Marjorie Kempe, self-proclaimed visionary and a married woman with many children, was a rather infamous street preacher, considered more as being nutty as a walnut tree people than a Divinely-inspired revealer of God's Will. In 1413, she visited the very renowned and highly respected mystic and visionary Julian of Norwich in her cell (she was an anchoress, meaning she lived a life of prayer locked into in a single cell—room—built into a wall of a church) to ask if her visions were genuine. . ...
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For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture
Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Drew Collins, Evan Rosa
Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.
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A vibrant, story-filled look at contemporary spirituality that's fun, contemplative, practical and cultural.
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Discussion of religious movements and the theories and individuals behind them.
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Practical meditations, reflections and contemplative prompts to support your daily adventure of walking the mystical path. Via Mystica is Latin for "the Mystical Way" but you could also translate it as "the Way of Mystery." It embodies my sense that mysticism is a path, a way of life, a journey toward the greatest of goals: union with God. The meditations and exercises presented here are intended to be support for you as your travel your own unique path into the heart of God: your own unique ...
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Published by Matthew Gabriele, Assistant Professor of Humanities at Virginia Tech.
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Political, Ethical, Artistic & Cultural Engagement (PEACE) – a monthly event hosted by Paddington Anglican Church, aimed at serving the community by promoting and cultivating deep conversations about life, the world and everything
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Christ and Pop Culture's network of shows acknowledge the good, the beautiful, and the true in music, movies, television, and the rest of pop culture.
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Love's Braided Dance / Norman Wirzba
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Problem-solving the crises of the modern world is often characterized by an economy and architecture of exploitation and instrumentalization, viewing relationships as transactional, efficient, and calculative. But this sort of thinking leaves a remainder of emptiness. Finding hope in a time of crises requires a more human work of covenant and commi…
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Why You Love Nature (with Howard Thurman)
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Howard Thurman was the great behind-the-scenes spiritual leader of America’s civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was said to carry a copy of Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited with him for inspiration on each march. But Thurman starts by being among the great nature mystics in the Christian tradition. Why do you (like everyone) love nature …
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Ep.0: What is The Heretic Christian Podcast About?
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"...measure these experiences according to the worship they accrue to God and the profit to your fellow Christians..." Julian of Norwich __________ CORRECTION: Late in the episode, and repeated here, I said: If Espousing notions contrary to dogma... I was supposed to also say: "Maybe someone has said you are, or you believe that about yourself." I …
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Can music teach us how to live? In this interview Evan Rosa invites Daniel Chua—a musicologist, composer at heart, and Professor of Music at the University of Hong Kong—to discuss his latest book, Music & Joy: Lessons on the Good Life. Together they discuss the vastly different ancient and modern approaches to music; the problem with seeing music f…
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1. Calling the Elect to the Prayer of Faith
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The Liar is hard at work attempting to destroy the LOGOS and our faith. Christ is the LOGOS; the Elect are His Gospel. The Elect are being called to be Oned with Him in the most powerful form of prayer given to us: Mary's "better part." Here is the Prayer of Faith, the process called Christian Contemplation: a "naked intent, stretching to God." In …
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2. Being His Gospel; Bringing Christ into the World
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The difference between Religion and Mysticism is the difference between Faith and Knowledge. JOHN 14:24 "Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me." In this Episode, Kyrie deals with the question: "If we are Elect and know that because we can connect with the Transcendent, …
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(They wouldn't let me make it episode 2.5 in the list, so just go with the title.) Before embarking on a practice of contemplative prayer, there are three things you should know: 1. What dryness is. 2. What spiritual jealousy is. 3. Why might consolations can vary widely. Kyrie, who likes chatting better than podcasting as she is no professional ta…
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3. A Guide to Contemplation in the 21st Century.
