The Substance

When people think of the American western movie, it's usually gunfights and cowboys and bank robbers and romance and, if we're being honest, a pretty rough portrayal of nearly anyone who isn't a white man. They can be fun and exciting but they are often devoid of substance and many times can end up promoting some unhealthy perspectives. The fact that John Ford and John Wayne were two o...

Nate is a creator whose work I've followed for almost 15 years and it was an absolute pleasure to sit down and talk with him about his work and the substance behind it. I first encountered his work in Jeff Lemire's acclaimed Vertigo Comics series Sweet Tooth (still need to check out the Netflix adaptation). His style really spoke to me so I went back and read his debut graphic novel, Swall...

Topic Toss Up shows are not really possibly with our current hosting situation as Philip is not terribly keen to record a solo monologue on various topics but we are excited to welcome Trevor back and jump in! Topics covered include: the "Biblical" in our podcast slogan "Biblical. Thoughtful. Human." What do we mean when we say it and do we want to continue using it? What are f...

Here at The Substance we love engaging with thoughtful art and artists as they are able to get at truth in a way other mediums just are not capable, and among the various forms of art, movies are probably our favorite. That is why we are so delighted to share this exciting first with you all: on this episode we have the pleasure of being joined by a well established actor who recently made his dir...

Valentine's Day comes and goes every year and it's easy to either dismiss it as a commercialized event or to get swept up in the sentimentality depending on one's disposition, but we wanted to avoid both extremes and try to focus on true, genuine love. And we do, buuuut take quite an enjoyable detour on to topics of art, commerce, comic books, and more! We are joined by artist, curator...

Welcome to The Substance, a variety podcast aimed at being biblical, thoughtful, and human where we seek to engage the culture without the Culture War™. Previous guests include folks like: Johnna Harris (The Bodies Behind the Bus podcast), Daniel Hill (White Awake & White Lies), Esau McCaulley (Reading While Black), Jemar Tisby (The Color of Compromise & How To Fight Racism), and multi-hyp...

One more show before the year is over! We were really hoping to get this recorded and published before Christmas but scheduling did not allow it. That being said, we are so happy to have artist Stephanie Stalvey back on the show to discuss the follow up to our previous discussion with her in Ep #136 (link below), 1944's The Curse of the Cat People. The previous film, Val Lewton & Jacques Tourneur'...

Merry Christmas, y'all! It's been an eventful year and we hope that you all have a nice time of rest over the holiday season. We're joined here by Tim and Jay Winterstein from the Saints & Cinema podcast. Tim in a Lutheran pastor in Washington State, he writes about movies over at The Jagged Word , and does programming for a couple film festivals in different states. Jay went to fi...

We are joined by Matt Martens to discuss his new book from Crossway Publishing, Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal. Matt is a lawyer who also has degrees in theology and has become passionate about justice and helping folks understand how broken our systems of so called "criminal justice" in America are. This was a particularly encouraging discussion as many of our previous...

Things are a little crazy right now and Editor Dave is in between tech setups so rather than take a week off, we wanted to give you all something new to the main feed that most of you probably haven't heard yet. A few weeks ago we had film critic, podcaster, and author Sarah Welch-Larson on to talk about Ridley Scott's Alien and it was a blast! We also recorded this bonus show for our patr...

Christmastime is right around the corner and we thought about saving this one for another drop or two but we thought it was great conversation and wanted to encourage you all to check out Emily's new book as you prepare for the season. Emily Hunter McGowin is an author, associate professor of theology at Wheaton College, a priest (she's married to one as well), and canon theologian in the...

We hope that you all have had a wonderful Spooky Season and wish you all a Happy Halloween this week! After having Filmspotting's Josh Larsen (no relation to our guest today) on in Episode #135 to talk about a faithful approach to horror and then covering the classic 1942 horror film Cat People, we're closing October out with one of the greatest horror and science fiction films of all time...

After a few serious health scares and wildfires that caused him and his family to evacuate their home for a while, we are very excited to bring you our first conversation with artist and writer Josh Nadeau! Josh is an artist who runs the Sword and Pencil Instagram account where he regularly shares his drawings, writings, and the things that he's learning as he reads widely through Church Histo...

