Veterans of Culture Wars

Jeff Bettger (AKA Jeff Suffering) stops by to talk about his recently reformed 1990s Tooth and Nail band Ninety Pound Wuss, as well as his time playing music and being a pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. We talk about his musical history, including Raft of Dead Monkeys, Suffering and the Hideous Thieves, and Team Strike Force, an early and very important band in the story of Mars Hill. He tal...

Religion reporter and book author Jonathan Merritt joins the VCW to share his Evangelical story that includes the trauma of being outed in 2012. We also discuss the ethics of publicly outing people (who are harmful to the LGBTQ community), death anxiety from certain religious backgrounds, and his fascinating *newest* book "Learning to Speak God from Scratch". Buy the book here: https://w...

The VCW hall was honored to host author and journalist Katherine Stewart to talk about her religious background and how she fell down the rabbit hole of covering Christian Nationalism specifically through the religious right's attempts to radically alter or eliminate public education. She also talks about being trained in journalism craft by Wayne Barrett who covered Donald Trump for years but sad...

Every year, around this time, Jeffrey Overstreet joins us to talk about our favorite movies of the preceding year. This year we are very happy to have Sarah Welch-Larson joining the discussion as well. On part 2 of our Best Movies of 2022 mega-episode, we talk about our personal top 10 movies from 2022. Connect with Sarah Welch-Larson on Twitter:  @dodgyboffin Listen to Sarah Welch-Larson wit...

Every year, around this time, Jeffrey Overstreet joins us to talk about our favorite movies of the preceding year, the Oscar nominees, and so forth. This year we are very happy to have Sarah Welch-Larson joining the discussion as well. On part 1 of our Best Movies of 2022 mega-episode, we talk about the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture and some smaller, somewhat idiosyncratic films that did...

Podcast host and writer Amy Fritz joins us to talk about her Evangelical story and how her family moved from Minnesota to Tennessee as her husband Nathan took a job at Ramsey Solutions. She talks about how she came to realize that Ramsey Solutions was a toxic environment and that led her to thinking about untangling her faith from other unhealthy personalities, organizations and ideas. Follow Amy...

Professor and author Dr. David Dark joins the VCW hall to talk about his reframed and expanded new book "Life's Too Short to Pretend You're Not Religious".  We discuss the definition of "religious" vs "spiritual but not religious", Hollywood's portrayal of Christians and/or religious people, why to "love a person is to love a process" and also that love takes a neighborhood. Buy the book here...

Dr. Matthew Taylor joins us to discuss his recent podcast series Charismatic Revival Fury, released through the Straight White American Jesus podcast.  We talk about central figures of the New Apostolic Reformation like C Peter Wagner and Che Ahn, the connection to the "signs and wonders" charismatic movement led by John Wimber, Matthew's concept of "prophetic memes", January 6th as a religio...

We talk with Mitchell Kezin, director of the documentary Jingle Bell Rocks!, which is about primarily left-of-center Christmas music, and features interviews with Reverend Run of Run-DMC, John Waters, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Low, and others. We talk about Christmas music as part of the rituals that people create to give extra meaning to this time of year, from putting on the music that yo...

Film critic and author Alonso Duralde talks about Christmas movies, Hallmark Christmas movies, and that time Hallmark aired a commercial featuring a lesbian couple that caused so much chaos that a whole new network was created to make exclusive content for people who get the vapors at the idea of a Christmas movie featuring a same-sex (or interracial) couple.  Alonso's books: Have Yourself a...

Co-host of the podcast, Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi returns to the VCW hall to talk about his forthcoming book (January 6, 2023) "Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism- And What Comes Next".  While we are all seeing a rise in Christian Nationalism in our present political moment, Brad traces the history of how we got to this religious and polit...

From Concordia University in Montreal, Dr. Andre Gagne joins the VCW hall to share his story with Evangelicalism which included being a pastor for 10 years. We define Christian Nationalism and discuss the growing movement in America.  Then we take a deeper dive into the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), the 7 Mountain Mandate, some of the personalities pushing these ideas and how this connects...

Rapture and hellfire and influencers, oh my! Prepare to be terrified by the spookiest episode of the year. The shadowy figure behind the Christian Nightmares social media accounts joins us to talk about the things that traumatized him as an evangelical kid, and the things that scare, amuse, and confound him now about contemporary evangelical culture. We also talk a little about Mark Driscoll, who...

