The former editor in chief of Christianity Today stops by to talk about his love of Port William and the AI infused world to come.

Highlights

1:00      Biloxi boy and Berry man

5:30      Unlikely CT choice?

11:00    Wendell at his most metaphysical          

16:30    Crowning Kingsnorth (or not yet)            

26:00    Carl Henry and the future of Evangelicalism

32:00    Praying away    

35:00    Ezekiel and the fog machine      

40:00    Kids seeking Orthodoxy and old folks?                 

44:15    A global and Martian focus                      

48:00    Keller on moving institutions

51:00    Berry patch pickings      

Resources

Russell's bio and Berry's cover

Marce Catlett at the FPR Bookshop

Scott Moore and Berry at Georgetown College

Rise and Fall podcast

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

The author, activist, and grandfather who once warned of The End of Nature has a brighter disposition these days. 

Highlights

1:15       Dirt roads and tricorne hats

3:15       Protesting with the life-changing Wendell Berry

6:45       Paneling over real problems      

16:30    Evacuate the building!  

19:15    Looking back, looking forward

23:30    Deregulation to the rescue?       

31:00    Lone Star State of mind

34:30    Corny truths and consequences

40:00    Cultists and conservative Sunday school teachers            

53:30    A new day for the sun   

Resources

Bill's bio and buy the book (and the other book)

Solar SunDay and nitro Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Van Morrison’s Brand New Day

If Bill’s statement about 9 million deaths raised an eyebrow, here’s more on that.

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

The longtime editor-in-chief of World magazine discusses the Zenger Prize, his new gig at Christianity Today, the temptations of conservative politics (compassionate or otherwise), and his memoir Pivot Points.   

Highlights

1:00       Aspiring galactic editor and globe trotter

5:45       Street level reporting v. suite level pontification

15:15    BREAKING:  Flatwater Free Press on the Zenger Prize long list      

18:00    Welcome to the jungle . . . and Phoenix

25:00    Adventure is out there!

30:00    A young communist hears Jesus in Russian

34:00    Leaving World for purple pastures

41:00    Character counts, on the diamond and in the Oval

49:00    Covering Marvin’s seat at W’s table

59:45    Hitchhiking as a way of life

Resources

Marvin's bio and buy the book (and the other book)

Announcing the Zenger Prize winners at FPR

Read the winning articles

Nominate the next winner

Marvin’s work at Current (R.I.P)

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

After a life of physical and spiritual adventure, an innovative homesteading teacher and pastor turns green with gratitude.

Highlights

1:00       California to Idaho (before everybody was doing it)

12:00    The plane, the plane!

19:00    Picture pages, picture pages

26:00    Raising the dead with his students (and Robert Redford)

37:00    Finding Jesus in the mountains

45:15    Turning green in the pulpit

57:00    Timber Butte homecoming

61:00    Looking for the real thing

66:00    Thanks and love

Resources

Tri's homestead website and buy the book

Full Cowboy & Preacher film

“Check your local listings.” (It’s 10 a.m. 12/28/24 in Idaho on PBS World)

On PBS with Bill Moyers two decades ago

“Liver-Eating” Johnson’s grave

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

The editor-in-chief of the FPR website discusses the recent conference in Grand Rapids and his latest book, Words for Conviviality. 

Highlights

1:00       Pacific Northwesterner in western PA

8:00       Prospects for localism and trad wives now

11:00    Bilbro’s obsessive bibliography

17:00    Printing press 2.0 and Postman problems

25:30    Frederick Douglass, cancer patient

30:00    Margaret Fuller, proto-podcaster

35:00    Melville’s pilgrimage and Jeff’s truck stop oats

40:00    A convivial reading

Resources

Jeff's bio and buy the book (and some more books)

FPR’s excerpt (suitable for nailing on church doors)

Exploring Ivan Illich on the podcast

John reviews Jeff’s early works here and here

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

The AEI scholar and author of American Covenant joins John to talk about a document that he believes could unify we the people, again. 

Highlights

1:30       Second home

8:15       The national “we”

13:45    A dignified basis for unity

21:00    Changing culture by changing institutions

25:00    Make Congress boring again

29:00    What women want

32:00    Cheese pizza and Tip O’Neill

37:00    Think Tank U

41:00    A hunger for scallops and solidarity

47:00    Plausible deniability?

50:00    A hopeful Constitution Day

Resources

Yuval's bio and buy the book

FPR’s review

Yascha Mounk, Yuval, and the back of John’s head at AEI

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

Longtime ghostwriter Nancy French tells her own tale in the Ghosted:  An American Life.  French was raised in rural Tennessee and would later provide the words behind famous talking heads but found her own enchanting voice amid political and personal tumult.   

Highlights

1:15                Mud pies for Parisians

6:00                Hillbillies on the run

9:30                Romney/Palin ‘08

11:00              Prison break with the Kardashians

13:30              Pulling political punches

20:00              Google University School of Journalism

27:30              French Holy Ghost revival

31:30              Befriending a critic

38:00              Laker girl

39:30              Trusting God with cancer

42:00              Back on the case

Resources

Nancy’s website and buy the book

John’s review

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

Timothy Carney, an AEI senior fellow and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, talks about the village it takes to raise a child and the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) rise of “No Children Allowed” signs.

Highlights

2:30       A lively home and coffee shop

4:00       Trumpy Christians?

7:15       Find a secular van fam, win a free book!

16:30    Was Hillary right?

22:15    Trickling down to Fishtown?

29:30    House plans, town plans

36:30    Work from home

43:45    Childless for the planet or better by the trillion

54:00    Ponzi scheme or Korean contagion

57:00    The sporting life

Resources

Tim’s bio and buy the book

FPR at 15

Churchy Trump resistance column

Nancy Pearcey’s  “Common Good Men”

Korean “Child Free”Zones

Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home

Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state).   Bill Kauffman, author and regular conference closer, weaves Wisconsin professors of the past and the robo-umps of tomorrow into a seamless and side-splitting localist garment.  Rory Groves introduces the duo and ponders a porch free of PhDs.    

Highlights

1:30       Rory Groves, unlikely agrarian

Ashley Colby:  “Doomer Optimism: Life Adjacent to the Machine”

5:30       Adjacent, whether we like it or not

7:45       Donkey driving, mastodon ranching, hospitality boot camp

12:00    Alaskan laundries and cider-sipping city dwellers

Bill Kauffman:  “Off the Empire, On Wisconsin”

17:15    A thieving historian

22:00    Rural drama

26:00    Little things mean a lot

33:00    You’re out!

38:30    A midnight tale

Resources

Speaker bios and conference videos

FPR Books and bookshop

Conference co-sponsor Plough

Thanks to Wendell Kimbrough for our theme music

Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm.

Highlights

1:30       Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer

5:45       A monastic text

11:15    Man of letters

14:00    Pesto chango

15:30    Remote control

18:00    Growing pains

23:00    Lamb on the lam

27:15    The rest of the story

Resources

Buy the book

An excerpt at FPR

Brian’s farm and blog

Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer”