpdjSmbIrAwQAQWAbE_UEjAkKJqN8l7iSi5NcV0IBBnxjlZydSY2O5lHf1MhLJCkUyI-bQIoaV7Q8JSf6zWL55Uv1v07AOhsYDN61Esrb3U1sAMnjJ6YaQxVVmoGVJAU9_4e-rbNhy9400ZRqJ_oIwlBSzfbLMCmCk45_1qhv1iohxG0OyGJP5t8FpTGkz0phH34D4NpUEOG2vyVMlp4Sq8cRzXTa-DQMldtH8aHK1jzq11H_sHiI3YoZuDz2OfYdr7mniDc4B-MpWBP3KOAl4hUOiCfvuoJZg2cj65kBa5x2ODjO2O0x2_g9D5Nc --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/daniel-j-maigler/message

The brilliant Chris Stedman joins Matt and Dave to chat about his absolutely compelling new podcast Unread, the timing of the Free Britney movement, Julie, The Turning, Filter, Queen of the Damned, Humanism and being a humanist, meeting his boyfriend on Twitter, and how he's processing the loss in his life.

Hello lovely listeners, Since we're experiencing a revival of defending new atheism from the left recently….I thought it was important to do this episode. I‘ve got a wonderful *godless* panel here to discuss their personal experiences in and observations of the scene, and also to discuss the ongoing apologetics surrounding ‘merge-gate'. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation, and that it provides more context for those who haven't followed the atheist scene too closely in recent years. If you enjoy the show pls consider supporting via Patreon.com/NiceMangos ———— Links: Thread I mentioned in the intro: https://twitter.com/nicemangos/status/1406646731933167619?s=21 Salon article: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/ Chris Stedman's Vice Article on Atheists veering towards the alt right: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists-are-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right My panel episode from 2018 with Chris Stedman & James Croft: https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations/pc-panel-14-are-too-many-atheists-veering-dangerously-towards-the-alt-right ——— Panel members: @chrisiousity (twitter) https://youtube.com/c/chrisiousity @HeyitsVadim (Twitter) https://youtube.com/user/creationistcat @GodlessCranium (Twitter) https://youtube.com/c/GodlessCranium @DanielEHarper (Twitter) @IdsgPod (Twitter) https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/ Patreon.com/Danielharper

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote.   Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote.   Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

One December evening in 2019, Chris Stedman noticed a new message in his inbox from his friend Alex, sent at exactly 7 p.m. He and Alex hadn't talked in a while—was Alex writing to tell him off for being a bad friend? But it wasn't that. “listen,” the note read. “i am writing to let you know that when you receive this scheduled email, i will no longer be alive.” At the bottom of his message, Alex included a link to a private SoundCloud account. “here's Alice recordings,” he wrote.   Alice. Alex had talked to Chris about her before. A Britney Spears superfan, Alex had befriended this anonymous figure in a Britney fan forum years earlier. Alice had become the stuff of legend in Britney fan circles, and for good reason—she happens to sound exactly like Britney herself. Why was Alex including these recordings in his goodbye email? Who was Alice, really, and what had she meant to Alex? More importantly, could she help Chris understand why his friend was gone? With help from Alex's loved ones, Chris decides to track down the elusive Alice, in the hopes that she can answer some of the questions Alex couldn't.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

In episode 2 of Pop Pantheon, host DJ Louie XIV addresses the veritable uproar from the KatyCats following last week's episode. He then briefly reviews the concept of the Pop Pantheon tiers before being joined by author and professor Chris Stedman to discuss the Princess of Crunk&B, Ciara. Louie and Chris dissect the idea of "flops" in the context of Chris' Pitchfork piece, "The Enduring Appeal of Pop Stars Who Flop", the trajectory of Ciara's career from centrist pop star to flop to critical darling and gay icon, the unjust tension projected onto women of color in pop who move between genres, and Ciara's resilience and longevity in the fickle and ever-shifting pop landscape over the last twenty years. Finally, they debate which tier Ciara belongs in in the official Pop Pantheon. Read Chris' piece, "The Enduring Appeal of Pop Stars Who Flop", on Pitchfork: https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-enduring-appeal-of-pop-stars-who-flop/ Follow Pop Pantheon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poppantheonpod/ Follow Pop Pantheon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopPantheonPod Follow DJ Louie XIV on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djlouiexiv/ Follow DJ Louie XIV on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DJLouieXIV Follow Chris Stedman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisDStedman

Join us for a conversation with Chris Stedman, author of IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and Faitheist (2012), who has written for publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Pitchfork, VICE, The LA Review of Books, and The Washington Post.

Join us for a conversation with Chris Stedman, author of IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and Faitheist (2012), who has written for publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Pitchfork, VICE, The LA Review of Books, and The Washington Post.

Chris Stedman is a Minneapolis-based writer, speaker, and community organizer. In this conversation, we discuss his book IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives, how people form and express their identities online, spirituality "fads," and much more! (This conversation was recorded on January 4th, 2021, two days before the insurrection and the rest of the country went topsy turvy.) Follow Chris on Twitter! Support this podcast (and sister podcast Powers & Principalities) through a paid subscription to Blake's newsletter, The Post-Evangelical Post. Follow Blake on Twitter and Instagram. Get Exvangelical podcast merch, featuring the new logo, here. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/exvangelical/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/exvangelical/support

Break out a pen and notebook, because today on For the Love, we’re going back to school with writer and professor Chris Stedman, our next guest in the For the Love of Reconnecting series. A former chaplain at Harvard and founding director of the Yale Humanist Community, Chris just wrote a fascinating book called IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives. He’s a millennial who grew up fluent in the digital world but didn’t have a smartphone that tethered him to the internet until after his formative years, when a post he wrote went viral and steered him toward building a platform online. The internet of today is definitely not the one Chris grew up with—it’s no longer something we log in and out of. Chris and Jen talk about the beauty of finding and building community online and expanding our circles of belonging, but also why it’s so important to disconnect from tech every once in a while, because we discover things about ourselves in the silence of retreat that we may not see otherwise. And while sometimes the internet can seem like a place teeming with chaos, Chris reminds us that we have the power to choose how *we* engage with technology, that we control our devices—not the other way around. * * * Thank you to our sponsors!   Noom | Check out how to stay on a healthy track at https://noom.com/forthelove Jen Hatmaker Book Club | Join the sisterhood today! https://jenhatmakerbookclub.com 

