Stranger Things, armed by Netflix's marketing might, is a water cooler phenomenon. Some high school kids watched the entire second season between it dropping at midnight and when they went (late) to school the next morning. Dave (sans Tom) talks about why Stranger Things has so captivated the cultural conversation. He's joined by a fascinating roundtable: Sarah Oh (a puppeteer with the JIm Henson Company as well as being a standup comic and actress), Trudy Choi (who publishes the Millennial Hotlist, a monthly trend newsletter) and Dave's high school kids, Claire and Pat, who will give us a view from that world. (A note: The first 20 minutes are spoiler free. After that, you're on your own.)

Our last podcast, about JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis got a big response, perhaps because so many churchgoers--like Tom and Dave--can relate to all of their peers reading and talking about those two Christian icons. But new generations bring new icons to churchgoers, of whom Bono is perhaps the most notable. What is it about us as people and as Christians that creates these sorts of idols? And is "idol," in the theological sense, the perfect word?

JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, close friends and Oxford colleagues, set the terms of the God-infused imagination for the last part of the 20th century--and then were revived in the 21st with blockbuster movies of their works and, in Tolkien's case, with successful imitators like JK Rowling and George RR Martin. Dave and Tom rethink how their initial impressions of Tolkien and Lewis have deepened and changed, and how such imaginative visions function in our current political and cultural moment.

Charles Park's parents saw a fifth of their fellow Koreans die in the Korean War. Adey Wassink grew up surrounded by Holocaust survivors. They've discovered that such massive trauma affects how a whole generation can process emotions or pain, which then passes on the trauma to their children and even their children's children in ways that can feel crazy-making. But this isn't just about Koreans and Jews. How do one generation's traumas change everything for the next?

Tom let Dave sit in on a rip-roaring conversation about Charlottesville among his interracial family, some of whom live in North Carolina, some of whom have gotten doctorates studying race related issues.

John ZuHone is a Harvard astrophysicist who grew up in a conservative Christian home that believed in a 6,000-year-old universe. Still a Christian, he has profound observations about what the latest discoveries say about the universe we're living in. 

American Christians are at a combative and polarized place. Dave wrote an article recently which, provocatively, talked about how any of us navigate finding a living God in a world where perhaps we think some other Christians "suck"--and we suspect they think the same of us. Dave and Tom talk about this and related topics like: what does it look like to be cheerful in this polarized world?

David P. Gushee is, if it's possible!, a big-cheese Christian ethicist. After his 2014 book Changing Our Minds--which chronicles a process of rethinking LGBTQ inclusion in evangelical churches--he entered a new, post-evangelical world. Many Blue Ocean churches are familiar with this process. Dave and Tom have a rich conversation with Dr. Gushee.

This last year has been quite a moment for Indian and Pakistani comedians to shine as they explore first-generation immigrant issues, connecting to parents from very different upbringings, and what it's like to feel "other" from mainstream culture. It turns out that these address things everyone experiences. Tom, Dave and guest Manisha Munshi explore this new cultural moment.