Queen of the Sciences

Sarah makes her third appearance on the fantastic All About Agatha podcast! With host Kemper Donovan she discusses Agatha's short story "Promotion in the Highest."

Happy new year!

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The first of a series of five episodes in which Sarah discusses I Thessalonians with John Drury of the Fresh Text podcast. Remarkably apt for the end of one church year and the beginning of another!

Subscribe to Fresh Text to listen to the next four episodes with Sarah and John!

It's the ultimate smackdown! In this episode we discuss the covert work done by theories and doctrines of history, in church and saeculum alike, and why we can't stop theorizing about history once we've noticed it. We also drill down on two particular approaches to time and history within Christian discourse, what they mean, what they imply, and how (and how not) to deploy them.

Hoping for a SEVENTH year of Queen of the Sciences?

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Second Peter and the Second Coming, Unbaptized God, Technique and Propaganda with Jacques Ellul, The Bible in One Hand and the Newspaper in the Other?, Buddhism, Our Democracy?, Hegel

2. Augustine, Confessions (specifically, the second half on time that you always skip over)

3. Hinlicky, Luther and the Beloved Community

You may have missed the recent U.S. presidential election, since it was kinda inconsequential and nobody was paying any attention to it. Oh wait... In today's episode, Dad and I take up the topic of "our democracy" as it has been talked about in the U.S. during this grueling election year, why Christians have an investment in flourishing democratic government (especially considering the alternatives), how the distinctions between church and state, and God's two kingdoms, play out in a democratic nation, and what we can faithfully do in our callings as Christians and citizens. Plus, Sarah reminds you that you are not Bonhoeffer.

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Notes:

1. Related episodes: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King Jr, Two Kingdoms 16th Century Edition, Two Kingdoms 20th and 21st Century Edition

2. Tocqueville, Democracy in America

3. Heise, The Gates of Hell (on the elimination of the Russian Lutheran Church during the Soviet period)

4. Bonhoeffer, Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison, plus DeJonge's Bonhoeffer on Resistance

5. Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"

Many religions are historically entangled with one another, but no relationship is as close, fraught, or dangerous as that between Judaism and Christianity... kind of like a pair of biblical brothers, in fact. In this episode Dad and I discuss the enormous number of things these two have in common, why that makes the not negligible difference of assessment about Jesus so explosive, how we might learn from one another, and how we might learn to wait for God to confirm our faith, one way or another.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Islam, World Religions, Unbaptized God, On Hamas's Attack on Israel, Before Auschwitz, Galatians 1, Galatians 2, Nehemiah, Luther and the Jews, The Relationship of the Old and New Testaments

2. Nostra Aetate

3. Cohen, Everyman's Talmud

4. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son

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What's that story about the medieval monk who tried to find peace through religious good works, got wise to the power and corruption of the religious establishment, had a breakthrough to trust in the mercy of the transcendent one who became immanent for our salvation, and as a result left the monastery, got married, had children, and worked among ordinary folks? No, not Luther. Shinran! In this episode, Dad and I explore the rather startling parallels between the True Pure Land school of Buddhism in Japan and Lutheran Christianity, then discuss what the implications of these overlaps may, or may not, mean from our theological perspective.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Islam, World Religions, Justification by Faith, The Certainty of Faith, Justification by Faith Revisited, Faith Just Faith, Japanese Theologian Kazoh Kitamori

2. Most of the information in this episode I drew from Jodo Shinshu: A Guide; you might also be interested in Taitetsu Unno, River of Fire, River of Water: An Introduction to the Pure Land Tradition of Shin Buddhism

3. Armstrong, Buddha

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Six years of top-quality theological podcasting... Show your support by becoming a Patron!

After considering "World Religions" as such, in this episode Dad and I turn our attention to considering a specific world religion. But our burden here is not to discuss the details or the disputes about or within Islam, but mainly to inquire about it as a challenge to Christian theology. Do we wrongly exalt the finite man Jesus to the status of the infinite? Does our complex creed betray a fatal weakness compared to Islam's simple one? How did God as Christians know him allow a competing monotheism to arise under his providence? Not surprisingly, we also put some theological questions of our own to Islam.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: World Religions, John of Damascus, Fear and Phobias, Two Kingdoms 16th Century Edition, Two Kingdoms 20th and 21st Century Edition, On Hamas' Attack on Israel, Luther and the Jews

2. Some resources for more in-depth study of Islam on its own terms: Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent; Saeed, Islamic Thought: An Introduction; A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor

3. Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, and see also Janosik, John of Damascus: First Apologist to the Muslims

4. Sanneh, Summoned from the Margin

5. Shoemaker, Creating the Qur'an

6. Manji, The Trouble with Islam

7. Also consider listening to this episode I did with Enter the Bible on the variety of millennialisms and the temptations of interpreting history

Exactly what the title says it is!

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