We’re so excited to bring you a brilliant guest Chris Stedman, who is the ideal interviewee for a podcast about adapting spiritual practices and ideas in a way that is secular.Primo: Chris is a humanist chaplain and community builder who is not religious but whose work is informed by religious questions. He's driven by the specific ways that spirituality answers fundamental human needs. This has led him to being the humanist chaplain at Yale, before becoming a University lecturer.Secundo: He’s just written a great book that brings this sensibility to a huge question how can we be human online? And how can online help us be more human? Chris' Book is 'Finding Realness, Meaning and Belonging In Our Digital Lives' - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irl-Finding-Realness-Meaning-Belonging/dp/1506463517These are three things this conversation made us think about:How we can think about our digital lives are in some ways just as “real” as the rest of our lives - and equally important.How vulnerability and honesty can be liberating, especially at a time when we are encouraged to always put on a facade.How we can think deeply about religion and what it might offer us without actually being religious.The LIfefulness CommunityObviously we don't just talk about creating meaning and belonging online we also bloody do it. These are two ways you can get involved.Lifefulness 101 - this is our 12 week collective learning experience, which starts in January - https://www.lifefulness.io/lifefulness-101Lifefulness Small Groups - we also gather in online small groups and you can apply to join here - https://www.lifefulness.io/membershipThanks so much for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chris Stedman returns to Things Not Seen to talk about his recent book, IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this show, we talk about the differences and similarities between religion, faith, and spirituality, and how we make meaning of all three terms with Oliver Goodrich, Associate Dean of Spirituality and Meaning-Making and Director of Cornell United Religious Work (CURW). Resources on this topic and are shared on this episode include: - Cornell University's Student & Campus Life COVID Spiritual Resources: https://scl.cornell.edu/identity-resources/office-spirituality-and-meaning-making/resources/covid-spiritual-resources - Cornell University's Student & Campus Life Racial Justice Resources: https://scl.cornell.edu/identity-resources/office-spirituality-and-meaning-making/resources/racial-justice-resources - "Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious" by Chris Stedman: https://www.amazon.com/Faitheist-Atheist-Common-Ground-Religious/dp/0807014451/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1606408006&sr=1-1 - Eboo Patel, Founder of Interfaith Youth Core: https://ifyc.org/eboo

SPECIAL GUEST INTERVIEW! Chris Stedman makes his Barking Points triumphant return with a new book in tow, IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives.  BARKING POINTS and BITS are being postponed until the next episode, so you are free from our clutches for now. "Bossa Antigua" "Backbay Lounge" "Apero Hour" "Crinoline Dreams" "Opportunity Walks" "Samba Isobel" "Shades of Spring" "Dispersion Relation" "Bass Vibes" "Overcast" "Your Call" "In Your Arms" "Bummin on Tremelo" "AcidJazz" "Poppers and Prosecco" "NoGoodLayabout" "Hep Cats" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Theme Music: "Barking Point" by Solardog

P Diddy and Mark Walberg are our D Bags of the day. CELEBRITY THIRST TRAPS: Colton Underwood wipes his Instagram feed and Mario Lopez does something in public....just wait till you hear what he did and where.

Bradley and Holly talk to Minneapolis author Chris Stedman about his new book 'IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives.'

Fate has brought us back together at last. Chris Stedman Joins me to talk about his newest book, IRL:Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives. The Book is out now and you should pick up a copy here at IRLbook.com. Connect with Chris across social media @ChrisDStedman. And if you like this podcast, become a supporting partner on Patreon.  Stay tuned for a GoFundMe link.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tinyrevolution/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel talks with Chris Stedman about his new book, "IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives." When we cross the thin glass screen of our digital devices do we enter an artificial realm, or is the online world an authentic part of reality? — Find the show notes at: https://www.reenchantmentpod.com/post/show-notes-what-is-real-chris-stedman

On this episode I speak with Chris Stedman. Chris is a writer, speaker, and community organizer living in Minneapolis. His new book, out tomorrow from Broadleaf Books, is called "IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives." The IRL in the title refers to the internet shorthand for “in real life,” in contrast to our online lives. But Chris thinks this designation is a mistake.Much of the time, Chris says, we don’t think of our time on the internet as “real” and therefore don’t approach it with the same critical analysis that we might a different kind of engagement. How much thought do you put into an activity you don’t think is real? Chris argues that while our lives online are different than other relational spaces, it is no less real. As such he invites us to think deeply and critically about how we engage with the internet, how it is shaping us, and what it’s telling us about what is real and what is important.::LINKS::Visit Chris Stedman's website | https://chrisstedmanwriter.comBuy the book | https://bookshop.org/books/irl-finding-realness-meaning-and-belonging-in-our-digital-lives/9781506463513Follow Chris on Twitter | http://www.twitter.com/ChrisDStedmanRead “The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation” | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html

Chris Stedman is an author, interfaith activist, and lover of pop culture – particularly pop music. Just before the launch of his new book “IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives”, Chris joins James to talk about how pop culture shapes our identity. How do the pop stars we love to love and love to hate shape who we are? Fine out more about Chris at his website.

