Postmodern Realities Podcast

While there are many potentially healthy shaping influences for a Christians spiritual growth, one of the greatest shaping influences neglected by many Christians today is the Christian calendar. A 2016 survey done by LifeWay Research reveals that fewer than three in ten American evangelicals observe Lent 28 percent. Even 40 percent of Roman Catholics surveyed said they did not observe Lent. This general neglect of observing the Christian calendar is lamentable. God desires that His people be conformed to the image of Christ Rom. 8:29 and not to that of the world Rom. 12:2. How we mark and fill our time is a significant shaping influence that can aid us in this process of growth in Christlikeness. Many Christians today order their lives in basically the same way our pagan neighbors do. They work five or six days a week, take a break on Sunday maybe, plan a yearly vacation, and then observe the standard national holidays. At a glance, there is nothing notably different about this routine from the routine of our unbelieving neighbors. But as Christians, should we not mark our time differently? Should not our approach to our schedule reflect our commitment to Jesus Christ above all else? Keeping the church calendar year after year can bring the story of redemption into our time and space and can serve as another helpful means of speaking to our whole person.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Josh Moore about his online exclusive CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL Viewpoint article Why Christians Should Observe the Christian Calendar.

Editors note We realize that various interpretations and reactions to storyline elements in this film and their ramifications have been debated. We offer this review as one plausible viewpoint. Please also be aware there are spoilers in this episode, as major plot points are discussed. A weak and problematic entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the female centric Captain Marvel is heavy handed and artless in its themes. The topic of feminism in the female empowerment sense and its relationship to heroism has been a trending topic on social media since the movies release. However, this film is a clunky sign post filled movie with badly wrought feminism rather than a feminist view that is secure with itself. This portrayal of female power clangs in desperation demanding to be heard. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Corey Latta about his online exclusive CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL film review Something to Prove Why Captain Marvel Just Doesnt Work.

Editors note We realize that various interpretations and reactions to storyline elements in this film and their ramifications have been debated. We offer this review as one plausible viewpoint. Please also be aware there are spoilers in this episode, as major plot points are discussed.

A weak and problematic entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the female centric Captain Marvel is heavy handed and artless in its themes. The topic of feminism in the female empowerment sense and its relationship to heroism has been a trending topic on social media since the movies release. However, this film is a clunky sign post filled movie with badly wrought feminism rather than a feminist view that is secure with itself. This portrayal of female power clangs in desperation demanding to be heard.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Corey Latta about his online exclusive CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL film review Something to Prove Why Captain Marvel Just Doesnt Work.

Perhaps the most difficult and emotionally charged question ever asked the pastor or apologist is why God let a particular child suffer or die. The question is rarely abstract. Ive never been asked why God lets children die. Im asked why God let six year old Ethan get killed by a car while he was skateboarding or why God let four year old Kaylee die of leukemia. The typical Christian answer is, We wont know until we get to heaven. Of course, we will certainly know more when we get to heaven, but is that all we can answer? I suggest we know more than that. We may not know all of Gods reasons for letting a particular child die at a particular moment, but we can answer why God allows children to die. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Clay Jones about his CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL article Why Did God Let That Child Die?.

Perhaps the most difficult and emotionally charged question ever asked the pastor or apologist is why God let a particular child suffer or die. The question is rarely abstract. Ive never been asked why God lets children die. Im asked why God let six year old Ethan get killed by a car while he was skateboarding or why God let four year old Kaylee die of leukemia. The typical Christian answer is, We wont know until we get to heaven. Of course, we will certainly know more when we get to heaven, but is that all we can answer? I suggest we know more than that. We may not know all of Gods reasons for letting a particular child die at a particular moment, but we can answer why God allows children to die. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Clay Jones about his CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL article Why Did God Let That Child Die?

The classic film 200 A Space Odyssey played on the fear that computers would soon become conscious, independent, and dangerous to humanity. A fear of computers is not just the stuff of scifi nightmares but also is shared by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates. They need not worry. While Kubrick, Hawking, Musk, Gates, and the rest of us should be afraid of what some people armed with supercomputers and artificial intelligence can do to us, we have no need to fear what the computers themselves can do. A groundbreaking mathematical discovery in 1930, and its implications for computer science, can put our minds at rest. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL author Charles E. White about his philosophical apologetics article Whos Afraid of HAL? Why Computers Will Not Become Conscious and Take over the World.

The classic film 200 A Space Odyssey played on the fear that computers would soon become conscious, independent, and dangerous to humanity. A fear of computers is not just the stuff of scifi nightmares but also is shared by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates. They need not worry. While Kubrick, Hawking, Musk, Gates, and the rest of us should be afraid of what some people armed with supercomputers and artificial intelligence can do to us, we have no need to fear what the computers themselves can do. A groundbreaking mathematical discovery in 1930, and its implications for computer science, can put our minds at rest.

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL author Charles E. White about his philosophical apologetics article Whos Afraid of HAL? Why Computers Will Not Become Conscious and Take over the World.

Pulse Evolution is an entertainment company that used a hologram technique several years ago to summon the ghost of slain rapper Tupac Shakur at the Coachella music festival. The necromantic language seems appropriate. This was not a music video per se, but a live performance. Whether Ghost Dancing will become a new entertainment venue or just another passing fad remains to be seen, but it says something about the progression of celebrity culture born more than a century ago out of the Graphic Revolution. In his groundbreaking book The Image, historian Daniel Boorstin described how our culture had created a thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life. Taken together, telegraphy, photography, radio, cinema, and television brought forth the pseudo-event, an occurrence staged to call attention to itself. Boorstin was not just concerned with the now-familiar photo-op or media event. He put his finger on a much larger problem. Americans not only confused the copy with the original but also actually preferred the copy to the original. News was no longer gathered; it was made. The traveler, a person who travails, had been replaced with the tourist a person who stays at American hotels in France made to look like French hotels. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Arthur W. Hunt III about his CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL cultural discernment article Necromancing the Stone: The Thrill of Dancing with the Dead.

Nothing is the great dread that threads Ernest Hemingways literary work. Most of his characters believe that nothing awaits them at death. Their machismo is a stance that both accepts and defies lifes collapse into nothing. For Hemingway, it is Christ crucified and not Christ resurrected that holds interest. His work demonstrates that this world leaves each human, ultimately, alone. This Postmodern Realities episode is an in-depth conversation with JOURNAL author Stephen Mitchell about his article Humanity Crucified: Hemingway and the Human Condition

In the beginning, ancient aliens visited planet Earth, significantly influenced human history, and possibly even engineered human life to evolve. Furthermore, as a result of ancient alien visitations, history is replete with clues regarding these alien astronauts. Flying saucers and little green men may seem the stuff of 1950s B movies, yet ideas like the ones just described are gaining momentum not only in popular culture but also in some scientific circles. Such ideas have also made their way into millions of homes via the History Channel television program Ancient Aliens, currently in its 13th season in 2019. Beyond pop culture, codiscoverer of DNA Francis Crick held to the possibility of directed panspermia the belief that life on Earth did not come about on its own, as naturalism holds, but was instead seeded extraterrestrially. Atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, also lends credence to this perspective. But arent ideas about ancient extraterrestrials nothing more than supermarket tabloid fodder? Isnt it just harmless fun? This conversation with author Robert Velarde about his article Did Ancient Extraterrestrials Visit Earth? covers a brief look at the historical roots of the alien astronauts fascination, explores some of the purported evidence, evaluates claims that the Bible supports UFOs, and reviews some implications for theology.