Late in life, after penning thousands of pages, Augustine received a request from an admiring but understandably intimidated friend for something a little shorter. This "handbook" is the result—a veritable greatest-hits compilation for this most influential of Western fathers. Everything from evil as privation to predestination, when and whether to lie and how to grow in love, justifying faith and almsgiving to oneself (!).

Notes:

1. We read this edition of Augustine's Enchiridion

2. See also our episode on Augustine's City of God

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Sarah talks with Kelsi Klembara of the Outside Ourselves podcast about A-Tumblin' Down, and a few other things besides! Plus, here's the link to my new podcast: Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Stories. Or just search for it in whatever app you're using right now!

What happened after I posted the protest to the suppression of our episode.

Why our last regular episode didn't show up in your podcast app. Please, please listen to this message.

Update: Literally within five minutes of my uploading this short protest, both Apple and Spotify let the episode on "The Inhumanity of Lockdown" through. Take the lesson and protest censorship! They back down. At least for now.

We break our habitual reserve on what's been inflicted on the body politic over the past three years with this extended discussion of lockdown—and its essential inhumanity cloaked in the garb of science and righteousness. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben with his concept of biopolitics is our guide. We realize that this has been an incredibly painful set of issues for many of you to even attempt to discuss, so we try to model a way of talking about without rancor even while calling it like we see it. But we hope, whatever you thought and however you managed, your conclusion is the same as ours: Never again.

Notes:

1. Related episodes: Before Auschwitz, Illness and Healing, Faith to the Aid of Science, St Paul among the Philosophers, Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague, Virtual Communion

2. Agamben, Where Are We Now?

3. Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler

4. This is my only other public statement related to covid: "Churches During Lockdown: Near Disaster"

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Not your usual Queen of the Sciences crossover! Sarah talks with Kemper Donovan of the All About Agatha (Christie) podcast to parse the great detective novelist's short story "Star over Bethlehem," and more generally Agatha's little known but deeply felt Christian faith.

To everything there is a season... even a season for gaining an appreciation of the odd little book of Ecclesiastes. Maybe middle age is precisely that season. Overcoming our own initial biases against Ecclesiastes, which is the ultimate inkblot test within the canon of Scripture, we place the Preacher in historical context as a template for taking the ancient wisdom of Israel's faith into radically different contexts. More relevant and less existentialist-nihilist than you thought!

Notes:

1. Of course you know "Turn, Turn, Turn" by the Byrds

2. Check out Dad's article in Word & World (Winter 2023), "Luther on Ecclesiastes: Nature in the Light of Grace" and Luther's commentary in LW 15

3. Lohfink, Qoheleth

4. Scott, Proverbs–Ecclesiastes

5. Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament

6. Treier, Ecclesiastes (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible)

7. Adams, Christ and Horrors

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A couple years ago we did an episode entitled "Poor Anselm" because we felt sorry for the vilification of this major medieval theologian's work on the atonement in Cur Deus Homo, which we thought deserved better. So we thought, why not give his first treatise, Monologion, a try? Um. Well... In this episode, we go from defending Anselm to rebuking him for his account of the Trinity by reason alone, which just plain doesn't work and has caused trouble in western Christianity ever since. And yet, somehow, Anselm's version seems to be what people even today think is the correct way of talking about the Trinity. Join us for some trinitarian therapy.

Notes:

1. Anselm, Monologion

2. Rogers, The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology of Anselm of Canterbury

3. Luy, Dominus Mortis

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Among the many remarkable Gregories of the early church, the one from Nazianzus stands out to such an extent that he has earned the simple epithet: "The Theologian." In this episode, we explore why! In particular, Gregory's five famous theological orations (plus two letters to neighborhood priest Cledonius) present one of the best and most formative accounts of the doctrine of Trinity, emphasizing the priority of Person over Nature and the distinction among the Persons residing in their relationships, not their being. If you've ever felt defeated by the doctrine of the Trinity, this episode is for you.

Notes:

1. See my issue of Theology & a Recipe on Basil the Great entitled "The Trinity Is Not an Egg"

2. A nice little compendium of Gregory's writings can be found in the charming Popular Patristic series under the (unfortunately awful) title On God and Christ

3. Hall, Philip Melanchthon and the Cappadocians

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Sarah talks with Jason Micheli of the very excellent Crackers and Grape Juice podcast... and a little foreshadowing at the end that Dad might just get an episode of his own, too!