The Holy Post

2015 is off to a questionable start as the Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris inspires much hand-wringing in the media (think Bill Maher) and a lively discussion on the  podcast  about secularism, its Christian roots, and its shaky future in an increasingly Muslim Europe.

Welcome to 2015! Skye, Christian and Phil are back talking about movies, worldviews and, you guessed it, the end of western civilization. Plus our friends at Barna Research give their top 10 trends of 2014!

It's Christmas! Check out the new fun ways our atheist and satanist friends are celebrating Jesus's birth this year! Then Phil and Skye are joined by guest Theon Hill to discuss the church's role in addressing systemic racism in a post-Ferguson America. Atheists and Satanists and racists! Oh my!  

It’s the most thought-provoking big budget film in a long, long time. Is it religious? Is it anti-religious? And why did one Christian blogger call it his new favorite  Christmas  movie? It’s  Interstellar  - Christopher Nolan’s $150 million musing on the nature of life, the universe and everything! (Note: This podcast does contain spoilers.)

Skye's back! We hear about his travels, plus open the mailbag and answer a bunch of questions from YOU!

David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group and America’s foremost Christian pollster, joins Phil and Drew Dyck to talk about his new book  Churchless: Understanding Today's Unchurched and How to Connect With Them.

Seth Cohen is a Christian educator who has run schools in inner-city Philadelphia and the Dominican Republic. He’s also a life-long friend of Christian Taylor! So Phil and Christian sit down with Seth to talk about his adventures in teaching kids, running schools, and following God.

Christians are supposed to be big fans of modern-day Israel, right? New Testament scholar Dr. Gary Burge joins Phil and Christian to discuss his thought-provoking and more-than-a-little-bit controversial book,  Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians . In the words of our friend Justin Brierley, “It’s sure to be a sparky one!!”

Is religion inherently violent? Will video games in the future only make us angrier? Can evangelicals train lawyers in Canada? And why would six people go to Hawaii to spend 8 months in a plastic bubble? (The answer has something to do with Mars.) All this and more on the podcast this week!

The state of Kentucky is messing with Ken Ham's ark, and Berkeley students are messing with Bill Maher's commencement speech. Plus Malaysia bans Halloween for being (wait for it) TOO CHRISTIAN! And some final thoughts about the cautionary tale that is Mark Driscoll.

An atheist calls Phil's work "contemptible" and then doesn't want to talk about it, then a Malaysian man in hot water for encouraging Muslims to pet puppies inspires a deeper conversation about legalism and the world's second most popular religion. It's sure to be a bumpy ride on the podcast this week...

A bad week for Mark Driscoll. Hillsong Church doesn't want to talk about gays. Friend of the show John Dickson threatens to eat his Bible, and theologian Peter Enns wants us to take it less literally. Or seriously. Or something. On the podcast this week!

Old Testament scholar and friend of the show John Walton wrote the  book (well, 450 page commentary) on everyone's favorite book of the  Bible, Job! What? It's not your favorite book? Well maybe it  deserves a deeper look! Plus a report from the Department of How NOT  to Share Your Faith.

Ben Affleck takes on Bill Maher, Harry Potter converts to  Christianity, and Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis) takes on  Christianity Today editors whilst arguing for a new "atheistic"  Christianity. It's crazy, kooky fun on the podcast! (And not a  single butt joke.)

It's been an interesting week for Bob and Larry in veggie-land, inspiring Phil to tell the whole story of how he and his characters parted ways, and the many attempts made over the last decade to bring them back together. It's a story we guarantee you've never heard before!

Journalist/blogger Camerin Courtney joins Phil and Skye on the podcast to talk about men behaving badly in the NFL and on college campuses, plus an app that brings levitical atonement to a smartphone near you!

The NFL is having a bad week, no more Dalai Lamas, and Bill Maher goes on a pro-Christian rant?!? Truly the end of western civilization is at our door!

Why is British PM David Cameron on a search for "British values?" What does neuroscience have to do with discipleship? And why is "chunking" Skye's new favorite word? All that - plus "fatal buttocks injections" - on this week's podcast!

It's been a year since Miley Cyrus made "twerking" a part of awkward dinner conversations everywhere, and Phil forced himself to watch the VMA Awards to see what the kids are up to this year. Plus, does religion actually hurt marriages? Say it ain't so, Joe! This week on the podcast!

Phil has some thoughts about Robin Williams, plus the gang covers news stories suggested by listeners and responds to listener mail about the Mark Driscoll/Michael Gungor brouhaha!

Pastors go wild and singer/songwriters go theologically off the rails. Or do they? The strange cases of Mark Driscoll and Michael Gungor, and what they tell us about the state of evangelicalism. Drew Dyck joins Phil and Skye for the conversation!

Recorded in front of a very enthusiastic audience at the Okoboji Bible Conference in Arnolds Park, Iowa, this special episode tells the story of Phil's great grandpa and the founding of the conference with Phil's mom Scottie May, plus president of the Christian & Missionary Alliance (Phil & Skye's denomination) John Stumbo tells his incredible story and talks about the future of denominations.

Should Christian films be free? Should we ignore all scientists? Do religious children lose their ability to sort fact from fiction? And why is our favorite Satanist jumping on the Hobby Lobby bandwagon? This week on the podcast!  (This episode was edited to remove a story that was later shown to be untrue.)

Phil breaks down and says the word "Kardashian," girls at Comic-Con  say "no touchy!" and an account of one woman's journey from  Charismatic Catholicism to atheism to...?  It's another fun week on  the Phil Vischer Podcast!

NASA is just dying to find aliens, a Texas pastor dies for a cause, recent polls tell us we're more liberal than Jesus, and Jews are surprisingly cool in America!