The Magnificast

There's so much scary and bad news about climate change and its effects. It sucks big time. Though, so as not to just curse the darkness, in this episode we talk about a recent piece in the Monthly Review about points of unity between degrowth activists and ecosocialism.  Read the article here: https://monthlyreview.org/2022/04/01/for-an-ecosocialist-degrowth/ Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Out...

Listen folks, we've been hitting the bible and theology pretty hard over the last few weeks. But, now that Lent is over we're taking a breather and talking about some a little less biblical. Dean and Matt have been reading Kerala: Another World is Possible by T.M. Thomas Isaac and they're pretty excited to talk about it. So, in this episode, you'll hear all about Kerala, India, Participatory democ...

We've been making our way through lent and talking about all of the themes along the way. This week we're talking about the last supper and the betrayal of Jesus.  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon*  http://patreon.com/themagnificast  *Get Magni...

We're getting close to the end of Lent and heading into Holy Week, so we're going to talk about Palm Sunday! A lot of Christians on the left have made a lot out of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem as a countercultural event. In this episode, we talk about it from the perspective of street theatre and social movements.   In the ep, we talked about the Documentary "What would Jesus Buy" you should wat...

We're still chugging on through this big lenten situation. We've been talking through all of the big lenten themes and this week we're reaching harder than ever by talking about penance and reconciliation! Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon*  htt...

In this episode, we're talking about the shortcomings of substitutionary atonement and Ignacio Ellacuria's The Crucified People.  Substitutionary Atonement is a weird idea that gets Christians into all kinds of problems, but what if there's actually an interesting and helpful way to think about soteriology that isn't just making God an angry computer.  Get the essay here: https://drive.google.com/...

Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about the big themes of lent. So far, we've talked about fasting & temptation. This time, however, we're talking about almsgiving and charity. You're going to love it.  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Pa...

We're into week 2 of our Lent theme and this time we're talking about temptation! We're reading Luke 4:1-13 and talking through the three temptations the devil brings to Jesus in the desert. To back us up, we bring in some ideas around political power and temptation from liberation theology.  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.co...

Lent is a time of fasting that gets co-opted by capitalism in all kinds of very gross ways and that sucks. But, what might fasting look like as a political idea? We might work this out by thinking about fasting in terms of degrowth in the face of climate change!  Here are some of the books we talked about in this episode Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World - Jason Hickel Inventing the f...

This week, we have no choice, but to weigh in on what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. A lot of people have particularly hot takes about this chapter in geopolitics, and so do we: war is bad, actually and we have the moral imperative to build a peace movement.  Here are the statements we talked about on the show Pax Christi - https://paxchristiusa.org/2022/02/24/pax-christi-usas-statement-on-r...

You know we love books, so this week we're reading Leonardo Boff's Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor and talking about liberation theology, ecology, the poor as a protagonist class, and more!  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon*  http://patreon.c...

This week on the podcast we're continuing our theme of talking about money and economics in the context of the Bible. This time, we're talking about Jubilee and what it means to do that work in 2022! We mentioned a lot of cool stuff in the podcast, so here are some links!  Get the Geez Magazine Jubilee issue here: https://geezmagazine.org/magazine/issue/geez-63 Find out more about the Committee fo...

Hey folks, our episode for this week is a bit late, so we're one from the archives that we know you'll like! In this episode, we talk with Daniel Saunders about his new essay on commodity fetishism and Christianity. You can find his essay here: https://danielsaunders.blog/2021/04/16/ideology-fetishism-apophaticism-marxist-criticism-and-christianity/ Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by...

This week on the show, we're talking about a really neat book called Revolutionary Forgiveness: Feminist Reflections on Nicaragua by the Amanecida Collective. The book is a reflection on 13 theologians who took a number of trips to Nicaragua in the early 80's. The book highlights a lot of interesting interactions between Christianity and politics during the Nicaraguan Revolution.  Find the book he...

Last week, we talked about the Beatitudes and how to take them seriously means you can't really be a capitalist. Yet, many right-wing Christians do read the Beatitudes and other admonitions of wealth and still find ways to be capitalists. In this episode, we talk about the hermeneutic process of ignoring wealth as a problem in the bible. Here are the articles we dunked on: https://www.acton.org/pu...

Have you ever read the bible? Dang, there's a lot of stuff in there. But, in the gospels, we get some really good words straight from Jesus that people call the "Beatitudes." The beatitudes are a sermon the Jesus preaches that tells you exactly where and with who God's priority lay. This week we talk about the Beatitudes and some of the things liberation theologians have said about them.  Intro Mu...

Earlier this week, Dave Ramsey and many other right-wing Christians were musing about whether the markets were moral. Don't listen to them! Listen to us. We unpack Dave Ramsey's bad takes about being a landlord and the economy and give our own good take.  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technifi...

Theology? Yeah, it's boring. Liberation theology? It's DANGEROUS--well, at least according to the CIA! This week we take a look at a few right wing documents from the 1980's that recognize that liberation theology was a possible threat to US hegemony. 

Ho ho ho, it's Christmas time! This week, we're taking it a little bit easy with a Christmas party. In this episode, we dial it back and answer some hot reddit questions and we talk about current events! We hope you have a good Christmas! 

The final week of advent is all about love! As we're heading into Christmas, we talk through Christian love as a political idea. Let's go!  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon*  http://patreon.com/themagnificast  *Get Magnificast Merch*  https://w...

We've got the joy joy joy joy down in our hearts...Well, we're trying our best. It's the Joy week of advent and we're talking through how to be joyful at the end of the world.  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreon*  http://patreon.com/themagnificas...

Alright folks, it's the second week of advent and now we're thinking about peace. In this episode, we consider peace as a political idea and talk through some of the big picture stuff about pacifism and violence. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support The Magnificast on Patreo...

It's not Christmas yet! It's Advent! Advent is the time where we're getting in the spirit of Christmas and getting our brains right before the birth of Jesus. Advent is 4 weeks long and traditionally has weekly themes (Hope–Peace–Joy–Love.). For this Advent, we're just following along with the themes of the liturgical calendar and talking about hope!  Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong  Outro music...

When it comes to activism, people are always talking about human rights, but what are these things anyway? In this episode, we get into the political philosophy discourse around rights. In the episode, we talk about What's Wrong with Rights? Social Movements, Law and Liberal Imaginations by Radha D'Souza (https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745335414/whats-wrong-with-rights/), Marx's Critique of the Go...

Yesterday, we went to a solidarity protest downtown Toronto to show solidarity with the land defenders in Wet'suwet'en territory. There’s a lot going on in that situation, but the gist of it is that Coastal Gas Link is trying to run a pipeline through their territory without the consent of the indigenous people there. This past week, the people resisting the pipeline evicted Coastal Gas Link and g...