Postmodern Realities Podcast

The Coen Brothers are among the most critically acclaimed directors of our time, yet their work presents critical challenges, as their films resist easy interpretation. Confusing on a first viewing, the meaning behind the movies is often veiled in mystery. This element offers a clue about the Coens worldview. The difficulty is part of the design. The viewer must wrestle with the meaning behind the movies, just as the main characters struggle to make sense of a chaotic and confusing universe. Given their apparent atheism, if we had to ascribe a worldview to the Coens, the viewer may be tempted to see them as nihilists. However, they seem to share The Big Lebowskis disdain for nihilisms lack of an ethos. Rather, the Coen brothers seem to share in the existentialists philosophical struggle with nihilism, encouraging human wrestling with ultimate issues, even if they think the struggle is unlikely to succeed. In this sense, the Coens might be grouped more safely with absurdists such as Albert Camus, who see the tragedy and comedy in the human striving for meaning, and our perpetual failure to find it. Given one of the brothers philosophical training, it is not a stretch to see their works as fundamentally Socratic in nature questioning all attempts at ultimate answers but encouraging the ongoing struggle to understand our place in a harsh universe. Though the filmmakers themselves are not spiritual, they are deeply interested in religious issues, returning again and again to the questions of faith and morality. This Postmodern Realities Podcast episode is a JOURNAL author conversation with Philip Tallon about his Volume 40 4 cover article O Father, Where Art Thou? The Coen Brothers and the Riddle of Existence.

The church is facing ominous times. Science, culture, and politics are conspiring to silence the gospel and render Gods bride impotent. You can see it in the numbers less than one half of 1 percent of eighteen to twenty three year olds hold to a Christian view of the world.1 More than 80 percent of young adults are spiritually disengaged by age twenty nine. In society as a whole, the number of those who profess no belief in God the nones more than doubled between 2007 and 2014. Though statistics show an overall worldwide increase in the numbers of religious believers, that phenomenon is almost solely attributable to growing numbers in places such as Africa and China. In Europe and America, the numbers of the faithful are declining as younger nones replace their more religiously affiliated elders. So how do Christians reach nones with the gospel? This Postmodern Realities Podcast episode is a JOURNAL author conversation with Bob Perry about his Volume 40 4 Effective Evangelism article That Nones May Not Perish as he answers questions including To what do you attribute the growing number of nones in our culture? Do you think the church shares any culpability in this trend? What traits can you identify that the nones hold in common? Can you suggest an overall strategy that we can employ to address the attitudes and concerns of the nones? Arent we bowing to the culture by using this kind of evangelistic method? Shouldnt we just be preaching the Gospel and letting the Holy Spirit do the work?

Christians need to navigate each cultural wave. We must view each issue in light of biblical truth and then engage it in our homes, churches, communities, and in the larger culture. If Christians are going to effectively engage todays culture, we must be culturally savvy and engage both the seen and unseen elements all around us. Only then can we demolish the cultural arguments that set themselves up against the knowledge of God 2 Cor. 105 and in contrast, proclaim the truth and hope of the gospel. This special episode of the Postmodern Realities podcast is an interview with Brett Kunkle, co author of A Practical Guide to Culture Helping the Next Generation Navigate Todays World as he answers these pressing questions Because of sin, there has never been a completely Christian culture How then do we as Christians engage in culture, or as you say, where should we draw the line? What role do parents pastors have in helping youth develop a healthy worldview in an age that is increasingly digital and informative? How can parents pastors encourage kids to have a healthy relationship with entertainment? How can we make an argument for the authority of scripture and that we can accept these words as truth? How can parents pastors equip our kids to push back against the lies of culture with the truth and hope of the Gospel?

There are Christians who think that Christian attorneys necessarily compromise their faith in their practice. Perhaps no issue brings this kind of thinking to the fore more than the question of whether Christian attorneys should represent the guilty. Complicating this question, in part, is American pop cultures portrayal of lawyers who represent guilty clients as villains, and lawyers who betray guilty clients as heroes The Devils Advocate, And Justice for All. So the real question is whether a Christian is ethically permitted to represent a client she knows committed the crime. We are not talking about condoning legally unethical conduct such as committing perjury or destroying evidence, only the ethical propriety of forcing the state to prove its case. We also are not talking about just any crime. No one gets too worked up over a traffic ticket, only over big ticket offenses such as murder. This Postmodern Realities Podcast episode is a JOURNAL author conversation with David Hagopian about his 2013 Viewpoint article Viewpoint addresses relevant contemporary issues in discernment and apologetics from a particular perspective thats not usually shared by all Christians. This columns aim is for readers thinking on Viewpoint issues to be stimulated and enhanced whether or not readers end up agreeing with the author. Davids article is tilted, Not Guilty A Biblical Case for Ministering to the Accused