Cait and Drew are back after a tech imposed hiatus with the brilliant Chris Stedman, author of the upcoming "IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives" to discuss challenging your preconcieved notions of self, as well as authenticity online, Amanda Palmer, Britney, quarantine hair dye and the murderous mindset. Preorder Chris' Book at https://chrisstedmanwriter.com/irl/   Subscribe/Follow 'Hot and Rich' @HotandRichShow twitch.tv/hotandrich We are adding past Patreon episodes to the main feed as we all get through this and are also unlocking our back catalogue for the foreseeable future. Patreon.com/thispodcastisselfcare  Follow Chris on twitter @ChrisDStedman Follow us on Twitter | @ThisPodSelfCare Follow us on IG | @ThisPodcastIsSelfCare  Follow Cait on Twitter | @CaitRaft Follow Drew on Twitter | @DrewSpurs

What does it mean to be "real" in the digital age? As more people leave the institutions that once helped many of us find meaning and belonging—opting out of religious communities and civic organizations—and move their search for realness to the internet instead, it's easy to worry. After all, we hear over and over that our digital lives are "fake," even though so much of who we are and what we do for work and play now happens online. Alternately, others say that technology will make us fuller, better versions of ourselves, if we just put our faith in it. But perhaps neither group gets it exactly right. Perhaps the internet is a new tool for understanding and expressing ourselves, and that the notalways-graceful ways we use this tool can reveal new insights into far older human behaviors and desires. In this talk, author and activist Chris Stedman will invite us to consider the ways we use the internet to fulfill the essential human need to feel real. The digital search for meaning and belonging presents challenges, he will argue, but also myriad opportunities to become more human. Chris Stedman is the author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (2012) and the forthcoming IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and has written for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pitchfork, BuzzFeed, VICE, and The Washington Post. Formerly the founding executive director of the Yale Humanist Community, he also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University and is currently a fellow at Augsburg University. Learn more at chrisstedmanwriter.com.

In this episode, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss virginity tests, international achievement tests, and the end of the 2010s. Support Past Present on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pastpresentpodcast Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:  The rapper T.I. caused controversy when he said he subjects his daughter to a virginity test every year. Natalia referred to historian Hanne Blank’s book Virgin: The Untouched History. Niki cited our discussion of the evangelical purity movement on Episode 190. Children around the world took the PISA exam, and Americans had a mediocre showing. Natalia recommended the documentary A Place at the Table and journalist Dana Goldstein’s book The Teacher Wars. In a few weeks, the decade of the 2010s will be behind us. Niki recommended this article at Esquire on how the cultural gatekeepers lost their job in the decade.   In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History: Natalia discussed Clarissa Jan-Lim’s Buzzfeed article, “Pinterest and The Knot Will Stop Promoting Wedding Content that Romanticizes Former Slave Plantations.” Neil commented on Chris Stedman’s Vox article, “Too Many Atheists Are Veering Dangerously Toward the Alt-Right.” Niki recommended the HBO show “The Watchmen.”

In this episode, student hosts Christian Elliott and Mikaylo Kelly sit down with Chris Stedman at the studios of WVIK as a part of his visit to Augustana’s campus for Symposium Day this month. Chris Stedman is an atheist and humanist community organizer, interfaith activist, and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author … Continue reading Reclaiming ‘Faitheism’ – Chris Stedman →

Chris Stedman is an atheist and humanist community organizer, interfaith activist, and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious, “an intimate and deeply affecting portrait… [that] proves [he is] an activist in the truest sense and one to watch” (Booklist, Starred Review). … Continue reading Reclaiming ‘Faitheism’ – Chris Stedman →

Millennials and Gen Z are struggling to find connections as they trend away from religious affiliation. Originally aired on May 24, 2019.

Varun Soni presides over the largest collection of chaplains and student faith groups at a secular American university. 

Let us take you back to 2011. Egypt is in revolt. The people of London are rioting. Earthquakes are wreaking havoc in New Zealand and Japan. Amy Winehouse is dead, for christ sake. Life is bleak. But wait – what’s that we can hear in the distance? It’s a girl with a sugary voice. And it sounds like she’s... imploring a boy to... pick up the phone and... give her a call? Oh happy day mama, it’s Carly Rae Jepsen! Come to remind us all that there *is* joy in the world, through the twinned arts of addictive melody and sassy flippance! And so after that, 2011 felt better for a spell. But as quickly as she swooped in, Carly seemed to disappear, destined to be banished forever to the dusty catacombs of early teenies one-hit-wonderdom. Right? Wrong. Flashforward to 2015 and Carly was back with E•MO•TION, a juggernaut of solid-platinum pop. Except this time – she was here, she was queer, and she weren’t goin’ nowheer. From the blaring trumpets of 'Run Away With Me' reminding you of the one that got away, to the rhythm of 'Warm Blood' made to match your throbbing heartbeat, to the multi-layered intricacies of 'Boy Problems', it’s no wonder the album has been so revered by the queer community since its release. And rightly so. But, girl… did you know about E•MO•TION: Side B? Don’t miss this episode's companion playlist on Spotify and please feel free to slide into our DMs on Instagram at @auralfixationpodcast. Your hosts are @drew_down_under and @andrewdoyouthinkyouare.We came across some superb articles by likeminded individuals which inspired this episode. We strongly recommend you read this Stereogum article by James Rettig, "Carly Rae Jepsen's Queer Rennaissance" by Michael Waters and "The Enduring Appeal of Pop Stars Who “Flop”" by Chris Stedman.

Ross and Carrie visit the spiritual center of the universe, thanks to a recommendation from their good friend (and live show guest) Chris Stedman. Thanks to a couple of welcoming tour guides, they take two personalized tours, learn where we really go when we dream, and discover why spiritual leaders are usually men. PLUS, the trio uses an old Bible trick to see if they can find tailored advice in any book.   You can support this very expensive investigation by going to www.maximumfun.org/donate!   For pics, vids, and kicks, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/onrac!

Ross and Carrie sell out the IceHouse Minneapolis for a the first stop on their live show tour! Featuring goofy experiments with the audience, plus a little help from special guests Chris Stedman (author of Faitheist) and Drew Spears (not an author).

