The Pugcast

Philip Rieff was one of the most incisive critics of the postmodern turn in western culture of the last 50 years. A secular Jew, he longed for a world that reflected a sacred order. His insights were as penetrating as those of Charles Taylor, but with this important difference—while Taylor described our secular age, Rieff wanted to destroy it. Tune in as Chris describes his own process of in...

What does it take to make it in the highly competitive world of New York City art? Arthur Kwon Lee knows, he’s a young painter who won awards and was featured in prestigious galleries. He worked hard and developed his skills, but led a secret life as a conservative and a Christian. Then, everything changed when he came out of the closet. Soon he was blacklisted. Join the Pugcast today as we...

Tom adds to his previous topic of speaking properly about God and takes it into the other direction. He notes that shifts in ideas of God led to shifts in ideas about Creation, the Human, and language in particular. By making God part of the same chain of 'being', language become 'capable' of referencing God without radical qualification. This leads to two idolatrous ways of referencing God: Univo...

Today the Pugcast is joined by David Stocker, architect, and one of the principals of SHM Architects in Dallas, Texas. David is a great friend of the show, and a long-time friend of Chris. Today David will help the Pugsters reflect on the ways in which architecture speaks to us theologically--especially sacred architecture and the larger lived-in spaces known as neighborhoods, towns, and even citi...

This weeks Pugcast was recorded live (for Chris) at Fractal Brewing in Huntsville, Alabama, with Glenn and Tom coming in virtually. The topic, “The Fairy Tale Wars,” was based on an article from Touchstone by Vigen Guroian (see the link below). Glenn walked the guys through some of the key ideas in the article, particularly how modern scholars of fairy tales don’t like them much,...

Tom delves into many of the often taken for granted reality implications of the Christian teaching about the Incarnation of God the Son. He explores the riches of wisdom such biblical teaching has for a true understanding of divinity, humanity, creation and its relation to God. Chris and Glenn bring into the conversation many fascinating insights, angles, and draw out further some of the deep impl...

Welcome to a funeral for the Church Growth Movement, Pugsters! In today's show Chris explains what the Church Growth Movement was, how it changed the character of evangelicalism and helped to destroy it, and why the movement has been killed by Covid-19, and the Woke-world that has followed. Church Growth was supposed to save the church--so why is it a good thing that it is dead? Join the Pugcast c...

In today's show the Pugsters continue their Pacific Northwest Tour--this time from a boatyard in Everett, Washington! The crew is being hosted by Trinitas Presbyterian Church and the guys are addressing a question put to them by the leadership of the church--"What's the difference between 'worldview' and 'culture'? How does a worldview relate to culture, and what implications does this have for Ch...

Has inflation made a ministerial education unaffordable? It seems like it. Today a Master of Divinity degree—something that most Reformed denominations require for ordination—can leave the typical ministerial student tens of thousands of dollars in debt. This might be forgivable if pastors were paid like medical doctors, but they’re not. But we need an educated clergy, so what can be done? Join th...

The Pugcast Pacific Northwest Tour continues in Vancouver, Washington! In today’s show the Pugcast crew address the cultural crisis the church finds itself in. It seems like the proverbial curse, “May you live in interesting times!” applies to Reformed Christians today. To meet the challenges of our time the guys look to the resources of the Reformation and the broader Christian tradition. Enjoy!

This week, the Pugsters turn to another Touchstone article by Louis Markos, this one on Owen Barfield. Barfield was one of the Inklings along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and helped nudge Lewis toward Christianity. He also was heavily influenced by Rudolph Steiner’s esoteric thought and tried to Christianize it. In this episode, the Pugsters discuss Barfield’s ideas about the relationship of...

Tom introduces an article by Louis Markos entitled: Detectives of Significance. This article addresses an earlier time in Christian history which had a much deeper and wider view of reality and meaning. Part of the task of theology was to interpret such deeper meanings guided by the richly layered meanings communicated in the Bible and in creation. Markos then turns to detective stories, Sherlock...

