by Psychology & The Cross

Secular Christ

Education EN ↓ 28 episodes

Canadian Philosophy and Theology professor and former Catholic Monk Dr. Sean J. McGrath examines how to practice contemplative Christianity in the secular age and what we can learn from the mystical tradition. In conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky. Subscribe on Substack. https://centerofthecross.substack.com/

Author

by Psychology & The Cross

Category

Education

Podcast website

youtube.com

Latest episode

Jan 6, 2026

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Episodes

S4E4 Secular Christ | What is Spirit?   06.01.2026

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

S4E3 Secular Christ |  The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle 06.01.2026

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

S4E2 Secular Christ |  Christian mysticism demystified 06.01.2026

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

S4E1 Secular Christ | Everyday Christian Mysticism 06.01.2026

In the fourth and final season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath introduces his ideas around everyday Christian Mysticism. 

S3E6 Secular Christ | Dietrich Bonhoeffer, invisible Christianity and it's church 19.07.2024

In the final episode of this season of searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity, we travel to the 20th century to learn from the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We explore his concept of religionless Christianity which developed as he sat imprisoned in Berlin by the Nazi regime for his resistance, and before his execution. McGrath continues to link back to Augustines idea...

S3E5 Secular Christ | Living without a why 13.07.2024

What Meister Eckhart learnt, and we can learn, from The Beguines.

S3E5 Secular Christ | Meister Eckhart & Beguine Mysticism 13.07.2024

S3E5 Secular Christ | Meister Eckhart & Beguine Mysticism.

S3E4 Secular Christ | Clement of Alexandria 13.07.2024

In this episode we travel back in time to the city of Alexandria, the cultural Mecca of the Roman Empire to learn from the Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD), about how to build resilience in our present age.   The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - SUBMERSIBLE

S3E3 Secular Christ | Christian humanism 13.07.2024

We need to reclaim the future for Christian consciousness, and to recognize that the first Christians were looking towards the future, looking towards the fruition of something. They were not commemorating something that was past. They were actually witnessing something that is coming to be.   - Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The music played in...

S3E2 Secular Christ | The glory of God is man fully alive 13.07.2024

The Christian teaching is that we are not yet human. We are on the way towards humanity. Humanity is still to come. - Sean J McGrath and Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

S3E1 Secular Christ 3 | Seeds of Secular Christianity 23.06.2024

Sean J McGrath together with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky go seeking for the seeds of Secular Christianity. For the next episodes, follow the Psychology & The Cross podcast instead. The music played in this episode is licensed under creativecommons.org: XYLO - ZIK - RAINBOW

Seeds of Secular Christianity | Secular Christ Season 3 (Trailer) 14.11.2023

In our third season of Secular Christ with Sean J. McGrath we go searching for the seeds of Secular Christianity. The series will go live in early 2024.

Q&A with Sean McGrath & Summary of season 2 16.11.2022

Live Q&A and summary of season 2 of Secular Christ. Recorded 13th of November 2022.

Announcement: Q&A & Live discussion with Sean McGrath 04.11.2022

We would like to invite you to an online meetup and Q&A with Sean J. McGrath where we will wrap up the second season of Secular Christ. We will be meeting on Zoon on Sunday the 13th of November at 5:00 PM CET. We will start with a short lecture by McGrath and a summary of the second season. We then invite you all to converse, ask your questions and also share ideas for future seasons. The sess...

S2E5 The razor's edge of contemplative Christianity 29.10.2022

What's the point of a Christian community? Why is community important for a contemporary contemplative Christian? In the final episode of the second season of Secular Christ, Sean McGrath turns to the question of community. We discuss its importance in the contemplative tradition and its absence within psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology. We discuss the necessity also for a communal symbolic...

S2E4 A letter to a young contemplative 16.09.2022

Sean McGrath received an email from a young person who has been listening to Secular Christ asking: How can I keep growing spiritually through the Christ image, any words of wisdom that has helped you along your path of living the contemplative life? Here's Sean's reply.

S2E3 The self that cannot help itself 04.09.2022

In the third episode, McGrath takes on the self-help industry and how its ideological spokespersons such as Jordan B. Peterson misses the point of grace and self-transformation through self-surrendering. He discusses how to understand the Lord's Prayer ( previously discussed with Donald Carveth ) and how contemplative Christianity offers a different path of shadow integration and individuation thr...

S2E2 Perverse Christianity and its remedy 24.08.2022

In this episode, McGrath explores the symbolic structures that underlie our search for truth and meaning. He contrasts the "going east" with a return to the "western symbolic" in order to connect with our spiritual and religious mother tongue. He examines how 2000 years of Christianity is a part of the problem and is accelerating a perversion as well as the possible political and personal remedy,...

S2E1 Secular Christ season 2 | A sermon for the New age 15.08.2022

In the second season of Secular Christ , Dr. Sean J. McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky about the contemplative life in a Secular Age. In this episode McGrath introduces the concept of "Christ nature" and contrasts it with Buddha Nature before he turns to Paul and the Colossians and the Gospel of John to ground it in scripture. Share your comments and subscribe...

E8 Turn your eyes away | Antichrist & Climate change 23.02.2022

In this last episode of this season, Sean McGrath continues his conversation with Jungian Analyst Jakob Lusensky , in seeking the secular Christ. A conversation that leads back to the question of antichrist and how social media and consumerism feed a life of the imaginary at the cost of the real. McGrath discusses climate change, 'Friday's for future' and Greta Thunberg and the question of saving...

E7 The Christ virus | A return to Secular Christ 09.02.2022

"What we're talking about in the Christ is something that actually doesn't naturally belong in this world. It is experienced as infection in a certain way, but it's the infection that brings life and hope and new forms of community." In this episode, Sean McGrath returns to some of the questions we initially asked in this podcast. In what way is Christ a secular figure? What is the Church in the s...

E6 How to practice contemplative Christianity? (No rules for life) 23.01.2022

How to practice contemplative Christianity? In this episode of Secular Christ, McGrath makes it clear that there are no (Jordan B Peterson) rules for life needed, but what's necessary is to carve out a space in our everyday life for contemplation, meditation, and prayer. He discusses further the importance of coming to terms with our own psychological impotence and the move from the necessary soli...

E5 Richard Rohr and the rediscovery of contemplative Christianity 09.01.2022

In the fifth episode of Secular Christ , Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean J McGrath continues his seeking for Christ in the Secular Age. His starting point this time is the work of the American Franciscan priest and writer Richard Rohr , who through his many books and public lectures has led to a rediscovery of the cosmic christ and contemplative Christianity. McGrath aligns with Rohr in ar...

E4 The gnostic Slavoj Žižek | A philosophy of human poverty 19.12.2021

“Why has somebody like Slavoj Žižek with his Lacanian atheism and cynicism a better purchase on the essence of Pauline Christianity? It’s because there is a tragic ground to Christianity. Tragedy and hopelessness is the prolegomena, it’s the port of entry into Christianity.” In this episode of the Secular Christ, Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean J McGrath continues his seeking for Christ in...

E3 Christ is not an archetype | A critique of Jordan B Peterson 12.12.2021

In this episode Philosophy and Theology professor, Sean J McGrath offers a critique of the phenomenon Jordan B Peterson’s archetypal take on Christianity. McGrath sees his fellow Canadian as a representative of the philosophy of human potentiality which he contrasts with a philosophy of human poverty. McGrath discusses these themes together with Berlin-based psychoanalyst Jakob Lusensky. Music in...

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