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In earlier episodes we talked about some Christian mystics and some of the experiences associated with a connection to the Divine. Here, in Episode 3a, you get simple directions for how to practice contemplative prayer. You'll also get an example of what it really means to be a "Heretic" Christian". God be with you, Kyrie This pocast is not monetiz…
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How to Read Genesis / Marilynne Robinson & Miroslav Volf
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“The whole of human existence is like some sweet parable told in the most improbable place and circumstances. … God values our humanity. … One of the things that's fascinating about the Hebrew Bible is that it declared and was loyal to the fact that God is good and creation is good.” Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson joins Miroslav Volf to d…
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Poverty / Rev. William Barber & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
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Rev. William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove discuss the political, moral, and spiritual dimensions of poverty. Together, they co-authored White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, and they’re collaborators at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. About Rev. W…
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How to Read Julian of Norwich / Ryan McAnnally-Linz
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Julian of Norwich is known and loved for the lines revealed to her by God, “All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” But beyond the comfort of this understandably uplifting phrase, what are theological and philosophical insights we might learn from this anonymous medieval Christian mystic and anchoress? Ryan …
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How to Read Dallas Willard / Steve Porter
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Dallas Willard (1935-2013) was an influential philosopher and beloved author and speaker on Christian spiritual formation. He had the unique gift of being able to speak eloquently to academic and popular audiences, and it’s fascinating to observe the ways his philosophical thought pervades and influences his spiritual writings—and vice versa. In th…
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Fully Alive: Modern Monasticism & the Topography of the Soul / Elizabeth Oldfield
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What does it mean to be fully alive and at peace with ourselves and our neighbors in the anxiety and fear of contemporary life? Joining Evan Rosa in this episode is Elizabeth Oldfield—a journalist, communicator, and podcast host of The Sacred. She’s author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. Together they discuss life in her mic…
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine of Karma as developed initially among Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in India from the first millennium BCE. Common to each is an idea, broadly, that you reap what you sow: how you act in this world has consequences either for your later life or your future lives, depending on your view of rebirth and trans…
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Political Rage & America's Threat from Within / Elizabeth Neumann
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Elizabeth Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Bush Administration, and came back to the White House again in 2017 to serve in the Trump Administration. Her job was to counter emerging right-wing extremism, fueled by long-standing anger, resentmen…
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Genuine disagreement is vanishingly rare. But to disagree with careful listening, empathy, respect, and independent thinking—it’s an essential part of life in a pluralistic democratic society. In this episode, legal scholar and author John Inazu joins Evan Rosa to talk about his new book, Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Diff…
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I want to be happy. You want to be happy. But maybe our best pathway there comes by focusing instead on "living well.". MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya's book Life Is Hard helps Dave Schmelzer navigate those choices, with a particular look at how it applies when we feel like a failure or when we're hunting for meaning. Mentioned on this podcast: Kier…
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Disillusioned with Faith: Finding Hope in Our Scars / Aimee Byrd
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We live in a time of disillusionment. Trust is waning in the public sphere, religious affiliation is on decline, and some feel a deep tension or ambivalence about their community—whether that’s a region, family, political party, or spiritual tradition. How should we think about the experience of disillusionment, particularly the threat of becoming …
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Black Motherhood: Love & Resistance / Kelly Brown Douglas
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“Black motherhood has consistently been a contested space. Black women have just fought for their rights to be. And so when we say Black motherhood, to me, the reality of Black motherhood itself is the resistance. And we still stand and we claim what it means to be Black mothers. We've got to consistently stand firm trying to raise healthy children…
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Here at The Pocket Contemplative, we do deep dives into some of the richest Christian wisdom one can find about getting close to God. But one revolutionary thinker suggested that, while that's all wonderful and we should learn all we can from such people, these great saints did live in a very different world with very different spiritual dynamics t…
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Theologian of Hope: Remembering Jürgen Moltmann (1926 – 2024) / Miroslav Volf
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On June 3,2024, Jürgen Moltmann died. He was one of the greatest theologians of our time. He was 98 years old. In this episode, Miroslav Volf eulogizes and remembers his mentor and friend. We then share a previously released conversation between Miroslav Volf and Jürgen Moltmann. This episode first aired in April 2021—and it includes Moltmann’s con…
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Mobilizing Hope in Women’s Prison: Discovering Agency, Community, and Creative Resilience / Sarah Farmer
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How do you find hope when you can only see yourself and your future in light of your past mistakes? When you’re certain that everyone on the outside looking in is doing the same, punishing you, immobilizing you, invisibilizing you…? Seems the only way out of that spiral is the “God Who Sees.” Practical theologian Sarah Farmer joins Evan Rosa to dis…