Jesus and his followers came into Jericho. As Jesus was leaving Jericho, together with his disciples and a sizable crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, Timaeus’ son, was sitting beside the road. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was there, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, show me mercy!” Many scolded him, telling him to be quiet, but he shouted even louder, “Son of David, show me mercy!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him forward.” They called the blind man, “Be encouraged! Get up! He’s calling you.” Throwing his coat to the side, he jumped up and came to Jesus. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said, “Teacher, I want to see.” Jesus said, “Go, your faith has healed you.” At once he was able to see, and he began to follow Jesus on the way. Hopefully you had a chance to hear Chris Stedman last week, as he shared with us a bit of his story and how he arrived at both his atheism and his eventual desire to find places of cooperation and understanding between theists and atheists. What I admire about Chris is that he is doing something rather different, something pretty unusual, in this day and age, and that is simple bridge building, attempting to find some way people of different opinions can actually have a conversation with each other – and see if that dialogue with each other will give rise to some common good beyond the dialogue. Reading his book, and thinking about the difficulties of being an open and active atheist in our culture, even now, it just reminds me that this is no easy thing. The reality is that Chris gets pilloried and mocked by some in his atheist community who believe that seeking any common ground with religious people is a fool’s errand – and who believe that the goal of atheism should be the elimination of religion. Chris tells a story of a cocktail party he attended right here in Chicago with a group of local atheists who were stunned to hear his views on the need to find points of cooperation with the religious – and how he was derisively labeled by a guest at the party as a “faitheist,” which is where the title of his book comes from. Some in his own community of non-believers are not just indifferent to religion, but campaign for its elimination – not violently or forcibly, but through an intellectual expose of religion’s follies – and sadly, there is a lot of material to work with on that account. But let’s not get too self-righteous on our part about this desire to eliminate religion by some atheists – there has been far more persecution of atheism and atheists by religious people of all stripes than there ever has been of atheists persecuting religious people. Christians, when in political power through the centuries, have had a tendency to outlaw anything that could be seen as anti-religious, and have sometimes tortured or killed those who expressed religious skepticism or outright atheism. And so Chris gets pilloried by some Christians for being an atheist and then gets pilloried by some atheists for being someone who wants to build bridges between atheists and Christians. And yet, he persists in this work, he continues to do this good work of trying to find common ground between theists and atheists, despite our differences. This takes a special kind of moxy, a fortitude that not easy to find, to stay in the game, to show up to the work, when its rarer and rarer to find those who think it is a good work that you are doing – especially the work of bridge building. That persistence, that willingness to remain, to remain faithful, so to speak to this cause, to stay on-course, and to live out of a sense of core principles, it’s a testament to tenacity, to persistence on his part. And that persistence, that tenacity, is something that is present in the story we just heard a few minutes ago, and it is a story of persistence that I think we can learn from, or at least I can. Now, it’s interesting, that this is the last miracle story in the Gospel of Mark—this is it, at least when it comes to the flashy displays of divine healing power because the next thing that happens is Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, into that time of passion when Christ will teach in the temple, when the jealousy of the religious powers within the Temple come to a head, a time when the calculation is made that it is better for one man to die than to have a whole nation be destroyed, and the political machinery of death and crucifixion become greased with the blood of those who are understood to expendable in order to keep the peace.   Think about it: the very last story told by Mark, in this the earliest of the written Gospels, before the coming drama of Jesus’ crucifixion, is this story of blind Bartimaeus who comes to receive his sight back. Blindness is not something uncommon in the ancient world—the reality is a lot of people lost their ability to see in Jesus’ day – remember, Bartimaeus had lost his sight, meaning he once could see, and he wants it back again. In the ancient world, one of the most common reasons for losing one’s sight was a highly contagious disease that spread through flies, which would then cause an inflammation of the eyelids, causing the eyes and eyelids to enlarge and eventually cause permanent damage. And, of course, there are the other reasons that people became blind, including being born with it, and so if the person was lucky, so to speak, they would be given permission by the authorities to try to support themselves by begging for a living. Some people even think that the cloak Bartimaeus is wearing and which he throws off when he is called forward to meet Jesus, some think that cloak is a traditional garment meant to designate him as a blind man, thus giving him permission to beg for a living. But before that moment, our friend Bartimaeus is loud and persistent—he is not willing to be told “no.” So when the crowd following Jesus make a rustle as they go through the town, when he hears that Jesus, this miracle worker is passing by, Bartimaeus calls out to this Jesus, this Son of David—“have mercy on me!” Have mercy on me—the great kyrie eleison that has so resonated in the liturgy of the church that it has become a part of our worship, a part of the early Latin mass and even we Protestant use in some of our confessional liturgy. It’s interesting that here you find kyrie eleison being used not to confess sin, but as a way of attracting the attention of the Holy man who walks past, who possibly can give this man back his sight.   Nonetheless, Bartimaeus is loud, and his loudness, and its increasing persistence is not making him any friends, and they, the crowds around him, they want him to shut up, they want him to be quiet—they’ve got a celebrity in their midst and he shouldn’t be bothered by someone like Bartimaeus. The reality is that Bartimaeus is low on the totem pole of people that matter in that world, but even that stark reality won’t shut him up, and his cries for mercy grow louder and louder until his persistent cries and screams stop Jesus in his tracks – “he stopped” the texts says – something about the desperation and the volume made Jesus stop and listen to the cries of this man. Jesus asks his disciples to “call him here.” And now, instead of people telling blind Bart to be quiet, they tell him to take heart, to be encouraged, and to get up because “he’s calling you.” That’s the moment the cloak goes flying off his shoulders and the hands and fingers of the people who were moments ago trying to shut him up, those same hands and fingers are now guiding him to this Jesus.   