Thank you for this podcast conversation. As someone who studied at the Senior College and was present at St Louis in February, 1974, this podcast shed light on what was a pivotal, formative personal experience.

Also: there are very good analysis by experts on fascism and authoritarianism, such as Timothy Snyder and Ruth Ben-Ghiat.

What do you think Biden should be doing but is failing to do (since it seems you’re so eager to include him for blame)? Biden cannot go to war unilaterally at this point, and he cannot go beyond what the American public will allow him to do (regardless of right or left).

Additionally, since you are concerned about the failures of past American leadership to not have prevented this, is there any comment on how authoritarianism is coming out from the political right (and not the left)? If our country falls to this authoritarianism, it won’t be because of “the left”.

2/2 political problems with a certain republican candidate who seems to want to cozy up to Putin, and who would most likely cave to him, and cease all support for Ukraine. There is a larger narrative here about encroaching authoritarianism around the world. This would be a good time to discuss.

1/2 I think it’s great that you go out on a limb to discuss the theological and moral impact of Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, and I fully support this. Does this imply that you will extend these kinds of discussion to certain rightwing conservatives over on Fox News, who seem to become the mouthpiece for Putin, and encourage Russia’s actions? Maybe you will have an episode on the near-total capitulation of the right to give up on supporting Ukraine altogether, along with our own…

In only a few episodes, I seem to notice that there sometimes this knee-jerk reaction against democrats, while only “reasoned principled” disagreement with conservatives politically. I just find this odd.

Hello, love your podcast. For this episode, I noticed Sarah making a comment in passing about President Biden, essentially ragging on him. Don’t you think this is odd, given that Biden (along with Democrat support) is the one to be sending financial aid and military equipment to Ukraine for their defense, and not the republicans?

Geh

Okay new comment: sucks for sending messages. Hope you can make out what I was already yammering about. So to put it shortly: you make a false equivalence between left and right, and calling it a movement toward “purity”. Please give us examples where the political or religious left is striving for some purist leftist theocratic total society. Even the leaders of the ELCA disavow this as a goal, neither political nor theological.

… that the left is doing anything close to what the political right is doing. I do to see utopian (dystopia) plans being implemented by the left. I’m afraid you’re making a false equivalence. Right now, the danger is coming from the right, and I believe in what really smart educated folks like Timothy Snyder have to say about, who are experts on fascist movements of the 20th century, who hold degrees in history, and who is professor emeritus.

… especially with the as ebdency of Donald Trump, but where on the left is there some organized & coherent stategy being implemented? I really don’t see this. Yes there is a lot of angst on the left, but we are in no danger of becoming some leftist ( or leftist-theocratic) society. Heck, the left can’t even keep organized among themselves. I have to call out this false equivalency as hogwash. Show us some proof that the left is doing or organizing anything like the right is.

But I need to reply to something you said in this podcast on Hannah Arendt. You spoke that both political right and political left want to force their own utopian view of a Christian kingdom upon society. As much as I disagree with some aspects of the ELCA use of social justice (what appears to be) as a new definition of the gospel, I have to disagree that both sides are doing this. Instead, I see the religious right doing this and unfortunately gaining ground in recent years…

Hey, first off I want to say I love your podcast, and the insights you both cull together.

Hello. Once again, I love this podcast. I have a comment about one thing. Not meaning this as criticism, but want to bring to your attention about something you said. The Left doesn’t have a “patron” on its side, like the right does with Donald Trump. I perceive this as just trying to do a “both-side-ism” about this issue. The left is not following a personality (like the right has with cult of personality with Trump). Instead, the left champions issues and policies, no matter the personality.

Even your definition of post-modernism suffers from post-modernism: you seem to only be able to tell us what you “personally feel” what is post-modernism. There are actually better definitions of this elsewhere, that are agreed to be most scholars and philosophers.

In the end, this isn’t a good example of post-modernism thinking.

Not sure that the Hunter Biden laptop thing is a good example of post-modernistic thought. Sad to see him go there. The only reason this exists is to counter and distract from the many corruption issues with our recent ex-president. Hunter was not in office with Biden, in-like Jared and Ivanka, in which there appears to be much more corruption. This is simply to distract. We don’t care about Hunter’s laptop issue. Why not focus instead on corruption and nepotism of Trump’s family members.

thanks for this podcast. reading the book now

When couple with Michael Chan's Gospel Beautiful Podcast featuring Dr. Reggie Williams, a broad field of thought and the reality of rewriting my personal history becomes more feasible.