Postmodern Realities Podcast

It’s been called “a marvel” and “the Protestant magnum opus on sexual ethics we’ve been waiting for.” It’s also been called “Sacred Pornography,” a “Protestant bowdlerization” of Theology of the Body,4 and “a rhapsody over a very male-centered experience of sexual intercourse.” If you haven’t heard of it by now, welcome to the Twitterstorm. Josh Butler’s newly released book Beautiful Union, and th...

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Anne Kennedy about her Practical Hermeneutics article, “ The Upside-Down Metaphor: A Hermeneutical Critique of Josh Butler’s Beautiful Union “. https://www.equip.org/articles/the-upside-down-metaphor-a-hermeneutical-critique-of-josh-butlers-beautiful-union/ Also see Alisa Ruddell's Viewpoint article on the same book, " Beautif...

CRISPER biotechnology, an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, took the expensive and complicated world of gene editing and transformed it into a more accessible field. Born out of the ongoing war between bacteria and viruses, CRISPR scientists discovered a bacterial defense mechanism built around identifying and splicing genetic information in viruses and transfo...

In the last few years, many Christians had said that all Christians need to be winsome at ALL times. Now, of course, Christians should always have the fruit of the Spirit in their lives and that absolutely must govern our conversations. But it is not that simple. Some Christian apologists are so nice and so accepting when talking with those who have rejected the truths of Christianity that the non...

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author Cole Burgett about his online article, "Finding Family Among The Last of Us." the discusses the video game and HBO Tv Series, The Last of Us. https://www.equip.org/articles/finding-family-among-the-last-of-us/ When you to subscribe to and support the Journal, you join the team of print subscribers whose paid subscriptions help...

​This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author John Ferrer about SatanCon 2023 held in Boston, MA on April 28th-30th, 2023 presented by The Satanic Temple. When you to support the Journal, you join the team of members who help provide the resources at equip.org that minister to people worldwide. These resources include our ever growing database of over 1,500 articles , as...

In discussions about modern infertility treatments, many articles concerning in vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy, and even the ethics of using a third-party gamete donor, have been written. As an extension of the ethical conversation surrounding fertility treatments, the fertility industry itself must be examined. From lack of reasonable regulations, to targeting young gamete donors, to the...

“I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.” “Trans women are women.” “A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman.” Statements like these are now commonplace: they reveal that words, and the way we use them, change over time. That which used to go without saying is now being said in a way that implies its opposite. The words “woman” and “man” and the categories they denote, which used to be intuitive...

Athenagoras of Athens is one of three great Greek pagan philosophers who, during the second century AD, converted to Christianity on account of the wisdom of its teachings and the moral lives of its followers. Rather than abandon their former training, Aristides, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras all used their pagan learning as a springboard for bearing witness to the gospel before the most powerful...

Buried beneath a mountain of make-up and prosthetics so that he is nigh unrecognizable, Brendan Fraser has earned no small amount of acclaim for his portrayal of Charlie. The Whale , filmed on a $3 million budget (pocket change by the standards of modern Hollywood), first began making waves when Fraser received a highly publicized six-minute standing ovation at the movie’s Venice Film Festival pre...

​That those who do not believe might be converted to genuine faith has been the constant prayer of the church since the apostolic era. Every preacher hopes that God might use his preaching to bring this about. Within the context of this hope, the practice of the altar call has arisen. Most readers will be familiar with the altar call, but perhaps not all. So I will sketch out two of the most commo...

When the Mormons (also known as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) come to my door, you should always ask them the same question because it’s a question Mormons can’t answer. You should do this because this question is essential to their beliefs. The question to ask regards why Mormons believe Mormonism is true, which they believe to be true because they had a subjective p...

Most universities today are swiftly accommodating themselves to an increasingly radicalized postmodern worldview. American colleges and universities— a disturbing number of which claim to be Christian —have abdicated their responsibility to train students in virtue and to measure what they teach against cultural standards of goodness, truth, and beauty. But it's not all doom and gloom—there is hop...