And then the question comes, the already familiar question to the readers of Mark’s Gospel, “What do you want me to do for you?” And unlike James and John, who want to be the top dogs in the coming world order, as seen in verses right before this one, this man just wants to see: “let me see again!” And unlike the other miracles that Jesus tends to perform in Mark, this one does not even require a touch from Jesus—there will be no healing balm made from Jesus’ spit and placed on the eyes such as you find in others healing stories centered on vision. Faith is put front and center here, and that faith, embodied, incarnated in Bartimaeus, is persistent and persuasive even, though I suspect he has spent a life time crying out to a million would-be healers passing by him in the dusty streets of his town of Jericho. We sometimes forget that would-be prophets and would-be faith healers were all over the place in first century Roman occupied Palestine, stirring up trouble, making all sorts of claims, though obviously having little of the impact as Jesus finally had. I suspect Bartimaeus had cried out a million times, to anyone within earshot, words like the ones we heard today, have mercy on me, give me healing. And each time he uttered those words, shouted those words, he showed his persistent faith, in his belief that he was somehow going to be healed.   Now, of course, it was a literal blindness, but rarely are the healing stories in the Gospels ONLY about the physical – they usually are also a metaphor for the spiritual, the emotional, the social and most profoundly, about the soul being healed, along with the body, with the soul actually being as important, if not more important, than the body. The man wants to see, literally see, and he wants something else – he wants to see the world as it really is, he wants to see the world that God sees, he wants to follow Jesus “on the way” the Gospel says, and to see what Jesus sees in the coming days ahead, and he will, of course, he will likely see so much in the beautiful and dreadful days ahead in that emotionally charged city of Jerusalem, where Jesus will spend his last days. But getting to that point, waiting on the side of the road, crying out to every would-be prophet that found its way to the city streets of Jericho, and finally finding one that could help him see, help him really SEE everything, it took persistence, so much dogged persistence, years and years of just showing up and waiting and shouting and hoping that one day someone would hear his cry, until, of course, one day someone did.   Think of the all the times you and I have just shown up, day after day, attempting to do right by our family, our work, our children, our friendships, our simple acts of kindness and even justice that didn’t seem to do much of anything, and yet we did them, because it was the right thing to do, even when the results weren’t obvious, when our cries on the side of road didn’t seem to be heard by anyone, anyone at all So much of our lives is just about showing up – as Parker Palmer has wisely said, I don’t ask myself how effective I’ve been but how faithful I have been. And that is true of faith as well, the simple showing up, being present, and being ready at the side of the road just in case the Savior should pass by on this particular day. Sometimes it’s coming to church on Sundays, and never quite getting anything from the sermon, or even from the people next to us, whomever and whatever, and then the Christ walks by, and the Spirit seems clearly present, at least to us, in that moment – some word is spoken from this pulpit, some act of generosity is accepted, some THING happens, and we have our own moment of throwing off the cloak and being getting it, of getting what we needed, if only for the next couple of hours or days, because that was what needed to get through and get beyond what we were going through. Some of us in this life, including me at times, we stop showing up, and we stop crying out for mercy, literally, figuratively, emotionally, we stop showing up for the ones we love, and we find ourselves struggling to love them, and we just stop showing up, no matter how many times God passes us by, despite all the hints that divinity was found in the rumble of that crowd that just passed us by, the crowd that the one with our Savior right in the middle of it. And we don’t cry out for mercy, and we ignored the rustle of the God passing by us, or we stop crying out simply because we’ve made our way to another place, a place where we were sure God would not find us, unwilling to be in relationship with a God who allowed us to be blind for too long.   The life of faith requires persistence, like all of life does – you and I don’t get where we are without showing up to class, to a marriage or relationship, to a friendship, to a job, to a child, day after day, moment after moment. I know we will live in a culture that demands everything right now, including spirituality, including even salvation – but the Bible over and over again seems to imply that salvation, which implies wholeness in the original Greek, salvation, wholeness takes a long time, and is a long journey, this slow turning to God, and the ability to see comes to those who cry out constantly for God to give them mercy, who show up at the side of the road, listening always for the rumble of the God passing them by. I think the persistence of Epiphany, with its Welcome Meal served every Wednesday for many, many years, with its many thousands of meals served, its many volunteers come and gone, and come again, as well as the many guests who have come and gone, and come again. And yet, hunger remains, and so does homelessness and yet we show up on Wednesday night and we serve a meal to some soul, and we do it again the next week, week after week, year after year – we are persistent. The ancient Greek poet Ovid said that “dripping water always eventually hollows out stone, not through force, but through persistence.” So, to follow after the way of Jesus, to go with him on the way, as the Gospel of Mark says, we must do as Bartimaeus did: we must show up, here, and there, and we must listen for the rustle of God passing by us in this world, and we must cry out until we are heard by the God who just passed us by, until she stops, and asks for us to come closer, and who says to us, that our faith, our persistent faith, our persistent trust, has helped to heal us, and helped to heal this world, a world so in need of people who will show up, and do the right and kind and just thing. “Jesus, Son of David, show me mercy!” Bartimaeus cries out until he is heard by the Master amidst the rumble and din of the crowd passing him by on those dusty streets of Jericho.

