The Magnificast

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

Halloween is done, but spooky capitalism is never done with you! This week, we're doing that big Marxist monster mash by looking at all of Marx's spooky metaphors for capitalism. This episode is full of Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Ghosts, and even a Frankenstein or two.

So, once Jesus comes back and takes all the Christians to heaven? The Tribulation! Check out Matt and Dean while they discuss the end times as it is presented in Kirk Cameron's Left Behind II: Tribulation Force.

Last week we said we were done with evangelicalism but is evangelicalism ever really done with you? This week the Magnifiboys watch that classic Christian horror film, A Thief in the Night and talk about the rapture.

We've come a long way in this arc! We've done some rhetorical analyses of conservative and progressive evangelicals and we've learned about the overlapping histories of big business and Christianity. Though, to wrap all of this up, we thought we'd ask our friend Heath Carter, who is an expert on Christianity and social movements in the US, just what is evangelicalism? Intro music by Amaryah Armstr...

American Christianity is full of characters that are really larger than life--one of the biggest, however, is Jim Bakker. Jim Bakker was a hugely popular and successful televangelist, Christian theme park creator, and apocalypticist. In this episode, we get to know Jim Bakker through Martyn Wendell Jones, a Toronto based writer who covers religion. You can find more of Martyn's work here: https://...

Based on our conversation last week, you might think that Wal-Mart is the big force behind evangelicalism in the world--and you're right. But, there are even more ways capitalists have come to shape evangelicalism! To tell us about that, this week we're joined by Darren Dochuk, Professor of History at Notre Dame and author of Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America. Check...

Mapping out how evangelicalism and capitalism work together is pretty difficult and abstract, so in this week's episode we picked up Bethany Moreton's case study To Serve God and Walmart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. Moreton's book gives a solid example of how Wal-Mart has adopted Evangelical culture and political networks to reproduce the material conditions that make them successful...

Last week we did some introductory investigation into conservative evangelicalism, but since we're fair and balanced journalists we're back this week to talk about progressive evangelicalism and its political shortcomings! While conservative evangelicals are happy to use political power to achieve their religious goals, some progressive Christians are happy to reject political power and just embra...

Alright, we're done talking about unions for a bit and we're on to our next big arc. Over the course of the next few weeks, we'll be digging into just what is going on with the evangelicals! In this first episode, we introduce the topic and work out some of the big questions we want to answer.

We just finished up our arc on labor and organizing, but we've heard your resounding shouts, "Give us another one!" So here it is! Here's a special episode of The Magnificast with the IWW Freelance Journalist Union. We've talked about unions in more straightforward contexts, but this episode is especially cool because it shows the way the IWW is filling a gap in organizing when it comes to freelan...

We've made it to the end of our arc on labor and unions! We've learned so much and we hope that you have too! In this episode, Matt and Dean do a big historical round-up of what Marxists have said about unions. Then based on these insights they make some connections as to why Christians ought to get invested in unions and labor organizing. Intro music by Amaryah Armstrong Outro music by theillogic...

Choo Choo! Do you hear that? It's the union train barreling toward your workplace! We're still on that union vibe and this week we're talking with Tannara Yelland, a historian and journalist who started the union drive at Vice Canada. In this episode, we get to some more of the mechanics of how you start a union if you don't already have one. If you're craving more of that Tannara content you can...

Unions are great, right? Are you in one? Most people aren't and that's a bummer. In this episode, Matt and Dean talk to Dri Alexander, a Policy expert at AFSCME to talk about Unions and what they do.

The summer is almost over so, The Magnificast is hitting you with a back to school special! In this episode, Matt investigates the struggle for teachers and grad workers at Jesuit schools to unionize.

For years now, You all have been asking us to be better at reading the Bible and doing exegesis. Well, You're finally getting it. For this episode of The Magnificast, Matt and Dean team up with Chase Tibbs from the Faith and Capital podcast to talk about how to be a good bible reader! Then, using Chase's Bible life hacks, we read Matthew 20 with him and talk about what it all means. intro music by...