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Peaceable Assembly: Protests, Collective Belonging, and Refuge in a Forgotten Right / John Inazu
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Protests dominate the news. And while we’re familiar with freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and freedom of the press—what about the freedom of assembly? The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—also contains “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” But what exactly does that secure? How does this foundational, but often forg…
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Christian Contemplative Spirituality--alternately called Christian Mysticism--has gone in and out of favor over the millennia, but has rich roots from the Hebrew Bible forward. With help from the work of Carl McColman, Dave Schmelzer will help orient you as you look to navigate this vital, essential stream. Mentioned on this podcast: Carl McColman'…
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire. Fifty years after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity and introduced a policy of tolerating the faith across the empire, Julian (c.331 - 363 AD) aimed to promote paganism instead, branding Constantine the worst of all his predecessors. Julian was a philosopher-emp…
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Desire: How Avarice and Acquisition Distort Our Longing for the Sacred / Micheal O'Siadhail
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"Having lost a sense of the sacred, the only thing we want is acquisitiveness—more of everything. How can we break this vicious cycle of avarice? It seems to me that the only way we can possibly reign this in on ourselves is some retrieval of the sense of the sacred, something beyond ourselves. And I think that relearning humility—realizing that a …
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Start with Curiosity (wisdom on joy and trust from Julian of Norwich)
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Is there a secret of life? Contemplatives of many stripes suggest it surround cultivating a kind of trust and openness that endures through the hardest of times. Dave Schmelzer dives into wisdom on this from the most optimistic of contemplatives, Julian of Norwich (C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton both said she was their go-to contemplative teacher). J…
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How to Read Flannery O'Connor / Jessica Hooten Wilson
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Flannery O’Connor is known for her short stories in which “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” But it’s often those ugly, mean, disgusting, scandalizing, violent, weird, or downright hateful characters in Flannery O’Connor stories that become the vessels of grace delivered. So, how should we read Flannery O’Connor? Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine Univer…
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A World Out of Joint: Pilgrimage and the Possibilities of Homemaking / Ryan McAnnally-Linz
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This conversation is based on a free downloadable resource available at faith.yale.edu. Click here to get your copy today. “We may heed the call of Jesus to follow me and find him leading us right into the home we already have.” (Ryan McAnnally-Linz) What are the possibilities of homemaking in a world out of joint? What does it mean for Christians …
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You Are A Tree: Metaphor & the Poetry of Our Humanity / Joy Marie Clarkson
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Help us improve the podcast! Click here to take our listener survey—5 respondents will be randomly selected to receive a signed and personalized copy of Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. We need the world to understand it. Human embodied experience and material life in the world has a profound effect on our thinking—not just poetry a…
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Stay "Green" as You Age (via Hildegard of Bingen)
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Christianity's most potent and lasting advice on aging well comes from one of its most remarkable contemplatives: Hildegard of Bingen from the 12th century. She was an explosion of creativity: she wrote the first known opera (by hundreds of years). She was an architect, a physician, a poet, a painter, a composer, a theologian and a leader of women.…
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Chinese Political Theology: Protests in Blood Letters, Freedom, and Religion in China Today / Peng Yin
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Help us improve the podcast! Click here to take our listener survey—5 respondents will be randomly selected to receive a signed and personalized copy of Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. "There were a lot of people with moral courage to resist, to protest the communist revolutions, but few of them had the spiritual resource to questi…
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The Transforming Fire of Theological Education: Learning to See the World / Mark Jordan
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Help us improve the podcast! Click here to take our listener survey—5 respondents will be randomly selected to receive a signed and personalized copy of Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. What are the goals of education? Are we shaping young minds or corrupting the youth? Theologian Mark Jordan joins Matt Croasmun for a conversation a…
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Maybe the most-influential Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, had profound thoughts about how our spiritual practice is meant to--even must!--empower our creativity. Dave Schmelzer dives into Eckhart's deep, generative waters here. Mentioned on this podcast: Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, by Matthew Fox…
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The Heart of Theology: Emotions, Christian Experience, & the Holy Spirit / Simeon Zahl
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Can you spare 3 minutes to take our listener survey? After the survey closes, we'll randomly select 5 respondents to receive a free, signed, and personalized copy of Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most. Click here to take the survey! Thank you for your honest feedback and support! “For theology to be worth anything, it must traffic in r…
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A Voice Crying Out: Brown Church & Critical Race Theory / Robert Chao Romero