Humanist sharing his perspective on interfaith cooperation.

James 2:1.10,14-17 My brothers and sisters, when you show favoritism you deny the faithfulness of ourLord Jesus Christ, who has been resurrected in glory. Imagine two people cominginto your meeting. One has a gold ring and fine clothes, while the other is poor,dressed in filthy rags. Then suppose that you were to take special notice of the onewearing fine clothes, saying, “Here’s an excellent place. Sit here.” But to the poorperson you say, “Stand over there”; or, “Here, sit at my feet.” Wouldn’t you haveshown favoritism among yourselves and become evil-minded judges?My dear brothers and sisters, listen! Hasn’t God chosen those who are poor byworldly standards to be rich in terms of faith? Hasn’t God chosen the poor as heirs ofthe kingdom he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored thepoor. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for you? Aren’t they the ones who drag youinto court? Aren’t they the ones who insult the good name spoken over you at yourbaptism?You do well when you really fulfill the royal law found in scripture, Love yourneighbor as yourself. But when you show favoritism, you are committing a sin, andby that same law you are exposed as a lawbreaker. Anyone who tries to keep all ofthe Law but fails at one point is guilty of failing to keep all of it...My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothingto show it? Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone, can it? Imagine a brother orsister who is naked and never has enough food to eat. What if one of you said, “Goin peace! Stay warm! Have a nice meal!”? What good is it if you don’t actually givethem what their body needs? In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result infaithful activity.   One of the great gifts, and maybe the primary gift this church gave to me this pastsummer in granting me a sabbatical, even more than the books I read and theconversations I had with other pastors in Europe, was the gift of rest, of just beingable to pull back and decompress and think about the last 20 years of my life as aminister – and to consider the next 20 years of my life in this good work. I will neverbe able to thank you enough for that good gift, but I will try. Yet I have to admit thateven in the resting there was some amazing and surprising moments where Godseemed to say, “You, pay attention!” Out of all the cathedrals and places I visited, orwords that I read and the ideas I had sifted through, the most profound experience Ihad, one that I think was God-given, was in a moment where I simply watching thecrowds, mostly of tourists, in the Alexanderplatz, a plaza in what was once on theEast German side of Berlin. It’s not far from the famous TV tower you have surelyseen in those pictures of Berlin that surely crossed your view. There is also thatfamous Cold War era world clock, looking as if it was right out of the 1950’s. I hadstrolled into the plaza for a second time that particular week and was just sittingaround watching the crowds, full of fellow tourists and lots of locals, when I noticed abunch of young people gathered together who didn’t strike me as German andimmediately and perhaps instinctively I suspected it was some sort of well-meaning evangelical Christian proselyting group – I can spot my former spiritual tribe from amile away! Within a few minutes my suspicion was quickly confirmed when the group startinginviting the crowd of tourists and Germans to join them in a fun and simplechoreographed dance to the sound of popular pop song. People seemed to love itand this group did their dance a couple of times and probably 30 other folks joinedthem. And then when they had finished their dances, they did a simple skit aboutfriendship. After this, an older adult leader, perhaps in his mid-twenties, beganspeaking, speaking with the help of a translator, witnessing to his Christian faith. Hetold us why he and they were so happy and that was because they had a friendshipwith God and he began to tell them how they could be happy too, if only they toowould become evangelical Christians. But within minutes the crowd justdisappeared, in almost record time, with some rolling their eyes, and some beingdisgusted by the seeming bait and switch they had just experienced, with thedancing and the attempt to catch their attention. I felt so sorry for the guy, speakingout into the world that wasn’t listening to him at all. And then it struck me, as I was watching this young man flay, that most of thesewould be listeners had heard it all before, in different places and in different spacesand they were simply not interested, they weren’t buying what these sincereChristians were selling, especially after the bait and switch they used to get people’sattention. The message, the good news these well-meaning Christians were trying tosell just didn’t have any buyers – and if anything, it seemed to turn the crowd againstthem – someone hurled a glass bottle in their direction, which thankfully missedthem, even as it shattered before them. Perhaps these Christians thought thecrowd’s indifference and hostility to them was because they were of the world, so tospeak, just like with the early church, but I think it is more complicated than that.Unlike the first century where Christianity was born and where religion, all sorts ofreligions, were part of the air people breathed on a daily basis, people in highlysecularized Berlin thought of religion, especially any kind of organized religion, wassimply a waste of time, something not needed, something that been so deeplydiscredited over and over again by its own followers, recently certainly, but alsohistorically, over and over again. Jesus may have been a cool guy, but his followers– they’re absolute worst, and sadly, that is often very true. Many people think ofmost religions as simply useless, if not outright dangerous to women, lesbian andgay people, the powerless, and is so often used to shut down free thought andpeople’s acceptance of science and facts. So I sat there, both feeling sorry for thesewell-meaning souls and yet, surprisingly, also angered somehow by their inability tosee that this thing they were doing, this dog or dance and pony show, this clunkyattempt at reaching people wasn’t working, and the arrogance they were showing –“we have the truth, and we’re willing to share it with you, and there is nothing wrongwith us or even the church, but there is something wrong with you, if you don’t havewhat we have.” Now, let me leave that moment in the Alexanderplatz for right now, and I want to invite you to enter into another more ancient story, one that we have hints of in this morning’s text, where the focus is not a proclamation, the speaking of and out of theGospel, the good news of Jesus’s love for all. In fact, they, like the young Christianevangelicals I witnessed in Berlin, the believers that James writes to have lots ofwords to express their faith, their experience of this risen Christ, but they werehaving a hard time actually practicing what they preached, embodying the wordsthey were embracing with their tongues. The writer of James takes these Christiansto task for how they were treating people in different ways, that the wealthy weretreated with partiality and the poor were ignored. He points to the supposednobodies of this ancient world, the ones with nothing, literally and culturally, as thepeople God has chosen to inherit the realm of God, echoing Jesus words that themeek, the poor, will inherit the earth and not the rich and powerful they so favor. Andthen the writer reminds them and us that you, that we, can spew out all kinds ofreligious language we want, that we can write a million love songs to God, but if wedon’t love the starving and naked woman before us by putting a coat on hershoulders or a meal in front of her, our words about God are simply meaningless,are dead words. Now, as someone who personally moved out of a conservative evangelical traditionthat emphasized words about Jesus’ love over actions that embodied Jesus’ love, toa progressive tradition that emphasized the practice of faith more than the speakingof faith, I find myself agreeing with James, thinking that we ought to probably do a lotless talking about Jesus and more doing of what Jesus asked us to do – to love Godand to love each other. I often imagine the Protestant American Church, especiallythe primarily white strands of it, as being divided up between the speakers of faith,the white evangelicals, and doers of faith, the more mainstream traditions, as well asthe liberals Christians of which we count ourselves as being part of. One of thingsthe more mainstream strands of white Christianity have had to reckon with was thatour religion was used to justify all sorts of sorts of really bad behavior – colonization,sexism, homophobia, all which get lacquered up with a veneer of Christianity. Andso we ended up backing away from words about the Gospel and diving more deeplyinto trying to practice the Gospel – we involved