The Christian Humanist Podcast

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Episode 75: Ante-Dante Apr 03, 2012

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David Grubbs moderates a discussion with Michial Farmer and David Grubbs about Dante, specifically about some of the background and context that makes Dante a more enjoyable read. We take on the theology, philosophy, poetry, and other influences on the Florentine poet, and we include in the discussion those works after Dante that shed light retrospectively. Among the writers and artifacts discussed are Virgil, Aristotle, St. Thomas, T.S. Eliot, and Hart Crane.

Episode 74: The Documentary Hypothesis Mar 20, 2012

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Nathan Gilmour moderates a conversation with David Grubbs and Michial Farmer about about the documentary hypothesis, a tool that Bible scholars have used, abused, and disputed for some hundred and thirty years. At stake are the character of Biblical inspiration and the operation of God in the world, and we have a good discussion not only about historical reactions to the theory but also regarding the theological ramifications. Among the writers and artifacts discussed are The Fundamentals, Prolegomenon to the History of Israel, and Biblical Scholarship.

Episode 73: Patience Mar 13, 2012

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Michial Farmer moderates a conversation with David Grubbs and Nathan Gilmour about about patience, the length of will that Aristotle linked to anger and Paul to persecution. Perhaps the most troubled of the three virtues that we've discussed so far, much of our conversation has to do with why we always feel the need to apologize for patience. Among the writers and artifacts discussed are Job, Aristotle, the Stoics, Fabius Maximus, Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, and Galatians.

Episode 72: Valor Mar 06, 2012

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David Grubbs moderates a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about about valor or courage, the virtue of responding well in the face of onrushing danger. Beginning with the grammar of the Hebrew stative verb (it's related, we promise), the conversation moves through medieval conceptions and on into the possibility or impossibility of courage in a world of mechanized war and standing armies. Among the writers and artifacts discussed are Joshua (the biblical book), Summa Theologica, Tolkien, Tennyson, Wilfred Owen, Camus, and the Iliad.

Episode 71: Humility Feb 28, 2012

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Nathan Gilmour moderates a conversation with David Grubbs and Michial Farmer about about humility, that particularly Christian virtue that was a vice to the Greeks and a rot to Nietzsche. The conversation situates medieval conceptions of humility as syntheses of Pauline and Aristotelian teachings and proposes that precisely such a robust medieval moral philosophy stands to correct both the abuses of imposed "humility" and late-modern critiques of the same. Among the texts and thinkers discussed are Philippians, Summa Theologica, Nietzsche's The Antichrist, The Lord of the Rings, Walt Whitman, and Paradise Lost.

Episode 70: Epistemology Feb 21, 2012

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Michial Farmer moderates a conversation with David Grubbs and Dr. Nathan Gilmour about epistemology, the philosophical investigation of how we know what we know. A central concern of philosophy since the 17th century and a valid question before that, epistemology comes in a definite range of options. Among the thinkers and ideas discussed are Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Pierce, Kuhn, and micro-fairies.

Episode 69: Sidekicks Feb 14, 2012

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David Grubbs moderates a conversation with Michial Farmer and David Grubbs about the hero's companion, a figure known in modern comic books as the sidekick. Whether spurring ancient heroes on to great deeds or providing the reader a surrogate in modern fiction, the sidekick is always good for a helping hand (or, in the case of children's movies, actually to save the day). Among the texts and other artifacts discussed are Beowulf, Gilgamesh, The Iliad, the Lone Ranger, Teen Titans, Huckleberry Finn, and Big Trouble in Little China.

Episode 68: Romanticism Feb 07, 2012

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Nathan Gilmour moderates a discussion with David Grubbs and Michial Farmer about the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The strong development of nationalism, a deep love for the imagination, the cult of the artist as solitary individual, and other developments stay with us even today. Among the artists, artifacts, and other stuff discussed are the American and French Revolutions, the Enlightenment, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Grimm Brothers, Lord Byron, the artist's biography and its importance to the Romantics, and other such things.

Episode 67.2: Good News for Anxious Christians Jan 31, 2012

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Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour discuss Phillip Cary's book Good News for Anxious Christians, a popular-press theology book dedicated to countering what Cary calls "The New Evangelicalism." Focusing on their own interactions with high school and college students in the evangelical world, the hosts talk about Cary's particularly timely warnings against moral irresponsibility and the anxiety that comes when consumerism gets together with Christian piety.

Episode 67.1: The Office of Assertion Jan 24, 2012

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Nathan Gilmour and Michial Farmer discuss Scott Crider's book The Office of Assertion, a composition textbook rooted in classical rhetorical traditions. Moving freely between their own teaching practices and the differences between classical and contemporary educational theory, the discussion digs into Aristotle's responses to Plato, the Renaissance of classical rhetoric as a response to rhetoric's decline in the academy, and other matters of education and rhetoric.

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