IMR Podcast with Glanz & Jerončić

The main theme of this episode concerns the ubiquity of interpretation or hermeneutics. As Oliver and Ante stress in the beginning, there is no dimension of being in the world that does not have an interpretive dimension to it, ranging from ordinary acts of orientation and judgments on a daily basis to broader considerations about the meaning of texts, societal events, and life in general. In deve...

This time around, Oliver and Ante take a slightly different track by tackling the theme of health and fitness, sharing some of the lessons learned concerning fasting, the psychology of fitness, exercise protocols, diet, and wholeness in general. While their sharing should not be taken as medical advice, they hope to share some insights and encouragement to people finding themselves on different st...

This guest episode features the psychiatrist Dr. Torben Bergland on the topic of fanaticism. What is fanaticism? How prevalent is it? What are the best angles to explore it? Is it a matter of cognitive closure or a type of psychopathology? If neither, then what is it? Could the concept be wielded as powerplay where others, simply by virtue of being different than us, get labeled so? How is it rela...

The story of Cain and Able has been explored through many angles, each adding to a rich history of interpretation of the narrative. In this episode, Oliver and Ante take a fresh look at it, trying to attend to the multiple meanings the text affords and how that, in turn, might offer some important life and spiritual lessons. Episode theme: 06:20 CONNECT WITH US Email Website * * * * * NEW TO THE P...

All in all, this is a debrief episode where Ante and Oliver look back at 2023, share some lessons learned, reflect on the nature of resolutions, and consider some of the promises and decisions for the coming year. CONNECT WITH US Email Website * * * * * NEW TO THE PODCAST? In this podcast, we engage in free-ranging conversations on life, faith, philosophy, ethics, relationships, culture, experienc...

Taking Ante's recently published chapter as their starting point, Oliver and Ante discuss some of the ways in which marriage, eschatology, and ethics intersect. In the process, they address a number of questions. What is the difference between philosophical (i.e., common sense), Christian, and eschatologically-centered approaches to marriage? What does each bring to the table? Why do we even need...

In this second part of a two-episode mini-series, the conversation turns to Oliver's approach to life and work, revisiting the reasons why he finds the notion of "productivity" unhelpful, only to discuss the role of passion, its relationship to (positive) suffering, the notion of play, the influence of exemplars in developing resilience and commitment to work, the idea of being gripped by passion...

In another "first" for the IMR podcast, Oliver and Ante sit down during the annual AAR/SBL meetings to debrief on the sessions they attended and the interactions that spoke to them. They delve into a range of topics, beginning with Daniël Muller's examination of the means-ends issue in Kant's philosophy. Discussions also include Sigve Tonstand's presentation on the Holocaust and the concept of evi...

In this first of a two-episode mini-series, Oliver interrogates Ante's approach to organization, productivity, planning, values, and other aspects of mindful living. The discussion veers between basic convictions about life and more concrete questions of actual steps implemented on different time scales. While much more could have been covered, the discussion suggests some universally valid princi...

In this inaugural live recording of the podcast, Ante and Oliver delve into the enduring cultural and spiritual significance of the Bible before a predominantly college-aged audience. Throughout the event, including the additional pre- and post-event debriefs, they highlight the intriguing aspect of the Bible's appeal to a range of secular audiences. They explore possible reasons for this phenomen...

With great anticipation, Oliver and Ante connected with their friend and colleague Andrew Tompkins, Assistant Professor of Mission and Intercultural Theology at Andrews University, to discuss the fascinating topic of resonance. Taking the work of the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa as their starting point, they explore Rosa's critique of modernity and contemporary society, the focus on competition...

As announced, Ante and Oliver debrief their experience teaching a one-week intensive course to ministry practitioners and other interested people. After sharing some practical insights and lessons learned, they veer into discussing the relationship of belief and culture, how culture might be helpfully defined as "engagement with reality," how, accordingly, we have culture wherever we have reality,...

