Flannery O’Connor once prayed, “I do not know you God because I am in the way. Please help me to push myself aside.” Is there any meaningful relationship in life that can survive without an element of selflessness, dedicated time, and earnest conversation? Why would a meaningful relationship with God be any different? The prophets prayed, the saints prayed, and most of all, Christ himself prayed. But how do we do it? How do we know there is a God on the other end of our entreaties, and how can we understand God’s answers? Join me and Bishop Robert Barron as we explore the brilliant yet vexing, humbling yet heartening art of prayer on the Evangelization & Culture Podcast.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

What happens when we live our lives through mediating technologies? We take countless pictures but don’t look at our kids. We film vacations but are never fully present. We search for answers online but rarely puzzle over the questions. And we distract ourselves from difficult emotions, but we never take on the cross-bearing work of the soul. In the early twentieth century, French Catholic novelist Georges Bernanos worried that such a superficial existence would create little more than “stumps of men.” Join me and Christine Rosen as we explore her book The Extinction of Experience on the Evangelization & Culture Podcast.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

We want what other people have. We conjure up rivalries. And we scapegoat our enemies in the process. What on earth are we doing? Join me and Fr. Elias Carr as we unpack philosopher René Girard’s mimetic theory and the “scapegoat mechanism” on the Evangelization & Culture Podcast.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

What exactly is the “life of the mind”? Is it merely a matter of being bookish, bespectacled, and (*gasp*) potentially boring? Or is the “life of the mind” awash with limitless wonder, captivating wisdom, and life-changing vocation? Join me and St. John’s College tutor Dr. Zena Hitz as we dive deeply into the joyful adventure of intellectual formation as told in her award-winning book, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. 

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

In his new book, Dr. Carl Trueman writes, “The very rhetoric and concepts of critical theory, the other, intersectionality, and their like have become influential tools of wielding power rather than dismantling it. And so—as Frankfurt School members Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno themselves would no doubt point out—things have become their opposite; the liberator has become the tyrant, the tools of freedom have become the weapons of oppression.” Perhaps Goethe’s Mephistopheles captures critical theory best when he uttered to Faust, “I am the spirit that negates.” Join me and Dr. Carl Trueman as we discuss the philosophy and the danger of critical theory in his new book To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

In the preface to Ryan Wilson and April Limner’s anthology, Contemporary Catholic Poetry, Ryan writes, “One of the things human beings are always forgetting is that the world is greater than any individual’s idea of it. The world is more complex, more manifold, more mysterious than any mortal mind can fully comprehend, as is the human individual.” As Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “I’ve never met a man who was fully awake.” Join me and Ryan Wilson as we discuss contemporary Catholic poetry and poetry’s magnificent wake-up call.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

A spirited debate has arisen in the Catholic scientific community: How do we understand intelligent design? Should Catholic scientists subscribe to a “God in the gaps” argument where scientifically inexplicable phenomena provide irrefutable evidence for the hand of God? Or should they understand intelligent design less through a biological lens than a philosophical lens helped by the works of St. Thomas Aquinas? As Catholics, if we believe God is the source and sustenance of creation, is the argument over intelligent design a quibbling quarrel or of seismic importance? Join me as I discuss The Question of Intelligent Design with professors Dan Kuebler and Christopher Baglow.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

What happens when a young law student volunteers for a presidential campaign one day, only to find himself assisting with President Nixon’s memoirs and penning President Reagan’s inaugural address the next? Through these surreal experiences, what did Ken Khachigian learn about his presidents, himself, and the complexity of human nature? Join me and Ken Khachigian as we discuss his gripping memoir, Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon. 

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

What happens when a gaggle of talented Dominican priests and brothers, steeped in prayer and study, pick up guitar and banjo, fiddle and washboard? You get crackin’ good music for the front porch—music that explores the soaring heights of God and the gritty trudge of man. Join me and Fr. Justin Bolger as we delve into the inspiration for and the music of The Hillbilly Thomists.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.

Catholicism is the inspiration for soaring architecture, exquisite artwork, and sublime music. But what about poetry? And where should one begin? Eminent poet and Catholic convert Sally Read tells us that, “Poetry is the sister of prayer.” Join me and Sally Read as we discuss the extraordinary works of Catholic verse over two millennia in 100 Great Catholic Poems.

Stay up-to-date with the latest episodes of the Evangelization & Culture Podcast biweekly on WordOnFire.org, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can get more content like this in the quarterly print journal of the Word on Fire Institute, Evangelization & Culture.