We invite our friends into informal discussions, and record them to share with you!
This week Karl, Jared, and Laurie continue their discussion about charity and justice, paying special attention to Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett’s article “7 Hebrew Words and Phrases Every Activist Should Know.” You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
This week Karl, Jared and Laurie discuss the 50th anniversary of Lyndon B. Johsnon’s war on poverty, using Zachary Karabell’s’s article in The Atlantic as a jumping off point. Then we talk about the baptism of Christ in the Gospel of John. You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
This week Karl and Laurie talk about the growing movement to legalize marijuana, and what the church’s reaction should be, using David Brook’s piece “Weed: Been There, Done That” as a jumping off point. They also pull Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Slate piece, “David Brooks’ Polluted ‘Moral Ecology’” into the discussion. Then they go on to discuss baptism in light of this coming Sunday’s lectionary reading, Matthew 3:13-17. You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
In this special edition of Word and Table, Karl interviews Ruben Herrera about the interrelation between community organizing and the church. Ruben has long been a force in Columbus, building a diverse community of activists who work on diverse issues. Most recently he’s been involved in the effort to get Wendy’s to sign on to the Fair Food Program. You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
Program note – we will be taking the holidays off, and resume broadcasting after January 1st.
This week Karl, Jared and Ben talk about the findings of the General Social Survey, which shows that most Americans are wary of each other. How can we see Jesus in other people if we’re afraid of them? And what can the church do to help restore trust to American society. Our conversation continues into our take on the reading from Isaiah for this Sunday. You can listen to the podcast here or subscribe through the iTunes store.
This week Karl and Laurie suss out whether a Christmas tree with nothing but alternative gifts under it would be sad, and by alternative gifts we don’t mean fu manchu moustaches or pocket watches. We mean charitable donations made in the names of the people we love. Do we break with the spirit of Christmas when we give these gifts, or make Christmas more meaningful? Join us as we talk it out, and discuss this week’s Gospel. You can listen to the podcast here or by downloading it through the iTunes store.
Both Karl and Laurie are bored with worship as is, and are looking for ways to reinvigorate church and to make it more truly collaborative. This week they turn to Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s paperless music efforts and consider what it would mean for our churches to take the emphasis off of music performance and place it instead on collaborative singing. Their conversation dovetails into the readings for Christ the King Sunday, and the idea of status negotiations, and the Christian call to surrender status to other people. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
Here’s a link to the All Saint’s company’s Music that Makes Community videos: http://www.allsaintscompany.org/resources#videos
Laurie, Ben, and Karl talk about the current fad for cleansing regimens, especially in the light of the tragedy in the Philippines, where more than 10,000 people are estimated dead following last weekend’s typhoon. Do our attempts to purify our bodies represent a kind of private piety that ignores the larger needs of the world? Or are they a type of spiritual training that make us more capable of compassion and giving the world hope? This week’s reading from Isaiah fits the discussion perfectly. You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing to it through the iTunes store.
Here’s the link to the reading from Isaiah.
And here’s the link to the Shulevitz article in The New Republic.
Karl and Jared have one of the deepest, most thoughtful, and intense discussions of their friendship when they start discussing Luke 20:27-38, which they both agree is the Gospel reading that keeps on giving. But first, they wonder if they should see Ender’s Game, given Orson Scott Card’s homophobic public statements, and talk about the ethics of media consumption in general while discussing Alyssa Rosenberg’s article on vulture, “Ender’s Game, Chris Brown, and the Slippery Slope of Ethical Pop-Culture Consumption.” Do our fantasies matter? Do they shape who we are? And does imagining the Kingdom of Heaven help us come any closer to it, or help us to avoid the ethical pitfalls of our lives here and now. You can listen to the podcast here or by subscribing through the iTunes store.
Taking our premise from all the bad sitcoms episodes that come out at this time of the year, we present a very spooky Word and Table. Karl reveals that he’s a Halloween hater. Ben and Jared put on their masks and scare him with their love of Halloween. Ben talks about the triduum of Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls. Nietzsche gets referenced. So does Indiana Jones. Then we find a way of talking about the masks that Zacchaeus wears in this week’s Gospel Reading. We bob for metaphorical apples and a witch flies across the face of the moon. Join us by listening to the podcast here or downloading it through the iTunes store.