Happy Spooky Season, y'all! On our previous episode with Josh Larsen we teased that we'd likely be covering one of the films we mentioned in our discussion of the theology of horror movies, and it's that time! We're excited to kick things off this October by covering the underseen horror classic Cat People from 1942 (congrats to the folks who guessed it correctly!). The description...

Horror movies often engage their audience on a primal level as they delve into some of our deepest fears, so it's understandable why so many people are sensitive to them and have reservations concerning them. This appears to be doubly true (or more) of people of faith. Returning guest Josh Larsen is the perfect person to have join us for this topic! Josh is a Chicago film critic and longtime c...

All 4 Terraform EPs are now out in the world, along with a Nautilus Award winning book, so we figured it was time to have Propaganda back on the show! Prop is a poet, political activist, academic, emcee, podcaster, author, and now a coffee entrepreneur. We're happy to have him back to look back on the whole Terraform project and talk about how it was impacted by Covid, the aspects of it he&#39...

It's Substantive Cinema time again and we're excited to be looking at Affliction , a film that Writer/Director Paul Schrader considers to be a Top 4 project of his (along with Taxi Driver, Mishima, and the topic of our inaugural SC episode, First Reformed). Affliction tells the story of Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte in a heartbreaking and Oscar nominated performance), a man deeply broken by...

In 2020, a very normal and chill time, Kaitlyn Schiess released her first book, The Liturgy of Politics. It was thoughtful and encouraging call to believers to approach their politics, particularly locally, in a way that actively honors God and prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors. We were privileged to have her on the show and talk about that book and those ideas (link below) and we have b...

Earlier this year, we were joined by Dr. Esau McCaulley (one of our favorite episodes we've done!) to talk about his new little book on Lent which kicked off InterVarsity Press's The Fullness of Time series. Now we're excited to continue on to the second entry, Pentecost, written by Bishop Emilio Alvarez. In addition to Pentecost, we spend much of our time on a favorite topic of ours h...

When we had Josh Larsen of Filmspotting on in October to talk The Night of the Living Dead we were not planning to kick off a 5 film series on Criterion Collection titles but here we are. We had some fantastic discussions, with a number of excellent guests, but we wanted to zag a little bit and go in a different direction with this one. Of course Raging Bull and Matewan are substantive films, but...

Spiritual abuse is something we have talked about many times on the show, and on this episode we are joined by someone who, after enduring this herself, decided to make it her mission to help others who have as well by giving them a platform to tell their stories. Johnna Harris launched The Bodies Behind The Bus podcast at the end of 2021 and for the last year and a half has helped to share surviv...

Hey everyone! We thought it would be nice to take an episode and do a check in with ourselves and you all. Philip and Dave are hard at work putting things together for first few months of our 3.0 era and we wanted to let you all in on the conversation. They go a little into the history of our first two incarnations but the bulk of the time is spent talking vision and goals for the podcast, our com...

If you're in Kansas City and listening to this when it drops, we hope you can join us for a Substantive Cinema screening of Raging Bull at Screenland Armour at 3:45pm! How have we gotten this far without covering a Martin Scorsese film?! It's wild. Today we break the Scorsese seal with perhaps his deepest dive into the human condition with his Oscar-winning 1980 masterpiece Raging Bull. Th...

We're still here! Our 2.0 era has come to a close but I'm very grateful to bring you all the next episode without interruptions! Today I'm joined by the Rural Church Voices team which consists of returning guest Olivia Meade, Will Basham, and Jason Cook. All three of them have released books individually (check out Ep #117 to hear us talk Ordinary Faithfulness with Olivia), and now the...

It's the end of an era (but not the end of the podcast)! We all loved being a part of The Substance 2.0 and are extremely grateful for everything we were able to accomplish in it. From talking with authors, artists, and public figures that we admire, to watching and reading things together that stretch and challenge us, but most of all we are to happy to have played a small role in encouraging...