Father John Misty (the moniker for Josh Tillman, former drummer of the Fleet Foxes) dropped his third album Pure Comedy, through Sub Pop records this last week. Dan and Jeff discuss the cultural significance of this album, which is a contribution to the conversation about religion, politics, and technological culture today. Tillman reportedly was reading Zizek's Living in the End Times during the recording of the album. That book was part of a Virtue in the Wasteland "class" Dan and Jeff taught last year. Thus, it brings together ViW's favorite themes: where we are going culturally, whether everything will indeed be ok in the end, religion, philosophy, ideology, politics, and well-written pop music.

This may not be for everyone, but you may want to listen even if Father John Misty isn't your style. This is because he taps into a very real concern young people (but not just young people) are raising about why it seems so often that conservative religious people act "like godless animals."

By the way, the album cover is interesting: it is like a modern take on Hieronymus Bosch.

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This wraps up our series on the Reformation outside of German lands.

This was supposed to be a serious, high-brow, educational show. It turned into something hard to categorize. We had fun at least.

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Part two in our series on the history of the reformations that took place outside of Germany. Henry VIII, Mary I, Elizabeth I, the Book of Common Prayer, and Anglicanism as a middle way between Wittenberg and Geneva.

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This is the first in a series of shows about the Reformations that took place in the sixteenth-century, outside of Germany and the Lutheran tradition.

We explore Zwingli's thought, the affair of the sausages, and political aspects of the Swiss reformation. 

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Authoritarian personalities and evil revisited.

Social movements with a real live sociologist.

Dan and Jeff respond to tough listener questions raised by past shows.

Why does painting matter? We discuss: La la Land, New Sincerity, Edvard Munch, The Scream, Impressionism, and the art of children.

Join us for a great conversation with our friend Dr. Dan Siedell. Our guest is Director of Whale & Star, the Miami-based studio of artist Enrique Martínez Celaya, where he oversees research and development. He is visiting professor at Knox Theological Seminary and Kings College, NY. Previously, he taught modern and contemporary art history, theory, and criticism at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He was also Chief Curator of the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for eleven years.  

He holds a Ph.D. in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism. University of Iowa (1995), and an M.A. inArt History, Theory, and Criticism. SUNY Stony Brook (1991).

He's the author of God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Baker Academic, 2008) and Who's Afraid of Modern Art?: Essays on Modern Art and Theology in Conversation (Cascade, 2015).

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Joe Laughon is back. Are we in an age of corruption and decay? Are we on the verge of a new world order, or on the edge of doom. Can we lock things down and keep the dangerous outsiders at bay?