Deep Talks: Exploring Theology and Meaning Making
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
As someone who loves cultural theology, I’m completely fascinated by ancient and modern myths and how those mythological stories serve as guiding stories for entire civilizations. Whether it is the ancient tales of Zeus and the Greek Olympian gods or the myths of virtuous super-human heroes and lazer sword wielding wizards that fill our comic book pages & big box office movie screens, I’m fascinated by what these stories reveal about our views on God, reality, what is good and evil, and what the telos of life is all about.
The secular narrative has claimed that human progress is hindered by religious narratives, and that just as Christianity displaced the old pagan stories, secularism has come to displace Christianity and will bring about a better world. But the era of secularity may be approaching its end as more and more people begging to question that story.
The clues that we are moving towards a post-secular Western world are increasingly finding their way into being embedded into our popular cultural stories. Take the recent DC comics movie “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” where the death of God, symbolically represented by the death of Superman, awakens an ancient sinister force to come and fill the vacuum of power- a sinister force that was once kept at bay by the old pagan gods.
In today’s episode, we’ll try to step into the ancient pagan world and understand their relationship to their guiding stories, grapple with the early Christian responses to pagan culture & mythology, and begin to see why the secular goal of creating a religiously “neutral” cultural space never actually creates a religiously neutral space.
For the article on C.S. Lewis and paganism that I quote in this episode, see here:
https://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/god_the_father_of_lights_c._s._lewis_on_christianity_and_paganism
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Ep 59: Andy Squyres- Apocalyptic Art & The Unveiling of the Invisible God
Ep 58: Reconstruction Stories- The Psychedelic Christian? Paul Risse
Ep 57: Reconstruction Stories- Rick Guttersohn, LLMSW
Ep 56: How to do Theology While Binging Pop Culture
Embrace the Threshing Floor (A brief encouragement during this Coronavirus pandemic)
Ep 55: The Plague & The Crucified God
Ep 54: An Easy Bible Mistake That Keeps Us From Seeing Jesus
Ep 53: Ecclesiastes-Making Meaning Out of the Meaningless
Ep 52: Is 1 Corinthians 3 talking about purgatory? Did Paul believe in purgatory? (Patreon Q&A)
Ep 51: Justin Brierley- From Richard Dawkins to Jordan Peterson. The Shifting Conversation about God and Religion
Ep 50: The Problem of Evil (Part 9)- Objections to Molinism, Christians Creating Suffering, & the Rise of Natural Theology
Ep 49: Jen Meyerson- The Middle East, War, & Hope
Ep 48: The Problem of Evil (Part 8)- A Strange, Wonderful Molinist Life? Molinism Explained
Ep 47: The Problem of Evil (Part 7)- Martin Luther, John Calvin, & Evil as the Alien Acts of God
Ep 46: The Problem of Evil (Part 6)- Aquinas, Evil, & The Existence of God
Ep 45: The Problem of Evil (Part 5)- Will Evil Ever End? Do We Get Sinful Souls from Sex? Do We Have Free Will? (Gregory of Nyssa & Augustine)
Ep 44: The Problem of Evil (Part 4)- Third Century Theodicies (Tertullian, Plotinus, Origen)
Ep 43: The Problem of Evil (Part 3)- The Gnostic Matrix & the Early Church Fathers
Ep 42: The Problem of Evil (Part 2)- Fallen Angel Backstories, Nephilim Legends, & Cosmic Conflict in the Bible & Dead Sea Scrolls.
Ep 41: The Problem of Evil (Part 1)- Intro & Job
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