15 August 2018
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Jun 27, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Alissa Wilkinson
Culturally Determined
- First Reformed, Paul Schrader’s new film that takes Christianity seriously
- Schrader’s European art-house influences
- The film contrasts two versions of American Protestantism
- Ethan Hawke’s restrained lead performance
- Spoiler alert! Analyzing the film’s shocking twists
- The intentionally ambiguous ending
- Reaction to the film from the Christian press
Jun 20, 2018 —
William Black & Jemar Tisby
- Jemar’s path from educator to historian
- How racial history shapes the landscape of the Deep South
- The “quiet exodus” of black Christians from white evangelical churches
- Not a “skin problem,” but a “sin problem”
- Jemar: Kindness isn’t just being polite to avoid offense
- Bill explains the historic racial divide within the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Jun 12, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Connie Wang
Culturally Determined
- Why Connie has grown sick of the cultural appropriation debate
- Nicki Minaj and the flattening of Asian cultures
- How social media escalated the cultural appropriation wars
- Why are these fights so often over fashion and food?
- Appropriation, mockery, and Halloween
- The Met Gala and Catholic-inspired fashion
- Who gets to decide that a particular outfit is “okay”?
Jun 7, 2018 —
William Dailey & Ross Douthat
- Ross’s new book, To Change the Church
- The strengths and weaknesses of Ross’s intellectual approach to faith
- Father Bill speaks from Ireland about the country’s recent abortion referendum
- Ross challenges liberal Catholics to explain their logic of doctrinal change
- How marriage, divorce, and communion came back into Catholic conversation
- What will people who read Ross’s book in a hundred years think of it?
TAGS Christianity
May 25, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Massimo Pigliucci
The Wright Show
- What is the Logos?
- The practicality of metaphysics
- Philo of Alexandria’s vision of global harmony
- Plotinus and the connection between human and divine
- The Logos and Christianity
- The Logos as an algorithm
- Why do the laws of physics infallibly work?
- Carl Jung and the Logos (and Jordan Peterson’s Jungianism)
Apr 23, 2018 —
Philip Menchaca & Kelly Baker
- The Ku Klux Klan’s appeal to Protestant America
- How the KKK rationalized a Jewish Jesus
- The Birth of a Nation and the symbology of the burning cross
- How to “love thy neighbor” as a Klansman (answer: very selectively)
- Kelly: The Klan declined, but its politics went mainstream
- Kelly’s search for apocalyptic rhetoric in Klan literature
Mar 8, 2018 —
Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Pater Edmund Waldstein
Culturally Determined
- Why the Mortara case is still provoking argument 150 years later
- Pater Edmund offers a defense of Pope Pius IX
- Integralism and different conceptions of liberty
- What would an integralist Catholic state look like?
- How Pater Edmund became a monk (with a blog)
- The day-to-day life of a modern meditating monk
Feb 5, 2018 —
William Black & Benjamin Park
- The Mormon Church’s new president, 93 year-old Russell M. Nelson
- The decades-long campaign to incorporate the Church into the American mainstream
- Does the Church clash with academic historical study?
- Untangling the fates of remarried Mormons’ souls
- The LDS Church as a contained society within the US
- Why did the first Mormon women choose polygamy?
Oct 29, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Craig Harline
The Wright Show
- Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, 500 years later
- Luther was very hard on himself, and the consequences were huge
- Why Luther’s sermons went viral in 16th-century Germany
- Luther’s mark on future Protestant denominations
- The Diet of Worms and its improbably dramatic aftermath
- Why did Prince Frederick III of Saxony protect Luther?
Aug 22, 2017 —
John Horgan & Robert Wright
The Wright Show
Feb 22, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Micah Redding
The Meaning of Future Life
TAGS Christianity | death | human nature | Islam | Judaism | love | religion | technology | the future | transhumanism
Feb 20, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Mark Van Steenwyk
The Wright Show
- Meet Mark Van Steenwyk, Christian Anarchist
- Mark’s mystical experience at a Bible camp
- The time Mark was diagnosed with demonic possession
- Forms of Christian activism
- Trump makes anarchism more appealing
- Mystical dimensions of political activism
- Getting the attention of Christians via civil disobedience
Jan 19, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Dale Wright
The Wright Show
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | compassion | consciousness | enlightenment | meditation | mindfulness | perception | philosophy | politics | religion | spirituality | war | Zen
Jan 13, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Mark Juergensmeyer
The Wright Show
- How Mark got his start studying under Reinhold Niebuhr
- Using religion to justify violence
- The appeal of ISIS’s apocalyptic vision
- What Obama got right—and wrong—in his response to terrorism
- Will Trump’s war on terrorism lead to another 9/11?
- What would Reinhold Niebuhr say about religion and violence today?
- Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism
TAGS Christianity | Donald Trump | foreign policy | fundamentalism | Islam | politics | psychology | religion | terrorism | violence | war
Dec 18, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- Does Russian thought have anything to contribute to the world?
