The Subtext

We’re doing a temperature check of different cultural artifacts, including the UFC Freedom 250 fight, open theism, the gift of anger, and skinny culture.

This week on The Subtext, Savannah and Lee do a full cultural temperature check. They react to the UFC Freedom 250 chaos (yes, including that post-fight interview), dig into a listener’s question about Open Theism and whether God actually knows how the story ends, explore why anger gets genderized, and wade into the online debate around ultra-thin bodies and who gets to say something. It's theology, body politics, and combat sports…all in one episode! Just another day for us.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

⁠The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul⁠

⁠Please Use AI by Shawn Smucker⁠

⁠Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke⁠

⁠Suzanne Stabile on No Small Endeavor⁠

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When the world feels like it's ending, some people buy bunkers, some people move to Argentina, some people stop reading the news entirely. How should Christians behave in the face of existential dread?

Paradise got renewed for a third season, and we're using it as an excuse to ask a question we've all been quietly avoiding: how do you cope when the threat is real? In this episode, Savannah and Lee dig into a Hulu thriller about who gets saved when civilization collapses, Annie Jacobsen's minute-by-minute account of nuclear war, a billionaire building escape routes out of the country he helped shape, and one man in Ohio who decided the only sane response was to stop paying attention entirely. What do we do with existential dread? For those of us with faith, what are we actually supposed to do with it?

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Kevin Morby

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

Paradise on Hulu

The Truman Show

Allison Russell on No Small Endeavor⁠

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

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When a cage fight lands on the White House lawn, it's worth asking… what exactly are we celebrating?

On June 14, 2026 (Flag Day, Trump's 80th birthday, and the eve of America's 250th anniversary) the White House South Lawn will host something it never has before: a UFC cage fight. We're going beneath the spectacle to ask what it actually means when the symbols we use to celebrate a nation reveal something uncomfortable about who that nation has become.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Kin by Tayari Jones

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We have a substitute teacher on today's episode! Lee is out of town, so Savannah called upon All the Buried Women co-host Beth Allison Barr to step in. The trad wife dream might look beautiful on camera, but what if you actually have to live it?

What happens when a woman who sells the fantasy of "traditional" womanhood wakes up and has to actually live it? Using Yesteryear as a jumping-off point, Savannah sits down with historian and author Beth Allison Barr to dissect the trad wife movement, what it promises, what it erases, and what women actually lost before they had the legal right to say no.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

All the Buried Women podcast

For All Mankind on Apple TV

A Rome of One's Own by Emma Southon

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

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You asked, we answered. From how Savannah and Lee became friends to whether Jesus is God (no big deal), this episode covers the questions YOU asked. We get into faith and doubt, how to stay hopeful when the world feels chaotic, what it looks like to do ministry well right now, and the books that have shaped us most spiritually. 

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder

In Good Company: The Church as Polis by Stanley Hauerwas

Bonus: Stanley Hauerwas on No Small Endeavor

Brother to a Dragonfly by Will D. Campbell

Who Will Be A Witness byDrew G.I. Hart

The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone

Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible by Willie James Jennings

Emilie Maureen Townes books

A More Christlike Word by Bradley Jersak

Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd

Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner

Mighty Poplar

Stephen Wilson Jr.

The Human Cost of AI Part 1 - No Small Endeavor

The Human Cost of AI Part 2 - No Small Endeavor

The Friendship Recession - The Subtext

Your Favorite Musician Isn't Real - The Subtext

How the Story Ends by Savannah Locke

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Dr. Erin Calipari thinks we're getting a lot wrong about addiction, so she and her lab are working to change that by conducting research that could save lives and destigmatize unhelpful narratives. In this episode, we dig into The Pitt's portrayal of high-functioning addiction and what it gets right that most TV gets wrong. 

We sit down with Dr. Erin Calipari to unpack what addiction actually is at the molecular level, and why so much of what society believes about it is not just wrong, but harmful. From the brain's hijacked learning systems to the gender-specific realities of addiction, Dr. Calipari breaks down the gap between cutting-edge science and the policies, stigmas, and drug wars shaping real lives.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Follow Erin!

Euphoria on HBO

Slow Horses on Apple TV

Flight of Passage by Rinker Buck

Down the Drain by Julia Fox

The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu

The Pitt on HBO

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What happens when the Bible becomes a stage prop for national identity instead of a text that interrogates it?

This episode explores “America Reads the Bible,” a high-profile event where political leaders, actors, and influencers recited Scripture from the nation’s capital, and, drawing on Bonhoeffer’s warning about reading the Bible for ourselves instead of against ourselves, Savannah and Lee examine how the same text is used to fuel both nationalism and its critique, alongside debates like Tennessee’s Ten Commandments bill.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Flight of Passage: A Memoir by Rinker Buck

The Congruent Life by C.E. Jarnagin

Running Point on Netflix

Slow Horses on Apple TV

Eboo Patel on No Small Endeavor

AJ Levine on No Small Endeavor Live

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Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide is a brutally honest soundtrack to growing up, drifting away, and figuring out how to make peace with the place you come from.

This episode dives into The Great Divide, the latest record from Noah Kahan, and unpacks its themes of home, relationships, love, and friendship. In it, they explore their own connections to their hometowns, Wendell Berry’s hot take about automobiles, and Kahan’s own eschatology (that he may or may not know about).

Things we mentioned in this episode:

The Great Divide album by Noah Kahan

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Alabama I Am Bound by Walker Burroughs

Out of Your Car, Off Your Horse by Wendell Berry

Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth

Center Church by Tim Keller

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Are our shrinking attention spans rewriting the rules of storytelling?

This week on The Subtext, we dig into the claim that streaming platforms like Netflix are deliberately dumbing down storytelling to accommodate distracted viewers. What is being lost when stories are engineered for half-watching? Are we shaping content around distraction, or training ourselves to expect it? And in a world where story is increasingly reduced to “content,” what does it mean to tell something true, meaningful, and worth paying attention to?

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Trust Me on Netflix

Waiting for God by Simone Weil

Jefferson Fisher on Diary of a CEO

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From a Gen Z grunge pop artist’s critique of Bible interpretation to politics to the Artemis II mission, God had a big week in pop culture.

This week on The Subtext, we unpack a wave of God-talk across pop culture, from Sofia Isella’s haunting critique of biblical “context,” to Paula White-Cain’s eyebrow-raising comparison of Trump to Jesus, to Perez Hilton’s post-near-death approach to scripture. We also zoom out (literally!) with a powerful Easter message from the Artemis II crew that reframes faith, humanity, and our place in the universe.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey 

There There by Tommy Orange

Cross Vision by Gregory A. Boyd 

Jesus was a Feminist by Leonard Swidler 

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