Queen of the Sciences

Save the best for last? In this episode, Dad and I finally get around to the First Gospel, as it is sometimes called. We talk over our previous prejudices against Matthew and how on this read we came to a new and fresh appreciate of just what this evangelist is up to.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Mark 1, Mark 2, Luke 1, Luke 2, John 1, John 2, Sermon on the Mount, Sarah's Sermon on the Mount, Sarah's talk on the Sermon on the Mount for CCET

2. Check out my book Sermon on the Mount: A Poetic Paraphrase

3. Albright, Anchor Bible commentary on Matthew

4. See Dad's review of Peter Ochs's "Another Reformation" in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 13/2 (December 2014).

5. See the Luz essay in ed. Stanton, The Interpretation of Matthew

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Get the audiobook of my first novel, A-Tumblin' Down, direct from Thornbush Press, or from Audible, or pretty much any audiobook retailer of your choice!

Not quite convinced yet? Then listen to these excerpts introducing you to the Abney family: Kitty, Donald, Carmichael, Saul and Asher.

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Welcome to season 5 of the Queen of the Sciences podcast! Vocation is a topic near and dear to me and Dad, both as a central theological focus of the Lutheran Reformation and also because we just plain take a lot of pleasure in our work. But David Graeber's astonishing book Bullshit Jobs came as a serious wake-up call to us both. In this episode, we review Graeber's case for the precipitous shift from meaningful to meaningless and even actively harmful paid work in the world today, and what it means for an ongoing commitment to the doctrine of vocation.

Notes:

1. Graeber, Bullshit Jobs

2. The short story "Gold" in my collection Protons and Fleurons is a skewed look at vocation, but not as skewed as Graeber's.

3. The classic study of Luther on vocation is Gustav Wingren's appropriately titled Luther on Vocation

4. Related episodes: Hannah Arendt, Cybertech and Personhood

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Dad's second talk for the NALC Atlantic Mission Region's theological conference, "Stand Fast and Be of Good Courage: The Lord Will Fight for You."

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Dad's first talk at the NALC Atlantic Mission Region's Theological Conference, "Stand Fast and Be of Good Courage: The Lord Will Fight for You."

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Sarah's lecture at Johannelund Theological School in Uppsala, Sweden, at a daylong conference on Sanctification in Lutheran Perspective.

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Dad's talk at Roanoke College reflecting on his 22 years of service there as a professor of theology.

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What's beyond the land, the earth, and outer space? Heaven and hell. Unless, that is, we don't exit the created cosmos to get to them, but they come to us (preferably the former and not the latter). In this episode, guided by a book from N. T. Wright, Dad and I explore the unexplored and unexplorable territory of the life to come, speculating mildly, not wildly. And that's a wrap for Season 4 of Queen of the Sciences. Thanks for being with us! Bonus episodes coming your way till we resume with Season 5 in January 2023. Meanwhile, brag to your friends about how you listen to the best theology podcast in the known universe!

Notes:

1. Wright, Surprised by Hope

2. Zahl, The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience

3. Becker, Denial of Death

4. Sarah's Pearly Gates

5. Past episodes that relate to this one: Triple Predestination, Resurrection, Cybertech and Personhood

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From the land, to the earth, to infinity and beyond! In this episode Dad and I contemplate the vastness of the universe and the itty-bittiness of subatomic particles, the astonishing rareness of life in any form and the likelihood of meeting aliens, what this cosmos-view does to our God-view, and what it means to be an Earthling, i.e., an "Adam," assisted along the way by science fiction novels, shows, and movies. But most importantly, I finally get to indulge my decades-long desire to crack a joke about "alien righteousness."

Notes:

1. Luther's commentary on Ecclesiastes

2. John Palka's blog Nature's Depths

3. Vainio, Cosmology in Theological Perspective

4. Brooke, Science and Religion

5. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength

6. Russell, The Sparrow

7. Wells, War of the Worlds

8. "Passengers" (2016 film)

9. Le Guin, Worlds of Exile and Illusion, plus see the volume of critical studies edited by Harold Bloom

10. Worthing, God, Creation, and Contemporary Physics

11. Wisnefske, Could God Fail?

12. Check out this episode of the fantastic Enter the Bible podcast talking to Alan Padgett about protological and eschatological science

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The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof! We start off this episode with some appreciative words for the agrarian background of the Bible, though also some cautionary words against modern industrial people cheaply romanticizing the agrarian past. But most of this episode is Farmer Paul's personal testimony to his own hands-on care for a neglected and degraded patch of earth, now flourishing under his care. Sleeping flounder, Swiss bears, and runaway honeybees all make an appearance. Plus you get to hear me sing the opening lines of "I've Been Picking These Darn Peas," the "spiritual" that my brother Will and I composed during our childhood bondage to the family garden.

Notes:

1. Wirzba, Agrarian Spirit

2. Davis, Scripture, Culture, And Agriculture

3. Shellenberger, Apocalypse Never

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