The Pugcast

Today Chris introduces Tom and Glenn to the Shakers--America's favorite utopian sect. If you know anything about them you probably associate them with furniture, oval nesting boxes, and the song Simple Gifts.

At their height during the Second Great Awakening there were 6,000 of them living in nearly 20 communities scattered from Maine to Kentucky. Today they are the darlings of liberalism because they renounced the household-economy, private property, and even marriage.

Naturally, this meant that they also renounced procreation. They believe heaven had come to earth with the second advent of Christ--this time as a woman--in the person of their founder Mother Ann. They believed that God had male and female natures and that the Fall of Adam and Eve in Eden had something to do with sex. Weird stuff, Gnostic too.

You can learn more about them in the many museums that now preserve their artifacts. If you want to speak with real Shakers, you better hurry, there are only 2 left and they're elderly.

In some ways the themes that characterized Shakerism are still with us, and some of them even seem to be growing more popular among the young in evangelicalism.

The show was recorded at Elicit Brewing, a new brewpub in Manchester, CT that the guys have wanted to try out. They found a quiet corner and everything was going swimmingly until about 3/4 of the way through when someone at the pub decided it would be a good idea to blast the music. The guys are sorry for yet another noisy show--they won't go back there again.

 

In today's show Tom, Glenn, and Chris are joined by Aaron Renn, former (but perhaps not), publisher of the newsletter for men with over 5,000 subscribers, The Masculinist.

The guys met in New Haven, Connecticut, right down the street from Yale, at Modern Apizza--one of the top rated pizzarias in America. The conversation was free-flowing and somewhat rambling, but there are a number of gems for you to take away.

Durning the conversation a waitress spills some beer on Chris's laptop, but never fear!--the top was closed and the machine escaped unharmed. (But you'll hear the cry of dismay from the waitress.)

Sound is much better than in recent episodes. The Pugsters hope you enjoy the show!

Today's show comes to you from deep in the Pugcast bunker. This episode is about the illiberal hostility of liberals directed towards conservatives  in higher education.

Glenn is away with family for Christmas, so Tom and Chris invited Racer X to join them. (He's named Racer X because of Chris's nostalgia for Speed Racer--a cartoon he watched as a kid in the early 70s.)

Racer X is a conservative and a graduate student currently studying in at an undisclosed secular university. Tom, Chris, and Racer X discuss their experiences as conservatives in academe, and all three agree that things are worse today than when Tom and Chris were in graduate school.

BTW, Racer X's voice is distorted for the show. (Yes, things are so bad that we resorted to witness protection techniques to disguise X's identity.)

In today's show Glenn takes the Pugcast gang into the folklore and reported sightings of vampires in New England! As Glenn shows, you don't need to visit Transylvania for vampire legends--we have plenty of material to work with in the good ol' USA. 

Tom and Chris reflect on the vampire stories from both theological and pastoral perspectives. Glenn informs them that he also has werewolf and witch sightings to share in future episodes of the Pugcast!

You've probably heard of "Intersectionality". How could you miss it? It is the new magical formula for social justice that promises to make the world a better place.

The Pugcast crew are doubtful. In fact, they're more than doubtful, they don't like it at all. Today on the show they discuss its premise and the deleterious consequences for those institutions that try to enforce it.

This week the Pugsters interview Brian Patrick Mitchell, Eastern Orthodox theologian and friend of C. R. Wiley. Dr. Mitchell discusses the role of a peculiar strand of Platonism championed by Origen and later by Maximus the Confessor, and how it contradicted the Hebraic understanding of Male and Female in the Alexandrian wing of Christianity. Dr. Mitchell believes that this particularly pernicious strand of Platonism is back, and is growing more influential in all branches of the church.

 

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The Pugsters are pleased to be joined by Ken Boa for today's show. 

Ken is the author of many books, and his most recent book is published by IVP. He's also a long-time friend of Glenn. Ken was in town for Glenn's ordination service at First Church of Christ Wethersfield, (a historic congregational church that was once attended by Jonathan Edwards). Ken also earned one of his doctorates at Oxford University--which gives him something to talk about with Tom. (Not that they needed any help talking.)

The conversation with Ken took place with a "live audience" and while it centered on the theme of Ken's new book, it was a free ranging one.

Here's a link to First Church in Wethersfield (https://www.firstchurch.org/) and here's a link to Ken's latest book at Amazon: Shaped by Suffering Finally, here is a link to Ken's webpage. kenboa.org

In today's show the Pugsters are in lock-down, like the rest of the world. But because of the wonders of modern technology that's  not held them back from recording a show.! They've dialed in remotely from various undisclosed locations in North America to discuss the history of Christian witness during times of plague.

Glenn leads the discussion, making sure that Tom and Chris keep the historical facts in mind during the discussion. They discuss the Christian origin of hospitals, the advances in medicine that we now enjoy, the martyrdom of early Christians who ministered to the dying, and they even reflect on the good uses of technology that we ought to be grateful for.

As an added bonus we actually have video available of the three mugs of the pugs. That video will be posted to the Theology Pugcast Facebook page.

In today's show Tom talks about how God's saving presence enters into the full range of our creaturely reality (finite, limited, fallen, with even death) and creates life and hope, not by denying or escaping reality, but by transcending it, in a way only the Christian God is able to.

As usual Glenn and Chris chime in from time to time.

If you'd like to see the Pugsters, a Zoom edition of the show has been posted to the Facebook Pugcast fanpage!

In this episode Tom introduces the topic of the intellectual fashion of making ‘present’ experience that which has utmost significance. He further shows how this idea has been wedded to the notion that the past has little significance other than being an outmoded relic of evil and oppression. This has contributed to current strands of moral zealotry unleashed against symbols and monuments from the past as well as an all out war on civilization. Chris and Glenn add further insights which shed light on this fashion from a variety of angles, making for a fascinating conversation on the topic.

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