The Brass Spittoon

The former editor in chief of Christianity Today stops by to talk about his love of Port William and the AI infused world to come.   Highlights 1:00      Biloxi boy and Berry man 5:30      Unlikely CT choice? 11:00    Wendell at his most metaphysical           16:30    Crowning Kingsnorth (or not yet)             26:00    Carl Henry and the future of Evangelicalism 32:00    Praying away     35:00 ...

The author, activist, and grandfather who once warned of The End of Nature has a brighter disposition these days.  Highlights 1:15       Dirt roads and tricorne hats 3:15       Protesting with the life-changing Wendell Berry 6:45       Paneling over real problems       16:30    Evacuate the building!   19:15    Looking back, looking forward 23:30    Deregulation to the rescue?        31:00    Lone...

The longtime editor-in-chief of World magazine discusses the Zenger Prize, his new gig at Christianity Today, the temptations of conservative politics (compassionate or otherwise), and his memoir Pivot Points.    Highlights 1:00       Aspiring galactic editor and globe trotter 5:45       Street level reporting v. suite level pontification 15:15    BREAKING:  Flatwater Free Press on the Zenger Priz...

After a life of physical and spiritual adventure, an innovative homesteading teacher and pastor turns green with gratitude. Highlights 1:00       California to Idaho (before everybody was doing it) 12:00    The plane, the plane! 19:00    Picture pages, picture pages 26:00    Raising the dead with his students (and Robert Redford) 37:00    Finding Jesus in the mountains 45:15    Turning green in th...

The editor-in-chief of the FPR website discusses the recent conference in Grand Rapids and his latest book, Words for Conviviality.  Highlights 1:00       Pacific Northwesterner in western PA 8:00       Prospects for localism and trad wives now 11:00    Bilbro’s obsessive bibliography 17:00    Printing press 2.0 and Postman problems 25:30    Frederick Douglass, cancer patient 30:00    Margaret Ful...

The AEI scholar and author of American Covenant joins John to talk about a document that he believes could unify we the people, again.  Highlights 1:30       Second home 8:15       The national “we” 13:45    A dignified basis for unity 21:00    Changing culture by changing institutions 25:00    Make Congress boring again 29:00    What women want 32:00    Cheese pizza and Tip O’Neill 37:00    Think...

Longtime ghostwriter Nancy French tells her own tale in the Ghosted:  An American Life.  French was raised in rural Tennessee and would later provide the words behind famous talking heads but found her own enchanting voice amid political and personal tumult.    Highlights 1:15                Mud pies for Parisians 6:00                Hillbillies on the run 9:30                Romney/Palin ‘08 11:0...

Timothy Carney, an AEI senior fellow and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, talks about the village it takes to raise a child and the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) rise of “No Children Allowed” signs. Highlights 2:30       A lively home and coffee shop 4:00       Trumpy Christians? 7:15       Find a secular van fam, win a free...

Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state).   Bill Kauffman, author and regular conference closer, weaves Wisconsin professors of the past and the robo-umps of tomorrow into a seamless and side-splitting localist garment.  Rory Groves introduces the duo and ponders a porc...

Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm. Highlights 1:30       Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer 5:45       A monastic text 11:15    Man of letters 14:00    Pesto chango 15:30    Remote control 18:00    Growing pains 23:00    Lamb on the lam 27:15    The rest of the story Resources Buy the book An excerpt at FPR Brian’s farm and blog Paul Harvey’s...

Adam Smith, a philosopher at the University of Dubuque, counterattacks the disenchanted War on Suffering.  FPR President Mark Mitchell goes biblical to bring down a heightened politics of insanity.  Brass Spittoon podcaster John Murdock looks at a key architect of religious politics and wonders what might happen if his blueprints were followed.  Gerald Ford groupie and FPR perfect attendance award...

Jeff Bilbro, FPR’s super-beaver EIC and Grove City College professor, looks to ancient mythology to assess modern technology and fiction of the future.  Cassandra Nelson of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture is stuck in the middle, a bit like AI itself.  Author, teacher, and mother Tessa Carman looks for life in abundance in Minnesota and Maryland.  Writer and B...