- Nikolay Fedorov, an eccentric thinker who influenced Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky
- Fedorov’s plan: Immortality for everyone
- “Kinship” as a fundamental property of all matter
- A mass movement for the spiritual unity of humankind
- Vladimir Solovyov’s The Meaning of Love: Sexuality as a path to a Christian utopia
- Christ as the ultimate role model
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | literature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
Dec 2, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Jay Michaelson
The Wright Show
TAGS anger | Buddhism | Christianity | compassion | democracy | Donald Trump | empathy | ethics | happiness | human nature | identity | Islam | Judaism | love | meditation | mental health | mindfulness | moral imagination | politics | psychology | religion | sadness | spirituality | tribalism | Zen
Nov 27, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & Robert Place
TAGS ancient philosophy | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | enlightenment | meditation | mysticism | mythology | occult | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | self
Oct 31, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Pamela Cooper-White
Conversations@Union
TAGS Christianity | Donald Trump | history | mental health | moral imagination | nationalism | politics | psychology | religion | tribalism
Oct 25, 2016 —
Philip Menchaca & Benjamin Zeller
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | death | Donald Trump | economics | psychology | religion | science | spirituality
Oct 19, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Sam Harris
The Wright Show
- Sam Harris, mystic and atheist
- The mystery of consciousness
- Is mysticism more like science than like religion?
- How religion makes progress
- Sam’s case for intolerance
- The root causes of extremism
- Religious and secular reasons to do good
- Ways religion may be closer to the truth than atheism
- A secular approach to death
TAGS agnosticism | atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | cognitive science | consciousness | death | empathy | ethics | evolution | history | Islam | meditation | mind-body problem | mindfulness | mysticism | nationalism | New Atheists | perception | poverty | psychology | religion | science | self | spirituality | tribalism
Oct 18, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Margaret Wertheim
The Wright Show
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | Daniel Dennett | philosophy | physics | religion | science | spirituality
Oct 12, 2016 —
Robert Wright & John Thatamanil
The Wright Show
Oct 9, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Wesley Wildman
The Wright Show
- Wesley explains “transreligious theology”
- What’s religious about religious naturalism?
- Can science help us understand ultimate reality?
- Bringing religious thought and philosophy together
- Be skeptical of spiritual experiences
- Don’t just love your enemies, understand them
- Wesley: “Purpose” isn’t a useful category
TAGS atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | meditation | Paul Tillich | philosophy | physics | psychology | religion | science | spirituality | tribalism
Oct 1, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Stephen Batchelor
The Wright Show
- What Buddhim really is (and isn’t) about
- What various Buddhist traditions have to offer
- The Buddha as a practical philosopher
- How the Buddha revolutionized meditation
- The idea of not-self, and its connection to an ethical life
- Why death is not the end even if there’s no rebirth
- The ethical dimension of enlightenment
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | death | enlightenment | Hinduism | meditation | secularism | spirituality
Sep 17, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- What is Russian cosmism?
- The religious side of cosmism
- Cosmism as a response to the challenges of the 20th century
- Nature as a temporary enemy and eternal friend
- Pavel Florensky, the Russian da Vinci
- Plant life as a spiritual ideal
- The father of the Soviet space program, and his weird spirituality
- Cosmism and transhumanism: Compare and contrast
- Cosmism as a Russian propaganda project
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
Sep 12, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Robert George
The Wright Show
- Why Robby refuses to support Trump
- Is history shaped more by social forces or human agency?
- Robby gives an insider’s view on why Appalachia is Trump country
- The declining influence of religion
- How a lack of humility poisons politics
- Contempt in current political rhetoric
- Robby: Politicians need to get out of the identity politics game
TAGS Christianity | ethics | free will | history | moral imagination | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | tribalism
Aug 3, 2016 —
Benjamin Perry & Emily Brewer
TAGS Christianity | economics | meditation | moral imagination | power | prayer | religion | violence | war
Jul 5, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Steven Nadler
The Wright Show
TAGS ancient philosophy | atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | Donald Trump | enlightenment | ethics | evolution | Judaism | meditation | mysticism | philosophy | politics | religion
Jun 24, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Daniel Kaufman
The Wright Show
TAGS Christianity | ethics | Islam | meditation | mindfulness | moral imagination | philosophy | psychology | religion
Jun 20, 2016 —
Robert Wright
The Wright Show
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | game theory | Islam | meditation | religion | spirituality
Jun 9, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Joseph Blankholm
The Wright Show
Jun 1, 2016 —
David Kyuman Kim & Brian McLaren
Love-Driven Politics
Apr 19, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Gregg Easterbrook
The Wright Show
Mar 6, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Daniel Ingram
The Wright Show
- What is it like to be an arhat?
- Perspectives on the self: It’s nothing, it’s everything
- What enlightenment is, and what’s so great about it
- Dwelling in enlightenment is easy, but getting there can be hard
- Does enlightenment entail moral improvement?
- Can meditation save—or impede salvation of—the world?
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | enlightenment | happiness | Hinduism | meditation | mysticism | psychology | religion | self | spirituality
Mar 1, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Mark Smith
The Wright Show
- Considering the thesis of Mark’s new book Secular Faith
- Creative uses of the Scriptures by pro-choice and pro-life advocates
- What shapes attitudes towards abortion?
- Reinterpreting biblical condemnations of homosexuality
- How cultural change affects religious thought
- How cultural change affects religious institutions
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