ourselves in movements like theones around Civil Rights and women’s rights in this country and beyond, becausewe recognized that we Christians had baptized so much social injustice in Jesus’name and we needed to try to undo it by shutting up and doing the right thing. Thewhite evangelical parts of the American church went in the other direction, retreatingeven farther away from involving itself from justice work and burrowing itself intowords about Jesus and theological gate-keeping and keeping certain kinds of peopleout of the church and at the margins of society. You see that tendency in them eventhis week when a group of primarily white evangelicals said that the church shouldNOT involve itself in the work of justice (https://statementonsocialjustice.com/), the“social justice” movement, which is, of course what these same white evangelicalssaid during the Civil Rights movement, the women’s right movement, and often evenduring the Civil War itself. Jesus has nothing to say to the marginalized of the world,has nothing to say those suffering under racial injustice, nothing at all, they would argue and we should let it be, it is of no concern to the church, they would say. Thisis an imperfect generalization, but I think, in general, one part of the white AmericanProtestant church spoke of their faith, while others, like us, sought more to practicethe faith in concrete ways in the world. Now, we liberal, progressive mainline Christians didn’t give up on the sharing of theGood News, we really didn’t – we just assumed that by practicing the Gospel, ofdoing good work, like feeding the poor, fighting for civil rights, being on the side ofthe oppressed, that somehow the world, those of others faiths or no faiths, wouldsee the Gospels in our actions. Mother Teresa once said, “Enough words, let themsee what we do.” And for a long time I believed it, I really did. Now, look, I’m not surewe liberals should have completely given up our words about faith and sadly, we’vepersonally struggled to even speak to each other and the world about our ownpersonal faith, but I have certainly endorsed the sentiment that we ought to practiceGod’s love more than we speak of God’s love. I think we thought that surely thenpeople would be attracted to this faith, that saw people motivated by somethinghigher than them to love people and fight for justice and help those who neededhelp. But you know what? I think I was wrong, I think we were wrong, in our retreatinto just helping others, and fighting for justice – not wrong in doing that work, butwrong in thinking people would be attracted to the church because of it. They didn’tshow up at our doors, but they did show up to evangelical’s doors, at least for awhile – their words attracted more people than our good works, our decisions to beon right side of history. And yet even now, in especially the last 20 years, the whiteevangelicals are struggling, struggling to fill the pews themselves, decliningnumerically after decades of growth, after years of gloating over the decline of themainline and liberal church. Neither words nor works are especially meaningful to ageneration of people who find themselves deeply skeptical about religion. Not onlyare they skeptical but they see much of American Christianity as being hostile toscience, to women, to the LGBTQ community, and they see some Christiansdemanding the right to choose what women can and cannot do with their bodies,and they want to decide what kinds of marriages should and should not berecognized – and most people are just not interested in that kind of faith, a faith thatexcludes and seems to knowingly seek to harm others. Now, I want to invite you back into Alexanderplatz in Berlin, and to my time gazing atthese well-meaning fellow believers, and I want to share what I thought, as thecrowds started to desert the poor young man who was pouring words out into acrowd that wasn’t interested at all in his story or his message. In that moment, Iactually wondered if they had tried something different, if they hadn’t just rolled out abig sign that said “We’re sorry – sorry for Jesus being used to silence and hurtwomen, sorry for the real pain caused by our homophobia, sorry for so often beingon the wrong side of history. We understand your anger, skepticism and disgust.Speak to us, and we’ll listen, just listen, because you have something to teach us.”I’ve often said and have always believed that when the church was unwilling to hearwhat God was trying to say to us, the Spirit will go out into the world and speakthrough others, those who won’t believe or who can’t believe or who believe something altogether different. If we the church won’t listen to the spirit of God, thespirit will go to a place and people who will listen and often they will not and cannotclaim the Christ. I don’t think if we progressive Christians decided to amp up ourwords more, if added a lot more words to our works, that it would do much goodanymore because the language about faith has begun to ring hollow to the world,and frankly has been co-opted by our fellow believers to mean stuff we don’t mean itto say. Even our fellow white evangelical believers are struggling with anyone takingtheir words about God seriously anymore, especially in an era when they havedecided to tie themselves so closely to political power, especially in the last fewyears. And though I don’t think the rest of us Christians, we who have chosendeeds more often than words, should give up on doing justice and feeding the poor,and trying to make a more just and kind culture, I do think we need to dispense withthe idea that our good works, our deeds, will actually end attracting many people toour church and our faith – after all, doing good in the world is the very least weChristians can do, according to James, practicing the faith in acts of kindness andjustice for the marginalized and oppressed. So, if neither words nor deeds impress anyone in our perhaps rightfully skepticalculture, what shall we do? James tell us to back up our words with deeds, but what ifeven our deeds are not enough to attract people to this good news of God’s love?Perhaps the only thing we Christians haven’t tried is something we have rarely donein two thousand years – and that is to listen, listen for God, listen to voices of others,to their stories, to their experiences, both of how God has and has not met them inthe world, to their pain and their deep disappointment in us, the church, for not livingup to Jesus’ words about love and justice. Look, I’m not saying that just listening willsolve the problem of why so many don’t think of the church as a place to grow intheir spiritually – but we’ve worn out words and our works and our deeds just notenough to make the case that a community of Christian faith can be a place whereone can meet God, or the Holy, or the Divine. Maybe it’s just time to humbleourselves, and to shut up and just listen, listen to what people are saying, andhonoring it, and not arguing with others, but seeing if somehow God might bespeaking through them to us. “Enough words, let them see what we do,” is certainlytrue, but I wonder if this is even truer: “Enough words let us listen.” In a month or so,we’ll be welcoming Chris Stedman, an atheist into Epiphany to speak about howatheists and Christians can make common causes on some things – we’re going tolisten to him, really listen to him, and see what God might be saying through him.Overall, I don’t know what the spiritual practice of listening might actually mean forthe church universal, or what it even means at Epiphany, at least right now – I don’teven know if it has ever really been practiced much in Christendom. Yet, I have thissense that we ought to perhaps just to be quiet and listen, to listen to how God issaying something new to me, to us, to the church universal, through other people,people who are also God’s children. What if we became a listening church, and whatif we became a listening people – not just here, but in every part of our life – what ifwe just chose to listen to people – and refrain from saying much in reply, resistingour desire to argue people into truth or diagnosis others? Words and deeds are notworking anymore – we’ve got to try something else in this new world we’re living in, as a congregation and as human beings who follow after the way of Jesus. And so, Iinvite us to do more listening than speaking right now, listening to God through thewords and lives of others and listening to the Scriptures, just listening – just shuttingup, sitting down, and listening for the still speaking God who is still speaking into theworld through others and through the Bible. There is a line from a well-known oldAfrican American spiritual that goes “God’s trying to tell you something” – but to hearGod we’ve got to be ready to listen to God, and to expect that the divine voice willcome from the most unexpected places, the most surprisingly places. So, shall welisten? Shall we be quiet? Shall we see what God has yet to say to us, to our souls,and to the church? Amen.