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There’s a 500-year history of social justice activism that emerged from Christianity in the Americas, and it comes to us through the Brown Church. Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero (Associate Professor of Latina/o Studies at UCLA) joins Evan Rosa to discuss the history of Christian racial justice efforts in the Americas, as well as a constructive and fai…
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Christianity as a Way of Life: Practice & Belief / Kevin Hector
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What would it mean for us to take Christianity seriously as a way of life, a set of practices and ways of being in the world—and not merely a list of beliefs? Theologian Kevin Hector (University of Chicago Divinity School) joins Ryan McAnnally-Linz for a discussion of his latest book, Christianity as a Way of Life. Together they reflect on the prac…
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How Philosophy Helps (with Kieran Setiya)
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Kieran Setiya--a philosopher at MIT who wrote the terrific book Midlife: A Philosophical Guide that Dave Schmelzer talked about on the last episode--joins Dave for a lively conversation about how philosophy can help with our deepest questions and about how it interacts with the spirituality we talk about here. Mentioned on this podcast: Midlife: A …
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Renovating the Heart of Our Politics / Michael Wear
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With unflagging and unwavering hope in our civic life Michael Wear (Center for Christianity & Public Life) wants to renovate the character of Christian political engagement. He’s a former White House and presidential campaign staffer and his new book is called The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life. In thi…
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Asian Americans, Racism, and Capitalism / Jonathan Tran
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What are the economic forces that underly racist thinking? What are the theological dimensions of racism? How does the “political economic distortion of the divine economy” impacts the contemporary experience of and response to racism? In this episode, Jonathan Tran (Baylor University) joins Matt Croasmun to discuss his book, Asian Americans & the …
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Philosophers and theologians offer different answers to how we should feel about the losses we confront in midlife. Kieran Setiya, a philosopher teaching at MIT, wrote a terrific recent book on midlife crisis. Dave Schmelzer highlights some of Setiya's best stuff, including Setiya's takes on missed opportunities, why we can simultaneously regret an…
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Becoming Whole in a Fragmented Age / Anne Snyder
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Imagine a future that brings personal and communal wholeness, a commitment to truth even when it hurts, and the beauty of pursuing integration in the wake of fragmentation. Anne Snyder joins Evan Rosa to talk about her vision and hopes for a whole-person revolution that honors our moral complexity, holds us accountable to virtue, and seeks a robust…
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Listeners Dare: Courage and the Act of Sermon-Listening / Will Willimon
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We often think of speaking up as an act of courage. And of course, there are times when it most certainly is. But what about the courage to listen? The best kind of generous listening is interesting because it seems to acknowledge and create a mutual agency. The courageous, generous listener grants the speaker an authority to have the floor and mak…
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When Dave Schmelzer first started exploring contemplative spirituality, he had a hard time finding teachers who would get pragmatic in the "just do this, and then do this, and then do this, and here's what you should discover" sense. Mo Gawdat has written a bestselling guide along those lines called Solve for Happy. Dave walks us through Gawdat's p…
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Power & American Evangelicalism: Sword or Cross? / Tim Alberta
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American Christianity enjoys a great deal of power and influence at home and abroad. Is the church better for it? Is the world better for it? Or is Christian Nationalism just another idolatry—a temptation to take up the sword instead of taking up the cross? Journalist Tim Alberta (The Atlantic, POLITICO) joins Evan Rosa for a discussion of his new …
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Karl Barth (1886 - 1968) rejected the liberal theology of his time which, he argued, used the Bible and religion to help humans understand themselves rather than prepare them to open themselves to divine revelation. Barth's aim was to put God and espec…
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Advent Love: Prayer, Trauma, & the Loving Gaze of Christ / Bo Karen Lee
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Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; click here to donate today. Part 4 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. Bo Karen Lee discusses how Ignatian spirituality, contemplative prayer, and meditating on the loving gaze and deep compassion of Christ—a love that suffers with—can be a transformative…
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How the Light Gets In: Restlessness, Christ, & Belonging / Graham Ward
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Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; click here to donate today. How does the light get in? Leonard Cohen suggests, "There's a crack in everything / That's how..." Whether from our restlessness, our fear, or our trauma, to see the world rightly might start with the need to acknowledge th…
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Advent Joy: Resistance Against Despair, Celebrating the Beauty of Black Joy / Stacey Floyd-Thomas & Willie James Jennings
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Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; click here to donate today. Part 3 of 4 in our 2023 Advent Series. Stacey Floyd-Thomas presents a vision of Black joy—which the world can't give and the world can't take away. Looking into several depictions of female agency in the Gospels, she outlin…
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Speaking to the Unspeakable: Catastrophe, Silence, and Respect in Aboriginal Australian Life / Stan Grant
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Help the Yale Center for Faith & Culture meet a $10,000 matching challenge for podcast production; click here to donate today. How do you speak to the unspeakable? How does a people connected to place retain their sense of meaning and time when they are displaced and ignored? Indigenous Australian journalist and public intellectual Stan Grant (Mona…
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