More recent Christian contemplatives like Thomas Merton famously have discovered that what they're learning has a lot in common with what contemplative Buddhists know. Christina Roberts and Ryan Bauers commissioned Dave Schmelzer to do a "book report" along these lines, and he chose Robert Wright's (he's a journalist with The New Republic) provocatively-named book "Why Buddhism is True" (not, as Wright points out, in a religious sense, but as a description of how meditation impacts our consciousness for the better). Christina, Ryan and Dave have a vibrant conversation about what Dave reports.

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

New Yorker article: Thomas Merton, the Monk Who Became a Prophet, by Alan Jacobs 

• New Yorker obituary of William Goldman

One of Blue Ocean Faith's founding perspectives is "My drive to judge other people is a big problem." Yet it comes across to us differently in today's ever-more polarized world. As was pressed by our conversation about Ken Wilber and our conversation with Doug Pagitt, what does it look like to embrace people very different from you while also living out your convictions? Christina Roberts, Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer discuss.

Mentioned in Today's Podcast: 

Doug Pagitt just finished a remarkable, pre-midterms bus tour--that was covered by the New York Times and the USA Today and other media outlets--called Vote Common Good. His idea? To tour red states in order to call his fellow evangelicals back to their faith and away from the madness of--for, they say, religious reasons--supporting Donald Trump and his candidates. Doug talks passionately with Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer about the need for faithful progressive evangelicals to get their voice into the public sphere. 

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

Ken Wilber is a popular theorist for some in the post-evangelical crowd. He has a fascinating theory of the evolution of consciousness that has overlap with the Stage Theory we talk about here. And he wrote a book called Trump and a Post-Truth World where he applies his theory of consciousness to how we got to a Trump, post-truth presidency. (Spoiler: He lays a good deal of the blame on liberals and offers a clarion call to liberals about what leadership might look like.) It makes for a dynamic conversation between Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer.

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

• Blue Ocean Faith's "Giving Tuesday"

What I'm Into:

• The Borowitz Report

Francine Kiefer, the congressional correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, has been our unofficial political pastor over the life of this podcast. On this, her fourth visit with us, she gives Dave Schmelzer and Ryan Bauers political and cultural perspective even as she dances a victory dance that her previous prediction that we could trust democracy to work seems to be bearing out.

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

• Blue Ocean Faith's "Giving Tuesday"

• Carl Meaderis

Christina Roberts, Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer have all changed and grown in their experience of faith. The Bible was a fixed anchor of a certain sort earlier in their journey. What sort of benefits and challenges does it offer further down the road?

Mentioned in Today's Podcast 

Books:

• Peter Enns: The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It

Podcasts:

• The Pete Enns Podcast

What I'm Into:

• Netflix: The Haunting of Hill House

• The Hero's Journey and a Fresh Christianity, Part 1

What I'm Into

• A Scary Time, by Lynzy Lab