After briefly discussing some questions of exercise and wellness, via Peter Attia's bestseller Outlive , Oliver and Ante shift their discussion to the question of knowing God's will, what it is, whether it is a pagan idea, how it tracks views of what it means to be human, whether it can be a form of superstition, whether there is something like God's "will" in the Bible, how we tend to turn God in...

Oliver and Ante pick up their conversation from the last episode, debriefing Ante's sermon, only to dialogue on Christ's experience of God-forsakenness, the existential impact that might have on people who suffer, why God refused to provide Job an answer, how the cosmic conflict framework might illuminate matters, how the cross offers an inverted theophany when compared to the divine discourse in...

After a hiatus, Ante and Oliver, reconnect, in an "In Media Res" fashion, to share their summer experiences, travels, moves, the importance of community, what the theme of resonance means to them, what topics they wish to explore in future episodes, only to conclude with debriefing Ante's sermon on the suffering God and the significance that theme has for addressing of some of life's deepest quest...

Ante and Oliver pick up the theme of restlessness, what it might mean, what its causes are, how it is both a positive and negative reality, how it serves as a central trope in classics and epic literature, the warnings that are encountered therein, the problem of hedonic insatiability and adaptability, how boredom and acedia connect to restlessness, whether the recipe of life beyond restlessness a...

After a quick debrief on their teaching experience this summer, Ante and Oliver share why they have picked this topic at this point in the year, how their mothers have shaped them in their childhood, how we need to give due to the two conflicting archetypes of motherhood, why some contemporary feminists are critical of the burdens of motherhood, how it is difficult to grasp the amount of self-sacr...

We discuss Oliver's recent trip to British Columbia, the kind of questions he was asked to address, how some people view the Bible as being fundamentally at odds with current ethical sensibilities, how the type of secularity he had experienced in Amsterdam some time ago differs from what he noticed Sasquatch, how he has strong reservations about methods when it comes to mission, why he feels that...

In this episode, where both of us find ourselves away from our usual recording "studios," we first chat about Oliver's "missionary trip" to Canada. Then we move to discuss the essential topic of attention, including the effect of attention economies, what attention is, how it connects to meaningful living, how, conversely, its fragmentation has numerous deleterious effects, how the Scriptures put...

We start by touching base with our personal and professional lives, only to shift to our approach to learning and memory, the strategies we used to curate our insights, how that has changed with time, why long-term memory matters for creativity and the deep life, why a proper approach to memorization is a key to education and spiritual development, how memories connect to community building and fa...

After briefly touching upon the meaning of "resonance" (H. Rosa), we turn to discuss Oliver's article "Serving God across the Divide: A Lesson from Jeremiah." We reference different fissures in our society, how they lead to feelings of outrage, apathy, and tiredness, how Jeremiah himself confronted various types of polarization, what the character of his prophetic critique might be, how it might b...

We continue with our conversation on the function and role of philosophy, why philosophy is pertinent even for those who have no interest in it, what some dangers associated with it might be, how to understand Paul's warning against "vain philosophy" and "worldly wisdom," how philosophy can provide us with language and sense of companionship to make sense of our thoughts and experiences, what are...

In this episode, we discuss our frequent references to philosophy on our podcast, why that is the case, how philosophy figures in our faith, how our early life experiences have shaped us in that regard, why we consider philosophy as being essential to the way "we do life," why it can be seen as a helpful tool for making sense of reality, and why it is that some people perceive it as irrelevant or...

We discuss, some more, the idea of identity, the difference between identity and identification, the struggle over the recognition of identity as the key to understanding much of what is going on in the world today, the meaning of narcissism, the difference between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, narcissism and the ego ideal (Ichideal), the strivings for singularity and uniqueness, whether qu...

The relationship between change and identity, different ways of understanding change, the difference between ethical and phenomenological approaches to change, problems with positivistic thinking about change, the mystery of life, identity, and intentionality, the function of identity archetypes as aspirational life goals, etc. EPISODE QUOTE “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly thin...