Author, Podcaster, Communications Professor and interdenominational speaker Dr. Heather Thompson Day joins the VCW hall to share her story with Evangelicalism and talk about her new book (written with her husband Seth Day) "I'll See you Tomorrow".  Dr. Day discusses how lonely and disconnected our society is and how we can have meaningful friendships and relationships.  We also talk abou...

Matt Johnson, former Mars Hill elder and drummer in the "Christians in a band not Christian Band" bands Roadside Monument, Blenderhead, and Raft of Dead Monkeys talks with us about the pre-Mars Hill 1990s Seattle Christian punk community, centered around Calvary Chapel in the University District, where Damien Jurado, Dave Bazan and many others also attended. We talk about his time in those bands,...

In this special and occasionally heavy episode, we were honored to have Alan Sparhawk from the band Low visit the VCW hall to chat about his music, his religious journey with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and faith and hope. We discuss how faith and hope are different but play together, moments of transcendence, and the feeling of bumping into something holy. Knowing that Z...

Trigger warning: In this episode, we discuss sexual abuse toward minors. Dr. Paul Hoard joins the VCW hall to discuss his journey with Evangelicalism and how Evangelicals have interacted with psychology. We chat about cheap forgiveness vs true forgiveness, Sigmund Freud and Jesus casting out demons. Connect with Dr. Paul Hoard on Twitter:  @Hoardpaul Website:  https://paul-hoard.clientse...

Podcaster and soon-to-be-author Tori Williams Douglass joins the VCW hall for a wide-ranging discussion of her own story of being homeschooled in a fundamentalist Christian environment and going to Northwest College. She traces her journey to becoming an anti-racist educator working with businesses, churches and other organizations. We talk in detail about Critical Race Theory, the right...

Note: Listening to this episode will not count toward your required chapel credits. Host of the Chapel Probation Podcast and soon-to-be author R. Scott Okamoto stops by the VCW hall to share his Evangelical story including his years teaching, deconstructing, and encountering racism at Azusa Pacific University, a school that claims to be "God First" since 1899.  We talk about Christian college...

Grief coach, author, and founder of the Restorative Grief Project, Mandy Capehart joins the VCW hall as we talk all about grief in its many forms, including anticipatory and disenfranchised/ambiguous grief, grief guilt, grief brain, grief as a non-linear experience, why the "5 stages" aren't helpful for understanding grief, and how churches often fail to support grievers, particularly through spir...

Matt Zoller Seitz, Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, joins the VCW hall to talk about "The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon", his new book on the HBO series Deadwood, as well as its fascinating and complex creator David Milch. We talk about grief, addiction, recovery, certainty, Terrence Malick, and Matt shares his changing thoughts on spirituality and faith while having experienced unimaginable...

Managing editor of Religion News Service and co-host of the award-winning podcast Saved By the City, Roxanne Stone joins the VCW to talk about her Evangelical story, how the last 5 years have affected her faith, the urban/rural divide in America including on faith issues, how she broke the news about Hillsong NYC Pastor Carl Lentz's resignation because of an affair, and her experience going from w...

Author George Azar joins the VCW hall to talk about "My Gay Church Days", his self-published memoir of converting to evangelicalism as a teenager, becoming a pastor and thinking of himself as "struggling with same-sex attraction", his experience at Exodus International (the most notorious gay conversion organization in the world before it disbanded in 2012), and eventual acceptance of himself as a...

Our first international interview with guest Dr. Marcia Pally as we talk about her book "White Evangelicalism and Right Wing Populism: How Did We Get Here?". We discuss the duresses that white Evangelicals perceive themselves to be under, a history of how those perceived stressors and "us vs them" thinking inflames right wing populism. We also discuss how some Evangelicals at the end of the 1800s...

From the popular leftist podcast "Know Your Enemy", Matt Sitman joins the VCW hall to share his story about being raised in fundamentalist Christianity and experiencing culture shock when he attended Grove City College while moving into an Evangelical culture.  He discusses being a part of the historic Falls Church in Virginia in 2006 when there was an ugly church split over the appointing of...