Religion Unplugged

How a religion explains death and life after death are often as important to an understanding of the religion as is its explanation of God or morality.

The question of how to escape death or how to die well is at the center of nearly all religions.

And one of the oldest ideas about how to beat mortality—nearly as old as religion itself—is the idea of reincarnation.

Historians don’t have a concrete understanding of when humans started to believe in rebirth. The faith systems that became modern Hinduism and Buddhism were both orally transmitted for centuries before anything was written down.

But, the first known written appearances of the concept are found in the Hindu Upanishads, which are nearly 3000 years old.

Today the belief is still mainstream in the predominantly Asian communities of Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.

But, perhaps expectedly, it is not at all mainstream among scientists. Roughly half of scientists even believe in a higher power and this, combined with the dominant view that consciousness doesn’t function outside of the brain, make scientists very unlikely allies of any kind of afterlife

But, defying all the odds, the man who has done arguably the most convincing work in proving the scientific viability of rebirth was a white American psychiatrist who died as recently as 2007.

That man’s name was Dr. Ian Stevenson and he dedicated his life to the question of whether the scientific method could be used to explain what happens when we die.

This week on the podcast I spoke with Jesse Bering, the author of a new book about the psychiatrist entitled: The Incredible Afterlives of Dr. Ian Stevenson.

About a month ago, Netflix released a 3 part documentary series called "Death of The Pastor’s Wife." The series was in Netflix’s top 10 shows for 4 weeks in a row, accumulating 41 million views.

The documentary tells the story of a woman named Mica, who, at the age of 13, began attending Solid Rock Church in Myrtle Beach with her family. The church was led by a pastor named John Paul Miller, who officiated Mica’s wedding to a fellow congregant when she was 18. 

Three years into her marriage, Pastor John Paul began a sexual relationship with her—despite being 15 years older than her—which wrecked both of their marriages. Eventually, Mica married John Paul, which led to a spiral of horrific abuse, stalking, mental illness and trauma—all while John Paul continued to pastor at Solid Rock. The story ends in Mica’s suicide.

Pastors who have affairs or sexually abuse their congregants are all too common—Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests already lists over 160 ministry leaders who have been arrested for sex crimes in 2026 alone. And that’s just what we know about—the number is likely much higher, given the fact that 66% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.

As a deep-dive into a case of severe abuse at the hands of a man leading a faith community, will the documentary inspire church congregations to be more vigilant in protecting their vulnerable from preying leaders?

Or sandwiched between other disturbing true crime shows on Netflix, has Mica’s story been molded into just another piece of macabre entertainment—a cash grab from a streaming platform that predictably gets millions of watches every time it distributes a story that’s so horrifying we can’t look away?

I wanted to understand how the documentary holds up as a piece of abuse education. I also wanted to understand if Mica’s death might have been prevented with more robust accountability structures and why pastoral abuse is so common. So for this week’s episode, I spoke with Julie Roys. Roys is a christian and the founder of the Roys Report, a watchdog news outlet, which covers corruption in churches.

A chunk of flesh floating in a glass of water—this was the discovery made by Fr. Alejandro Pezet on August 26, 1996 when he opened the tabernacle at his church in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A week earlier, Fr. Pezet had, in this same glass of water, placed a damaged piece of sacramental bread, in order to respectfully dissolve the eucharist.

But instead of dissolving, the bread had transformed into bloody muscle tissue. 3 years later, the flesh had still not deteriorated. Given the shocking preservation, Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio, who would eventually become Pope Francis, ordered that the specimen be sent away to New York for testing.

The scientists, who were not told the origin of the tissue, concluded that it was a fragment of heart muscle from the wall of the left ventricle. They also believed that the heart had undergone great stress—as if its owner had been beaten in the chest—tortured. And, most astonishingly, they found a great deal of white blood cells in the heart, which is significant because white blood cells die outside of a living organism—meaning, that, at the time the sample was taken, the flesh was still alive.

The scientists were shocked when they found out the mysterious origins of the fragment, with one of them saying “This will remain an inexplicable mystery to science.”

That story is one of many collected in writer and podcaster W. Tyler Allen’s new book “A Catechism of the Strange.” Allen’s book celebrates God’s ability to use the miraculous, the bizarre and even the downright creepy to connect with his people.

On this week’s podcast, I spoke with Allen about his book, his faith journey and what it would look like if Christians were more willing to embrace the strangeness of God’s presence.

AI cannot stay out of the news. Just this month a former researcher at Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, posted on X that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Last week, OpenAI announced 6 new reports of unexpected or concerning behavior from their ai models, including one model that inserted notes into its framework that allowed it to operate without traditional restraints

The growing doomer-ism about Artificial Intelligence has resulted in both Anthropic and OpenAI’s CEOs to advise that humanity joins together in slowing AI development—urging labs internationally to follow suit and the U.S. government to ensure this deceleration.

