The Magnificast

"The working class and the employing class have no God in common" - Walker P. Smith Have you heard those wild old labor songs? Dump the bosses of your back, The Lumberjack's prayer, and Casey Jones? Ever wonder why they sound like hymns? In this episode, Matt and Dean read Donald Winter's book The Soul of the Wobblies and get to the bottom of the IWW and the way they appropriated religious themes....

This week, Brett O'Shea from Rev Left Radio is joining us to talk about everyone's fav Irish revolutionary, James Connolly! If you're following along at home, you can check out the writings by Connolly that we read for this ep here: “Socialism and Religion” - 1899 “The Connolly-DeLeon Controversy” - 1904 “Labour, Nationality and Religion” - 1910 “An Exchange on Rome and Irish Catholics” - 1912 “Ca...

Wow, there are a lot of magazines out there, but the best and most important is Geez Magazine. This week, we're talking about the new Disobedience issue of Geez Magazine with their editor, Lydia Wylie-Kellerman. In this ep, we discuss, Christianity and the left, disobedience, efficacy, parenting and more! You can subscribe to Geez at geezmagazine.org Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by...

This week were rounding up some stories about the wave of strikes coming out of the COVID19 pandemic. The labor struggles currently going on over PPE, paid sick leave, and other important things are monumental. So, we're going to take some time and pay attention to these struggles. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hood...

This week on The Magnificast we're getting back to our roots by reading a big philosophy book. We read Bruno Latour's book Rejoicing: The Torment of Religious Speech. It's a neat book that elaborates on the difficulty of expressing authentic religious belief. We also, as always, talk about socialism. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.band...

This week on The Magnificast Matt and Dean talk about Mike Davis' book The Monster at our Door and do a bit of a round up regarding what's going on with regard to the COVID19 pandemic. 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/themagn...

This week on the show, Matt and Dean read Oscar Romero's Voice of the Voiceless and talk about some of his big ideas regarding unions and political parties. You can get the book here: https://www.orbisbooks.com/voice-of-the-voiceless.html Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-up-the-low-down-technified-blues *Support...

This past week we learned that Ernesto Cardenal, one of the big heroes of The Magnificast had passed away. While we had just done an episode on some of his poetry, we thought it's a good time to celebrate his life. In this episode, we talk a bit about Ernesto Cardenal based off of Margaret Randall's book "Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution." Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by the...

Alright gang, you've seen the news and you know that the libs are being weird about Fidel Castro, so we've got to do another episode on Fidel. In this episode, we talk about education and literacy in Cuba and then round out the conversation with some big ideas about Cuban socialism as a spiritual exercise from Frei Betto. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://th...

We're rounding out our big poetry arc with Dorothee Sölle's book Of War and Love. Sölle's book is rad as hell and you're going to be way into it after this episode. We also take a test drive on a new opening bit and do a big Veggietales-esque what did we learn wrap up on poetry. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon.bandcamp.com/track/hoods-u...

This week we're back with another real life poet! Dominick Knowles joins us to talk about his essay A Spectre in Every Street: George Oppen and the Poetics of Communism (https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/08/15/a-spectre-in-every-street-george-oppen-and-the-poetics-of-communism/) and also some of his own work. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicals...

We've spent the last few weeks reading poetry, but what if we talked to an actual poet? This week, we interviewed Teagen Steele-Fisher (@barnonepoems) about her new book of poetr, Apost(le)ate. Her work is informed by Marxism, Feminism, Queer studies, black liberation, and dealing with the trauma of evangelicalism. Overall, it's some really incredible work! You can buy her book here: https://gumro...

Ernesto Cardenal is great, right? He is, but have you ever wondered who the Greatest Canadian Communist Christian Poet in the Soviet Union was? Well, it was Joe Wallace. 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 Ma...

We're starting a brand new arc! Over the next few weeks, we'll be cultivating our literary sensibilities and talking about poetry and politics. We're kicking the arc off with one of our all-time faves Ernesto Cardenal! 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 P...

In this week's episode, learning about Jesus from Hollis Phelps. Hollis just wrote a cool new book called Jesus and the Politics of Mammon. You can find it here: https://wipfandstock.com/jesus-and-the-politics-of-mammon.html You should also check out Hollis' article on the religious left here: https://religiondispatches.org/the-problem-with-the-latest-predictions-for-the-rise-of-the-religious-left...

We're back with the first new episode of 2020! In case you didn't hear, the imperialists are doing what imperialists do and starting up the war machine in Iran. In this episode, we explore some of the things that our fav Christian leftists have said about war and we also offer some socialist interventions to those Christian ideas. Intro Music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon h...

According to the church calendar, it's still Christmas. Sorry Scrooges, it's Christmas and you can't do anything about it. What you can do is listen to Professor Robert May talk about his book, Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5317.

Santa has come and gone, but we're still on this Christmas kick. This week we talk with Brent Plate about Christmas films, the history of Christmas and a lot more! Check out Brent's articles here: https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/christmas-movies-brent-rodriguez-plate https://religionnews.com/2018/12/07/technology-tradition-and-the-invention-of-christmas-in-19th-century-new-york/

Ho Ho Ho, we're back with more Christmas content for all you Whos down in Whoville. This week, we talked with Pamela Klassen, a professor in the study of religion at the University of Toronto. She edited a rad collection of essays called The Public Work of Christmas and we're excited to talk with her and figure out what Christmas is all about! You can check out a preview of her book here: https://...

🎶He sees you when you're working, he knows when you're organizing, he knows if you've been a comrade or scab so be a comrade for goodness sake, Don Feliciano is coming to town🎶 It's almost Christmas folks! So, this week we're kicking off our Christmas arc about the time Fidal Castro canceled Christmas! Intro music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon https://theillalogicalspoon....

We spend a lot of time criticizing churches and for good reason––they can be pretty bad. But this week, we've got John Thornton Jr on the show to give us an update about Jubilee Baptist Church, a Church that's actually good. In the episode, Matt, Dean, and John talk about Debt Forgiveness as a church ministry, what it means to have a labor church in 2019, and some analysis of Charlie Kirk and Jerr...

We've done a few episodes in the past where we talked a bit about the "religious left" and we're back with more on the religious left discourse as it relates to Mayor Pete and his weird Christian Left brand.

This week, Matt and Dean are coming at you live from the middle of a cornfield in Illinois. This week's episode gets into some of the cool history surrounding the Winnipeg General Strike, Labor Churches, and the Methodist pastors who just can't help but be arrested. Intro music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogicalspoon

In case you haven't heard, there was a coup in Bolivia this past Monday. Figuring out what's going on and how to show solidarity is hard, so we dropped out plans and talked to our friend Jim Hodgson who works in Latin America on the behalf of the United Church of Canada. You might remember that we talked to Jim back in episode 98 on his experience in Venezuela. Intro music by Amaryah Armstrong Out...

After goofing around with spooky stuff in October, the Magnifiboys are back with their new arc on Postmodernism. In this episode, Matt and Dean talk about the rhetoric around Chritianity's impulse toward hospitality and also how John Caputo and Jacques Derrida complicate that idea. intro music by Amaryah Armstrong outro music by theillogicalspoon