Eric Miller, biographer of Christopher Lasch and a professor at Geneva College, plus longtime porcher Jason Peters of Hillsdale College address the role of imagination in shaping our shared reality.  Matt Stewart, an associate editor of the FPR website, introduces this duo that has impacted his life in important ways.   Highlights 1:00       Matt Stewart, teacher’s pet/pest and herb connoisseur Er...

Paul Kingsnorth delivered the keynote address at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin.  With help from a diverse band of fellow travelers including Jewish-Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, Anglo-Catholic social critic Malcolm Muggeridge, and the prophetic French-Egyptian Sufi Rene Guenon, the unexpectedly Irish Orthodox Kingsnorth takes listeners on a tour of techno-mirages, holy wells,...

Paul Kingsnorth, the keynote speaker at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin, begins things with a bonus talk on the power of prayer in a desecrated western world.      Highlights  1:15 Mark Mitchell’s welcome  4:00 Paul flies in  5:30 A long list of labels  7:30 Roots and power  8:15 My neighbor Vinny (and his dying cousins)  12:30 Centering work  14:00 Citizen culture  19:00 Two triniti...

Bill Kauffman, author of multiple books including Poetry Night at the Ballpark and long the closing speaker at FPR conferences, talks about the origins of Front Porch Republic and his unique life of letters.    Host:     John Murdock Guest:  Bill Kauffman   Highlights 1:30      Defending the homeland 2:30      The Closer 7:45      Muckdog memories 12:15    Perfectly sized 15:00    First Man and Se...

The After Virtual conference podcast series closes with a focus on civics and cemeteries.  Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism, talks on, well, plutocrats and socialism (plus the importance of property ownership to maintaining the republic).  Rachel Ferguson, author of Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, highlights the historic role of roads in undermining minority communities and...

The penultimate session from the FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods addresses health.  Philosopher Adam Smith from the University of Dubuque and medical doctor Brian Volck, author of Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words, take on the medical/industrial complex (with assists from Alasdair MacIntyre and Wendell Berry).  Speakers:  Adam Smith and Bria...

Chris Arnade, the keynote speaker at the After Virtual conference, has traded global finance for skid row photography.  Chris discusses his journey from Wall Street board rooms to a booth at McDonald’s and the associated rejection of careerism and self-definition.  Speaker:  Chris Arnade—An Address in the Universe of Meaning  Highlights  3:00 Prayer time around the world  6:45 The liberal emancipa...

The second episode from the FPR conference After Virtual: The Art of Recovering Lost Goods looks at education.  Jeff Polet discusses walking away from Hope.  Angel Adams Parham talks about the elementary power of a rapping Homer.  Jason Peters goes back to the future of the educational machine.  Speakers:  Jeff Polet, Angel Adams Parham, and Jason Peters  Highlights  1:15 Jeff Polet—Why I Left the...

For the first of our episodes from September’s FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods, we go to church.  Carl Trueman, Gregory Hogg, and Charlie Cotherman share thoughts on technology and embodied worship in a time of pandemic.   Speakers:  Carl Trueman, Gregory Hogg, and Charlie Cotherman  Highlights  1:15 Carl Trueman  3:00 Is it all Protestantism’s fault?  4:00 How to t...

Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism:  The Future of Private Property and the Fate of the Middle Class and President of Front Porch Republic, joins the podcast.  Mitchell and Murdock discuss the origins of FPR and the importance of widely-held productive private property in an era when the super rich and socialists have formed an odd partnership.        Host:  John Murdock  Guest: Mark M...

Matthew Stewart, author of The Most Beautiful Place on Earth:  Wallace Stegner in California, sits down (literally) with host John Murdock to discuss Stegner’s complicated relationship with the American West.  A mobile youth left Stegner yearning for deeper roots.  In the 1940s, he landed in the hills surrounding San Francisco Bay, an area soon set for expansive growth.  Stegner’s interplay with t...

Katharine Hayhoe is a professor at Texas Tech and the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy. Her most recent book is Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Dr. Hayhoe, a Christian, swings by the Porch to discuss faith and science; effective communication on controversial topics; and the role of disinformation in our discussions about global warming. She...

Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns and author of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, discusses streets, roads, “stroads,” and the perils of the American traffic system.  A trained engineer himself, Marohn once imbibed the discipline’s dominant dogmas.  Today, he advocates for cities and towns where slower moving cars can get us where we want to go faster.   Host:  John Murdock Guest:  Cha...