While the call to slow down development has even managed to make unlikely allies out of Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, some people are still preaching a full-speed-ahead message, including the CEO of Nvidia and President Trump, who, in a Truth Social post last week made his position clear saying, “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so.”

This episode is from the archives—it’s a rerun from 2024.

In the two years since we first broadcast this episode, AI chatbot use has expanded from a third of the U.S. population participating in 2024, to roughly half of Americans in 2026. But at the same time, the percent of Americans who believe AI is doing more harm than good has gone up by 8% since 2024. And the percent of Americans concerned that AI will reduce the total number of jobs has gone up by 4%, with 63% of Americans in 2026 saying AI is advancing too quickly.

AI has made us question our very humanity—giving us concerns about our intelligence, our work, our relationships, and even our religion. So that’s why on today’s episode we’re featuring my conversation with Loyola Professor Joseph Vukov about his book: Staying Human In an Era of Artificial Intelligence.

Christians, as a faith tradition, are not known for their sense of humor. 

If anything, they sometimes get a bad wrap as being a bunch of sticks in the mud. The austere Puritans of Hawthorne’s The Maypole of Merrymount come to mind, as does The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders or buzzkill Angela Martin from The Office.

The boring church service, the out of touch youth pastor, and the disciplinarian nun are all ubiquitous tropes across movies and tv shows.

Laughter has had a complicated identity throughout church history. The ancient theologians did not necessarily dismiss laughter altogether, but they certainly favored a more serious piety. Modern theologians tend to see laughter in a kinder light, acknowledging the good that can come from it while speaking out against laughter which might be out of place.

But what does the Bible say about humor?

The first mention of laughter in scripture comes in Genesis, when a 100 year-old Abraham is being told that his 90 year-old wife will become pregnant with a son.

Abraham and Sarah’s reaction to the strange news is, understandably, laughter.

And this disbelieving laughter is so essential to how they view their child that they name him after it: Isaac, which means, “He laughs.” Isaac would go on to father Jacob, later renamed Israel. So, God uses a man named after laughter to birth his chosen nation, from which the Messiah ultimately emerges.

But perhaps it is an overly-poetic reading of the scriptures to imply that God built his people on the foundation of laughter. After all, so much of the Bible is rife with suffering and those who weep.

So, what role should Comedy play in the life of a Christian? What kinds of joking does God make off limits? And, does God like joking around as much as we do? On this week’s podcast, I spoke with a witty Catholic philosopher and a pastor who moonlights as a comedian to find out.

Every billionaire eventually takes advantage of their wealth. Even Warren Buffet, famously more frugal and plain in the way he spends his money, eventually bought a private jet.

Absurd money continues to enable absurd purchases.

Jeff Bezos bought a super Yacht.

Elon Musk bought Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg bought a 7 foot statue of his wife.

But as for the Greens, the family behind the arts and crafts superstore empire Hobby Lobby, they bought tens of thousands of ancient Biblical artifacts and manuscripts.

With over 1,000 stores and 46,000 employees Hobby Lobby did 8 Billion dollars in revenue last year. 

Hobby Lobby famously donates half of their pre-tax income to a variety of charities every year—most of which have to do with advancing worldwide Bible access and education.

But along their quest for global Biblical literacy, the Greens have engaged with politics in a way which leads some to call them Christian nationalists.

One of those people is Michael Blanding author of “The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby.”

Blanding’s book details the family’s business, influence, and surprising archeological scandal, and how their faith has shaped it all.

Most practicing Jews in the United States fall into one of three categories. There are the Orthodox Jews--who are committed to following Jewish law to the letter and who uphold all the traditions set by rabbis over the centuries.


Then there are the Conservative Jews, who still believe in following the law, but allow for a bit more freedom of modern interpretation of that law.

And then there are the Reform Jews who emphasize the spirit of the law over the letter of the law—often appreciating the deep moral tradition of the Torah, while leaving ritual practice up to the individual. 

Now, these are just umbrella terms—all of these forms of Jewish practice operate on wide spectrums--but 63% of American jews were able to identify as one of the three in a 2019 Pew Research Survey. And the majority of Jews who did not identify with one of these three categorizations also do not identify as religious.


But that still leaves around 16% of American Jews as actively religious, but unable to align themselves with Orthodox, Conservative or Reform Judaism. 

So, who are they? Well, the answer is, of course, complicated. There are endless reasons one might not want to ascribe to these three classifications. But, while we can’t discern the spiritual complexity of each individual, one new Jewish movement can help account for a growing number of American Jews who don’t quite identify with mainstream Jewish communities.

