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 40: John Mark McMillan - Finding God in the Transcendent & the Immanent
Ep 39: The Sermon on the God of War's Mount
Ep 38: Dr. Jeannine K. Brown- A Better Way to Read the Bible
Ep 36: Paul Vander Klay Returns! Stories from Charismatic culture, Communion, Jordan Peterson
Ep 35- Bruxy Cavey- Questions about Anabaptism
Ep 34- Faith Deconstruction & Why It May Be Scientifically Normal
Ep 33: Live from Ottertail, MN- Art, Work, and the God(s) We Worship
Ep 32: Dr. Jim Stump, VP of BioLogos- Evolutionary Creationism?
Ep 31: Micah Redding- SciFi Theology? Transhumanism & Christianity
Ep 30: July Q&A- Origins of Sin, Predestination & Prayer, Worshipping Mary, & More!
Ep 29: Christ & Culture (Pt. 3)- Battle of The Gods!
Ep 28: Christ & Culture (Pt. 2)- Synthesis, Paradox, or Metamorphosis?
Ep 27: Christ & Culture- From Jesus Freaks to Christian Nazis (Part 1)
Ep 26: The Afterlife- What Does It Really Say in the Bible?
Ep 25: Prophetic Dreams- The Bible, Science, Consciousness
Ep 24: Dr. Glenn Packiam conversation. Seeing the Sacred Everywhere
Ep 23: The Eucharist is Everywhere- Paul's story on The Ferment Podcast
Ep 22: Dr. Clay Routledge conversation- Science Behind Our Meaning Crisis
Ep 21: Dan Kent conversation. Theological Psychology of Pride, Shame, Humility
Ep 20: Greg Boyd Bonus Episode!
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