Thanks to everything from pop culture to college propaganda when students arrive on campuses today they expect with varying levels of inclination and trepidation to have a really good time. Many assume theyll encounter, as one student featured in The American Hookup put it apprehensively, a big four year orgy. Like most people I knew, she wrote, I believed that college was a wild, sexual party scene, and that to fit in, you had to be into alcohol, weed, and sex. Its taken for granted today that college is supposed to be fun and that sex is part of why. The best years of your life, is how another student put it. Fun takes priority over sleep and rest, she insisted, forgetting to mention studying altogether. Its an odd way to think about an institution dedicated to occupational training, if you think about. How did college become fun? And how did casual sex, of all things, become synonymous with enjoying ones higher education? American Hookup The New Culture of Sex on Campus by Lisa Wade This JOURNAL author conversation is a discussion of the book review Joe Dallas wrote about American Hookup The New Culture of Sex on Campus by Lisa Wade. Joe answers questions including What is the goal of the hook up culture specifically on the college campus? What does the author say about the hook up culture promoting rape culture on campus and a loss of intimacy? How is the hook up culture is institutionalized on the college campus according to the author? Secularists say that the Christian sexual ethic is narrow, limiting, and stifles freedom of sexual expression. How does a Christian sexual ethic differ from the hook up culture? Many Christian parents are about to send a child to college for the first time, what word of encouragement can you give them to prepare their kids to not succumb to the on campus hookup culture?

Young Christians hanker for mystery and meaning in a world that has become progressively disenchanted over the past five hundred years. Philosopher Charles Taylor begins his much discussed tome A Secular Age by asking this question Why was it virtually impossible not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy, but even inescapable? Premodern Christians lived in a world of spirits, demons, and moral forces. Because the liberal democratic project has reduced belief in God to a personal matter, no longer allowing the Creator to play a role in public policy, the official stance on the Divine Being is now identical to that of John Lennons atheism Imagine theres no heaven No hell below us. Above us only sky. If the cultural and political environments in which we swim shape us to any extent, then we are, for practical purposes, all devoted materialists.This JOURNAL author conversation is a discussion with author Arthur W. Hunt 3rd about his article In Search of the Sacred Evangelicals on a Quest and Why It Matters

This podcast episode is a conversation with author Stephen Mitchell as he answers questions about his literary apologetics article, Alexander Solzhenitsyn Confronts the Grand Inquisitor and covers topics including free will and Russian gulags

People use the word potential in many different ways. A child can show potential when it comes to having sports or musical aptitude. If a speaker gives a presentation without being adequately prepared, there is the potential for disaster. However, in philosophy, potential is a technical term, and it is not as simple as one might expect. An oak sapling has the potential to become a mature oak tree, and it has the potential to become a house. But each of these senses of the word potential is different and has real world application to debates in bioethics. Some prochoice advocates try to argue that human embryos are not persons but are potential persons. In this view, embryos are biological members of the human species, but they have not yet reached the developmental milestone necessary for grounding their identity as persons. However, calling the human embryo a potential person is misguided. A common idea is that living things are constructed piece by piece from the outside, when, in fact, they develop from within themselves. To say that a human embryo is a potential person is misguided because it fails to take into account the fact that the reason the embryo eventually will become an adult is because she is a human being with a human nature, and it is this nature that directs her development as a human being. As she has a rational, volitional nature, she will develop all of the present capacities to perform personal activities. Human embryos are not potential persons they are actual persons with potential. This podcast episode is a conversation with author Clinton Wilcox as he answers questions about his article The Human Embryo Potential Person or Person with Great Potential?

Understanding Our Response to LGBT Culture" (Volume 40 #3, 2017) with Matt Holland

This podcast episode is a conversation with author Matt Holland as he answers questions about his Postmodern Realities Column article including What motivated you to write this article? Can you be gay and be a Christian? Some Christians condemn homosexuality over other sins. Are they just in doing this? Are people naturally attracted to the same sex? Is this something they choose? What should happen when a gay couple becomes Christian? Do they totally abandon their old lifestyle? Do you see a battle culture war between homosexuality and the church?

A battle over free speech dominates the newsfeeds of online media. The rhetoric grows harsher as two sides seek to establish competing narratives. Are our universities dominated by a privileged class that forces vulnerable minorities to study in a hostile environment, or is the problem really that emotionally fragile students cannot handle dissenting opinions without experiencing emotional meltdowns? It can be difficult to establish a clear definition of safe spaces or to determine limits to the right of students to govern their participation in curriculum they find troubling. Any effort to communicate is frustrated by different sides using similar moral terminology with different meanings, one objectively grounded and the other emotionally grounded. We must recommit to understanding universities as institutions aimed at fostering open dialogue in pursuit of knowledge and truth.The Bible offers examples of countering bad speech with good speech through the examples of both Jesus and Paul. We cannot become so afraid of offending others that we cease to equip the next generation. This podcast episode is a conversation with author Jay Watts as he answers questions including What are safe spaces and trigger warnings? Does this issue transcend the normal conservative versus progressive liberal dynamic that so often plays out in cultural conflict? Does commitment to freedom of expression mean that everyone must be allowed to speak? Even Nazis?