This week, Humanist chaplain and community activist Chris Stedman joined Ana to discuss the unique relationship between movement atheism and the Alt-Right. Chris wrote a piece on the trend from prominent atheists like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins to promote some liberal social policies while putting forth critiques of social justice policies that amount to an “alt-light.” Ana and Chris delve deep into the atheist movement, investigating why and how atheists have found common ground with Christian white nationalism in the broader Trump coalition. Historian Diana Butler Bass joins Chris and Ana to answer a listener question about finding forgiveness for Christians in the age of the Trump, as well as for a discussion about the many roads that compassion and forgiveness can lead down. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists-are-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right Get in touch with us at withfriendslikepod@gmail.com, and @crooked_friends on Twitter. Check out our sponsors! Go to sunbasket.com/friends for $35 off your first order. Get free shipping on your first order at everlane.com/friends.  You’ll get 25% off your first box when you keep all five items in your box at stitchfix.com/friends. Visit thrivemarket.com/friends for 25% off your first order plus a 30-day free trial. 

On this episode, we have a discussion about a number of recently released articles pertaining to atheism and the atheist movement. From the Atheist Alt-Right and defining who is and is not on "your team", to the leaders in the movement, and lastly a few so called former atheist authors cashing in with religious books from a position of atheist authority. We wrap up with a light hearted look at some Kentucky license plate litigation and a new blasphemous sweet treat invasion from the Great White North. 　 Articles referenced: 　 Chris Stedman's article on Vice https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists-are-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right?utm_campaign=sharebutton 　 David McAfee's article on The Friendly Atheist Blog http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/03/no-most-atheists-are-not-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right/ 　 PZ Myers article on Freethought Blogs https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/04/02/maybe-it-would-help-if-we-fired-all-the-oracles-and-listened-to-the-criticisms/ 　 Trax Mamone's article on Splice Today https://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-atheist-movement-s-future 　 The American Thinker article on the "Anti-Christian Movement" https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/04/the_antichristian_movement.html 　 CBN article on Lee Strobel's new book http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/march/theres-actually-good-evidence-former-atheist-makes-case-for-miracles 　 ***For True Masochist Only *** 38 min video of Lee Strobel discussing his new book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3VSIWHZtOI&feature=youtu.be 　 Kentucky vs. the IM GOD license plate http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/03/judge-atheists-lawsuit-to-keep-his-im-god-license-plate-in-ky-can-proceed/ 　 Sweet Jesus Ice Cream https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/03/23/sweet-jesus-asked-to-change-blasphemous-name-by-christian-petitioners_a_23394126/   Email - Godlessheathens@yahoo.com Twitter - @godlesspodcast - Proudly blocked by Ken Ham!! Facebook Discussion Group - https://www.facebook.com/228801104333716/  Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/GodlessHeathens -  Any help is greatly appreciated

February 15, 2013 | The last several years have seen renewed interest in the issue of diversity on college campuses, with issues of interreligious understanding and LGBTQ inclusion at the forefront. What divisions persist along lines of religious or sexual orientation, and how can we move beyond tolerance to understanding? Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist and Harvard LGBTQ activist, examined issues around respectfully engaging religious and sexual diversity. Stedman draws on his work organizing interfaith and 
secular communities, his academic study of religion, 
and his own experiences to argue for the necessity of 
bridging the chasm between atheists and the religious. Chris Geidner, senior political reporter at BuzzFeed, moderated the discussion, beginning with a dialogue with Stedman about his work and current LGBTQ faith and atheist issues. Geidner has been covering the LGBTQ community's advances in public life over the past decade. Joining Stedman and Geidner were be Shiva Subbaraman, director of Georgetown's LGBTQ Center, and student participants. Chris Stedman is an atheist working to 
foster positive and productive dialogue and
 collaborative action between faith communities and the nonreligious. He writes for Huffington Post Gay
 Voices, Huffington Post Religion, The Washington Post 
On Faith, Religion Dispatches, and Relevant. He received his B.A. in Religion from Augsburg College and an M.A. in Religion from Meadville 
Lombard Theological School at the University of 
Chicago, for which he was awarded the Billings Prize
 for Most Outstanding Scholastic Achievement. Chris Geidner is the senior political reporter at BuzzFeed. Prior to joining BuzzFeed in 2012, Geidner had been the senior political editor at Washington, DC's Metro Weekly. Over the course of his time covering the national LGBT political and legal scene, he has been awarded the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Article and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association's Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for Excellence in LGBT Media. Before moving to DC in 2009, Geidner had worked as an attorney in Ohio, at a private firm and for the State of Ohio. Sivagami (Shiva) Subbaraman is Director of the LGBTQ Resource Center at Georgetown University. She has worked extensively across differing communities and groups, and to weave LGBTQ into the larger tapestry of the Georgetown Community. Before coming to Georgetown University, she worked as Associate Director at the office of LGBT Equity and as Assistant Director at the Office of Human Relations programs at the University of Maryland. Additionally, she has taught at Macalester College, Drake University, and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Her areas of research interests are US women of color literature, culture, and feminist theories. An active feminist, Subbaraman is on the board of several feminist community organizations. Additionally, she regularly gives talks at national conferences and is a member of The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, and the Modern Languages Association.

We revisit our 2013 conversation with Chris Stedman, author of Faithiest: How and Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious.  At the time we spoke, Stedman was assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard University. He is now Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Center at Yale University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Stedman, the executive director of the Yale humanist community and author of the book "Faitheist," joins the Multifaithful team in this week's podcast. We discuss the role of humanists in multifaith spaces and how we can all do a better job of including people outside of the theist community into our multifaith work.

Chris Stedman is the Humanist chaplain at Yale University and the author of the wonderful book Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious, and in this podcast he tells us about the life-giving and community-building practices of his Humanist community, his gratitude to religious teachers, and the wonders of walking a dog!

Chris Stedman (Facebook, Twitter) is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and the author of Faitheist:  How An Atheist Found Common Ground with The Religious.   He spoke to me on Religion For Life about coming out, his journey through religion, embracing atheism, and what he learned from his grandmother!

Morning Prayers service with speaker Chris Stedman, Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, on Tuesday, March 11, 2014.

This episode, we talk to Chris Stedman, author and Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, about what it means to be both an atheist and an interfaith activist. Prerna Abbi, a secular Hindu, tells us about how an encounter in middle school involving PB&J sandwiches influenced her view of religion. Music by:Floating Fast (@soundcloud.com/floatingfast)Broke For Free (freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/)Blank & Kytt (freemusicarchive.org/music/Blank__Kytt/)

In the March edition of the RA Podcast, Alom Shaha discusses Islam's problem with evolution, the new President of the BHA Jim Al-Khalili tells us why it's time for a more accommodating approach to religion, humanist chaplain Chris Stedman makes the case for inter-faith, and comedian Stewart Lee bemoans the lengths to which parents must go to get their kids into faith schools. Length: 25:36 Music by Andrea Rocca