The Uncensored Unprofessor

A now-common take: Paul corrupted the simple and loving message of Jesus. Jesus was about care of neighbor while Paul infected that ethic with religion. So Paul is the one who established traditional, and now passé, Christianity. But was Paul really different from Jesus? How was Paul true to Jesus? The answers could build or wreck Christian faith.

Is beauty only in the eye of the beholder or does beauty factually exist? Lord Zeitgeist the uglifier teaches us to block out the existence of beauty, and I give some examples of how IT does this. What does graffiti do to people's experience of reality? How does graffiti mirror the diseased nature of society's soul? Why does beauty require a sensitive soul, a patient soul? What is a mere aesthetic? And how is beauty inextricably woven with goodness? Take some time to consider this critical Christian topic with me!

Part 4 in my hard questions series. Is my faith pure enough? Good enough? Sincere enough? These are common questions in our confusing era. But what does the Bible have to say to us about faith in God? How should we process the Bible's warnings? Also in this episode I speak personally about the soaring cost of higher education. To whom and where has all that moolah gone? 

Last week I watched Frozen 2 with my grandaughter. How did she and I react? What was funny? What was insightful? How did the "cast" of actors do? What went wrong? What was stereotypical? What philosophical messages did Disney jamb down? Listen and laugh with me. (Originally a Premium listeners' episode.)

How can you get your kids to think critically about Christianity? What are apologetics? How might believers go about standing for truth in our emotion-driven society? What are compassionate compromisers and terrifying truth tellers? What's it like to be a woman doing apologetics from a conservative wing in the church? This is my delightful interview of Hillary Morgan Ferrer, general editor and author of Mama Bear Apologetics.

We are meme-barded with the following, "all religions are just different paths to the same mountain top," "all religions want salvation," and "all religions are mystical at heart." But when we look carefully do those hold up? What two facets of western life drive all those memes? What is the de-facto western religion? Let's laugh together even while we process carefully. 

We are meme-barded, "Science has disproved Christianity!" Is that true? Can science disprove something it has no capacity to measure? How might we think about science and religion as different disciplines to benefit humanity? What are the limitations of science? Truth is truth, but there are different ways to get at, and realize, truth.

Most Christians do death just like unbelievers: avoidance, aversion, escape, pretending as though it's just not that real. But Jesus is Lord of everything, even death. What if we gave our death—now—to God as a gift? How might we go about that? What would that look like? What would the effect of that be like?

Our normal default is to consider guilt a bad thing. In Christ, however, it can be a glorious thing. Why is that? And what should we do about collective guilt? Are we supposed to feel guilty for the past sins of our forebears? Specifically, I consider the nation of Germany and whether it should continue to feel guilty for the Holocaust. What does prolonged guilt do to an entire nation?

The best, worst, and most newsworthy events, things, movies, discoveries, and items from 2019. I also note some highlights and low-lights of the U.U. podcasting year.