Brianna Wiest is lesser known self-help guru (author of The Mountain is You and 101 Ways to Change Your Thinking ) but her voice is one to be reckoned with. Her unique, breezy, even comforting blend of psychological tips and spiritual advice is both nuanced and potent. Following her path will lead you to the front of the Temple, your face turned up to heaven, explaining how good you are. For, inde...

Please see this encore presentation of Episode 283: When the Hurlyburly’s Done: A Review of E verything Everywhere All at Once that we did in April 2022. In March 2023, this film won the following Oscars. Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with Journal aut...

The term “war film” tends to conjure in the popular imagination one of two images: 1) that of the sober-faced “band of brothers” toughing it out together somewhere in Europe or in the Pacific isles during the Second World War (à la Saving Private Ryan [1998], Band of Brothers [2001], or The Pacific [2010]); or 2) that of the shellshocked soldier in green fatigues stumbling out of the Vietnamese ju...

Christian theology regards human beings as creatures standing both within and beyond nature, the material world. Although exceptions as old as Lucretius abound, this belief is also found outside the Christian faith. So far as we can tell, humans are the only creatures who distinguish themselves in this way. Mary Oliver, best known for her Pulitzer-prize-winning poetry collection American Primitive...

The recent occurrences of unidentified anomalous phenomenon (aka unidentified flying objects) over United States airspace has caused some renewed interest in extraterrestrials (ETs). Curiosity about the possibility of life beyond our planet is nothing new, and films and television shows have never shied away from the conversation. Ancient Aliens (History, 2009-) fuels the flames of speculation. Th...

This Postmodern Realities episode is a conversation with JOURNAL author John Ferrer about his online-exclusive article, “ A Christian Apologist Responds to Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Satanic Grammy Performance ” https://www.equip.org/articles/ancient-aliens-and-the-bible-what-the-popular-television-series-says-about-extraterrestrials-in-scripture/ Editor’s note: While nothing explicit is discussed...

On June 24, 2022, The Supreme Court of the United States released the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, ending Roe v Wade’s nearly 50-year legal hegemony over the issue of abortion throughout the U.S. Pro-life advocates, many who had been active fighting to overturn Roe their entire adult lives, celebrated hoping the tide had turned as our nation moved toward a future without a...

“So teach us to number our days,” prayed the great prophet Moses in Psalm 90, “that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90: 12).1 The request lies at the center of his meditation on the impermanence of the creature compared with the everlasting power of God. Our days end “like a sigh” (Psalm 90:9), they are “soon gone and we fly away” (Psalm 90: 10). For modern people striving to separate themsel...

When James Cameron’s Avatar hit theaters in 2009, few could have predicted the new, CGI-laden intellectual property would enjoy such a staggering box office return, becoming the first film in history to gross two billion dollars. The film would be nominated for a whopping nine Academy Awards, and end up winning in three categories, all of them related to the film’s stunning visuals. Given Hollywoo...

Why do humans exist? What is our ultimate purpose? A person will arrive at wildly different answers depending on whether they’ve been spending more time under the cross of Christ or under the “Bodhi Tree” (the “tree of awakening” under which the Buddha found enlightenment). On the one hand, there is Christianity’s robust sense of purposefulness, as humans were created by God for a purpose — eterna...

JOURNAL author Doug Groothuis of Denver Seminary talks about his anecdotes of apologetics encounters over his lifetime to encourage Christians to have fire in their bones, love in their hearts, and knowledge in their minds to bring the whole Bible to the whole world for the glory of God, the good of His church, the extension of His Kingdom, and for peace and truth on earth (Jeremiah 20:9; Matthew...

Carl Jung is a controversial figure. This pioneer of psychoanalysis, though beloved by the pop psychology world, has a dark side: he experimented with occult spirit guides, his movement was both an esoteric mystery-cult and a personality cult, and his theology was heretical, his conception of God that of an amoral demiurge beyond good and evil. Jung made theological errors worthy of rejection, but...