From Babylon, With Love

Season 3 is here, my friends! Join Laura and I as we begin our series on C.S. Lewis’s, “The Four Loves.” And I gotta say . . . it’s good to be back. If you like what we’re doing please rate and review us on iTunes so more people can discover the pod! All the love(s).

Thinking well is not easy. And it is coming at a premium these days. I hope you’ll join the inimitable Laura Hashimov and I for this season-ending pod as we chat about Alan Jacobs’ book “How to Think” and the joy of Summer reading!  Once more into the breach, my friends!

Millions of Christians in America are living in alternate realities.  The church has been contaminated by tribalism and individualism.  How do we move forward in a moment like this without losing touch with what’s real?  On this second to last podcast of our second season, Pastor John Hallowell offers us a four-fold approach to finding God and living a real life in a land of alternate realit...

Sometimes it’s just good to take a moment to be thankful.

My friends, this is such an honest and important conversation I think many Christians will be able to resonate with and draw encouragement from. Ms. Laura Batstone (now Mrs. Hashimov!) gives us a candid tour-de-force about life being a single Christian woman into her 30s who is about to tie the knot! Listen in, my friends, there are pearls of wisdom here that every Christian needs to hear. Let’s p...

Trained as voyeurs, consumers, and addicts of images from ever-younger ages, how do we (re-)learn how to see one another and the Lord Himself in a way that deepens our loves and attachments rather than obliterating them?  Rev. Hayden Butler joins us once again on the pod to think through this very challenging set of issues.  Let’s pod!

Easter is the hinge of all reality.  But how do we enter into a deep observance and transformative remembrance of Easter (and Holy Week itself) when we have, we often feel, “heard it all before.”  On this episode, resident Anglican priest of the pod, Hayden Butler, is going to help us think through what it means to truly enter into holy week this year–a year that has been like no...

Self-awareness. Self-improvement. Personal growth. Personal development. Personal progress. Personal productivity. What happens when the paradigms and strategies of self-improvement that have saturated our culture find their way into the church? On this episode, Rev. Butler and I discuss the goal and shape of spiritual growth in an age of self-reflection.

“In spite of the pain and its failures, I love the church.” On this episode of the pod, I am joined by my friend, Pastor Cole Beshore, a third-generation pastor who grew up in one of the largest megachurches in the country and now pastors Ranch Church in South Orange County. Here Cole talks honestly about growing up as a pastor’s kid and how he’s navigated the call of Jesus to love and serve His c...

In lieu of some technical difficulties with our previously scheduled episode this week (don’t worry, it’s still on the way!), I am rolling out an episode that was released previously on our patrons-only channel, Love in the Ruins.  It is just me chatting about the poetry of John Donne.  Hope you enjoy it!  And if you would like to support the podcast with a few bucks and become a patro...

Every year, Rev. Hayden Butler teaches Dante’s Divine Comedy to teenagers. Why? What does a 14th-century poem that very few adults have ever read in full have to teach teenagers–or anyone else for that matter–about life? I’m thrilled to have Rev. Butler back on the podcast to guide us as we journey from earth to hell to heaven and back again.  Say it one more time for the p...

“Here am I, Lord, send me.” Many have read these words in Isaiah, others have imagined their implications, or even said them aloud, a precious few have actually followed through and surrendered everything to the Lord’s call on their lives. It was my great privilege to sit down with Pastor Ray Clancy, one of my true “anamchara” (the old Gaelic word for “soul frie...

A new year has dawned . . . and it’s already off to a rocky start.  How should Christians approach and understand time and its passing?  How do we resist falling into a consumer/productivity experience of time?  What would it mean to experience time as a gift and creation of God?  In this episode, I sit down with Rev. Hayden Butler to think more deeply about a Christian sense of time and how...

“Are we primarily formed by the community of the church or the community of the nation?” As we are poised on the tense precipice of Jan. 20th, I hope this question and the topic of “Christian” Nationalism and the witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in particular, is of interest to many. I am so pleased to be joined by the very thoughtful and winsome Dr. Joel Looper to navigate these waters...