They call themselves the Ivri, an ancient word for Hebrews—a name which is fitting for this form of Jewish practice which seeks to call back to ancient traditions and rituals, while also doing something new.

On this week’s episode I spoke with Mira Fox, reporter and culture critic at The Forward, who recently wrote about the thriving new community in an article entitled: There’s a new Judaism in town — or maybe it’s very, very old.

As conflicts rage on in the Middle East, Africa and Europe, it seems we are living through a time of war.

This reality does not distinguish us all that much from the rest of human history. Our species has always been interested in conquest and defense.

But what may make our time a bit more unique in its embattlement is the average person’s ability to fight not just with weapons and warfare, but with words and ideas. While many of us will never be soldiers or law enforcement officers, we experience on a daily basis the fiery condemnations hurled across the lines of political parties, religious identities, ethnicities or socioeconomic statuses.

In a time of war, the presiding question of the age is no longer: “how do we create the best society possible,” but instead “how do we survive together?” How do we solve the problem right in front of us and then how do we solve the next one?

Instead of dreaming big, our impulse is to seek solutions in painfully precise increments—not wanting to upset the delicate balance required to get us to agree with one another.

But what if we’ve been going about it wrong? What if the solution to our constant back and forth—what if lasting change were possible only if we do shoot for the stars?

What would it look like to try to build a utopia?

On today’s episode, my guests are David Albertson and Jason Blakely. Albertson and Blakely are co-authors of “Utopia for Our Century.” A book which investigates the 500-year-old work of Catholic Martyr Thomas More who called on Christians to take action toward building a better world. Albertson and Blakely explain what Utopia actually means, how people of all religious backgrounds can help pursue it and why many modern Christians became anti-utopia and anti-humanist despite both of these ideas having Christian roots.

It’s been a hot summer. 

Heatwaves have persisted across North America, Australia, Asia and most notably, Europe—where an estimated 25,000 people have died as a result of the extreme heat.

In fact, heat levels in July of this year tied with the levels of the hottest month in recorded history.

As summer vacationers head to exotic destinations, they find that things are not as they should be—such as coral reefs having greatly deteriorated or more talk of endangered species. 

At home, here in New York, I experienced thick, almost suffocating smoky air just a few weeks ago due to wildfires in Canada.

We are experiencing the realities of a broken earth in real time. The temperature, the sea, the air—all are being affected greatly by our planet’s changing climate.

And as we deal with the fear, confusion and discomfort of a rapidly changing environment, the impulse is to find the root of the problem and dig it out. We would like to find somebody to blame. 

Is it corporate greed—big businesses draining natural resources and polluting the air with manufacturing processes? Or is it you and me—with our daily consumption of cheap goods and reliance on fossil fuels? Or is it a mix of both—have we all just been taking too much for too long without thought toward future generations?

My guest on this week’s podcast, anthropologist Susannah Crockford, asks whether part of the root cause may be buried deep inside of evangelical christianity. Her new book “A Perturbed System” explores how religious language influences climate discourse, how christianity has impacted the earth negatively and how christian ideas may now be able to be a part of the solution.

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

On this week's podcast, anthropologist Susannah Crockford explains why she believes part of the root of climate change may be buried deep inside of evangelical christianity.

The Bible is by no means a picture book. But, for its lack of illustrations, it still presents many powerful images. A burning bush. A giant fish. An angel army. A pillar of fire. A snake. A harp. A wall. A fruit tree. A lamb. A tomb. A fishing net.

The Bible seizes the visceral realities of what it means to be human—in all that gore, grief and glory—by connecting its ideas and its characters to natural elements we interact with daily (even if, in some cases, those elements are acting very differently than how we typically experience them).

So, to bridge this gap between the descriptions of the world found in scripture and our physical experience of it, we have artwork. Christian artwork has spanned every generation of believers, with Christ himself being depicted through a multitude of ethnicities, time periods and artistic mediums.

But is “Christian” artwork the only art through which Christians can see reflections of scripture? Ben Quash, Director of The Visual Commentary on Scripture doesn’t think so. The Visual Commentary on Scripture is an online resource from King’s College London which combines theology, art history, and Biblical scholarship to pair artwork from all across the stylistic and historical map with different sections of scripture. These pairings are called exhibits and feature high-quality scans of art pieces tied together with Biblical commentary.

After over a decade working on the project, Quash is taking a step back. He was interviewed on this show 6 years ago when the project was still relatively young. So we wanted to have him back on the show as his time ends to talk through what he accomplished, why the internet needs the VCS site, and what’s next.

You can find the Visual Commentary on Scripture at thevcs.org. You can also sign up for their new newsletter called Bible and Art Daily, which will send artwork and an audio scripture commentary straight to your inbox every day. You can also find them on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X.