The Social Jesus Podcast

Apr 17 2025 52 ep. 17 mins 20
The Social Jesus Podcast artwork

A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice, and what a first-century, Jewish, prophet of the poor from Galilee offers us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.

  Religion & Spirituality
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The Original Good News of Easter

Apr 17 2025 19 mins  
Luke 24:1-12 “The cross has been the symbol of salvation in Christian history for two millennia. The apostle Paul was among the first to define the good news as being about Jesus’ death. Before Paul, there are signals in our sacred texts that the good news was not originally that Jesus was crucified but that the Jesus whom the Romans had crucified was alive! The original good

Peace Through Justice Doesn’t Need A War Horse

Apr 10 2025 16 mins  
Luke 19:28-40 What would our local communities look like if each person simply had enough to thrive and we all were committed to making sure we were taking care of each other? Today, as in the time of Jesus, there are two philosophies of peace in our world. One says, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The other says, “If you want peace, work for justice.” As MLK and so

Mary, Christian Patriachy and the Existence of Poverty

Apr 03 2025 23 mins  
John 12:1-8 Our story this week involving "Mary" was used to historically disparage women leaders within Christianity toward a purely patriarchal form. Characterizing Mary Magdalene as a prostitute advanced the patriarchal goals of disparaging women as somehow "morally inferior" to men, and therefore unfit as leaders in the Western Christian church. This argument is hinges on inco

We Won’t Be Great Until Everyone Is Great

Mar 28 2025 18 mins  
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Today Christians pick something that triggers our own bigotry and attach moral value to it, describing it as sinful when intrinsically there really is nothing harmful or “wrong” involved and we are simply triggered by someone being different than ourselves. A example today would be certain denominations that still refuse to acknowledge women as equals to men

Social Repentance Not Private Piety

Mar 21 2025 15 mins  
Luke 13:1-9 Here in the U.S., we are witnessing the gutting of programs that help our society’s most vulnerable. All of this is so that, under the guise of concern for the national deficit, those in power can grant tax cuts to the billionaire class who are already wealthy beyond their ability to use their wealth in one lifetime. This is compounded by the fact that all of these n

The Courage to Stand Up to Harm

Mar 13 2025 16 mins  
Season 2 Episode 11: The Courage to Stand Up to Harm Luke 13:31-35 All of this causes me to consider those today with the courage to speak out against harsh decisions and brutal acts being perpetrated in the name of government efficiency today. A chainsaw is quite metaphorically being taken to our system, all to grant benefits to wealthy elites who verbalize allegiance to our pre

The Temptations and the Rise of Authoritarianism in America

Mar 06 2025 18 mins  
Luke 4:1-13 The current political environment in the U.S. has given us a different lens to read Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness through as this text, once again, rolls by in the lectionary. Presently we are witnessing the rise of authoritarianism, nationalism, and the weakening of and some feel the fall of democracy in our own society. The politics of the gospel call us to

Lessons of Justice from the Transfiguration

Feb 27 2025 18 mins  
Luke 9:28-36 We are living in a time when systemic protections for the vulnerable among us are being dismantled. Collective sustaining aid is being slashed or terminated every day. All of this channels more money away from the common wealth of the people into the pockets of privileged, propertied, and powerful wealthy billionaires. What does it mean for us as we leave the Christia

Insights on Turning the Other Cheek, Enemy Love, and Judging Others

Feb 20 2025 18 mins  
Luke 6:27-38 “Pam McAllister expressed the tension well as she explain the teachings of Barbara Deming: ‘Barbara wrote about the two hands of nonviolence . . . With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, ‘Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play. I refuse to obey you. I refuse to cooperate with you

The Blessing and Cursing of the Gospel

Feb 13 2025 17 mins  
Luke 6:17-26 “Rather than the gospel being universal good news, the first shall be last and the last shall be first sounds quite the opposite. The equity that the sermon on the plain envisions is a world where there are no more losers and survival comes through our working together. Luke's gospel is for the underprivileged, longing for things to be put right, those present power