Existential Happy Hour

I want to start a rumor about a place in Minnesota where the people know salvation not by confession or creed but by tomatoes and dirt and the light of the sun and the rhythms of the moon. I want to tell you a story about a village where people of all ages live in relationship with each other, and with the earth and with the river and with the trees. But before you can understand t

Deck the halls and make the yuletide gay, my friends! It's time once again for a special holiday edition of the show. A Very Existential Christmas weaves together poems, prayers, and stories in a unique exploration of Christmas without God. We begin by deconstructing the myth of Santa Claus before a brief commercial break and then come back for a poem, a short sermon I preached one

In this episode I talk with Jarrod K. Anderson about nature, death, and the universe. Jarrod is a storyteller, poet, and creator of the wildly popular nature podcast The Cryptonaturalist. I found Jarrod through his online poems and his book Field Guide to the Haunted Forest (which is worth purchasing for the title alone.) The language he uses to make meaning in a meaningless univer

When I was a good Christian, I spent a lot of time thinking and talking about my worldview. It was an important part of identity-formation in my Evangelical faith communities. In this episode we revisit the idea of worldview, and talk about the evolution I have experienced as I have sought what is real. We begin with excerpts out of my own Personal Statement of Faith (from when I w

Pausing at the end of a hot and lonely summer to talk about making meaning, making content, and falling in love with a planet that is bursting into flames.

I catch up with my friend Emily Maynard, a fellow surviver of religious bullshit who is now working to help other people live free and meaningful lives. We talk about growing up in American fundamentalism and purity culture, why therapy matters, what we mean when we talk about God, and the everlasting bullshit of the Gospel Coalition, and why people are leaving toxic Churches. We a

In this conversation, I talk with post-theist theologian / writer / educator Maria French about what it means to be a post-Christian person of faith. We share stories from our early years of childlike belief, our struggles to overcome indoctrination and find freedom, and our adventures in theology on the other side of belief in God. I'm so glad I got to connect with Maria about the

Today I'm talking with Dr. Ursual Goodenough about cells, nature, religion, and God. As a scientist and a religious naturalist, she has so much wisdom and perspective on finding the sacred in the ordinary miracle of biological life. If you are curious about finding a way to think about divinity outside of traditional theistic God constructs, you're not going to want to miss this co

Seven J is a speaker, a mentor, and artist. In this episode we listen to some tracks off of his latest album "Sunday Mourning" and hear his experience of racism and corruption and spiritual abuse in the name of the church. I’ll give you a warning at the beginning, this is a painful story, and it may be difficult for those of us who have had abuse and trauma in our own lives. Seve

Today I am very happy to introduce you Dr. Anthony Pinn. Dr Pinn is an author and thinker, a scholar of religion, and leader in the fields of African American Religious Studies as well as Humanist Theology. His writing on African American humanist theology has profoundly shaped my thinking about God over the past two years, and it was an honor to have this conversation with him. In