In this episode the Pugsters return to Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories,” focusing particularly on the legitimacy of escape as a function of fantasy literature. Tolkien pointed out that “escape” is a positive term in all contexts except literary criticism, which points to a problem with the critics’ use of the word. The guys also get into discussions of the metaphysics of fantasy building off of...

Evidence indicates that slavery was a universal institution. It was practiced on every inhabited continent. It isn’t a particularly western institution at all. What has been peculiar to the West is the effort to abolish it. That effort has been largely successful when it comes to legislation—nevertheless slavery is still with us. Why is that? What are the conditions in which slavery spontaneously...

Tom returns to the big topic of technology and addresses the rapid changes to our conceptions and interactions with its impingement upon reality. Glenn and Chris jump into the topic with Tom by supplying various insights into how the riches of Christian wisdom and virtue provide a path through the thickets of changes which allows us to use and relate wisely to the increasing impingement of technol...

This week, the guys discuss pilgrimage. Glenn summarizes the early history of pilgrimage, noting both the practice and the arguments against it even in the early church. From there, the guys discuss more of the history of pilgrimage and talk about whether there are “thin places” made somehow holy by long centuries of prayer, or alternatively, made evil by great evil done in them in the past.

Today Chris introduces the guys to Christopher Lasch and a chapter in his book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. The chapter is, The Soul of Man Under Secularism. In the chapter Lasch riffs on Oscar Wilde’s, The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Wilde believed that Socialism would free people from the responsibilities of property and manual labor so that they could pursue the dev...

In today’s show Tom introduces themes from Paul Tyson’s book - 7 Brief Lessons in Magic. In the book, Paul defines classical ways of seeing reality beyond the reductive naturalism of our modern way of thinking. Unpacking these classical ways, Paul engages magic and enchantment, and the ways in which they related to meaning, value, and other realities which modern reductionism cannot make intelligi...

With Halloween merch already showing up in stores, it’s a good time to do a Pug take on vampires, so this week, the Pugsters riff off an article by John Schuler looking at the implicit philosophical ideas in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. They start off with a discussion of the difference between modernity and the “old centuries” before moving on to scientism, the nature of evil, natural and artificial sy...

Today Chris introduces the "Metaverse"--what's that? you may ask. According to Wikipedia it is: "...the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet." Or as Robin Phillips in a recent blog post at Salvo put it, "Imagine that the relationship between the real world and the internet becomes so porous that it is impossible to tell which is which." Regardless of whether or not the ma...

Tom introduces a classic debate between Truth, reality, and language and the removal of language from truth and reality (sophistry). He engages the ancient debate and sees similarities between it and today's deconstructive tendencies and political use of language to manipulate people. Chris and Glenn bring into the conversation many insights which help illuminate the sinister aspects of sophistry...

This week, the guys look at the idea of heroes. Back in Homer’s day, “hero” was almost synonymous with the heavily armed and armored warriors that were the subjects of the Iliad, and not just the big names like Odysseus, Achilles, or Ajax. They exemplified the warrior virtues: prowess, toughness, courage, loyalty, and honor, understood as recognition and deference by others. The Middle Ages saw a...

In today's show Chris presents an article that was published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), entitled, Darwinian Conservatism Versus Metaphysical Conservatism. The article is something of a departure for ISI, but it addresses a significant debate within conservative circles--can Darwin's evolutionary theories be used to support conservative social ethics, and conservative politics....

How emancipatory views of history draw upon yet distort Christian views of teleology in history. The guys discuss Hegel, Marx, Wokeness, liberation theology and more.

The guys are back in the seventeenth century again, looking at the beginnings of challenges to biblical authority. Progressive thinkers of the day starting with the Jewish philosopher Spinoza attacked Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a way of undermining orthodox Christianity: since Jesus referred to Moses as the human author of the Law, if Moses didn’t write it, then either Jesus lied or he...