Dr. Paul Axton, theologian and host of the Forging Ploughshares podcast, sits down with David Gornoski to talk about his experience of living in Japan, the idea of shame in death, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and seeing Japanese culture through Christian eyes. While pointing out that Romans 7 is absolutely essential for understanding what it is to imitate […]
How has Christianity affected western civilization? Tom Holland, author of Dominion, starts by giving us a glimpse at what pre-Christian justice looked like; he then takes us through the transformation of criminal justice as Christianity was absorbed more and more into the culture by western civilization. Tom Holland also describes how Christianity, as preached by […]
Shannon: “Parents often say: ‘don’t discuss politics and religion at the dinner table.’” David: “But that’s what I always talk about at dinner; all politics and religion originate at the original dinner which is ritual cannibalism.” Shannon Braswell, a Girardian from Washington, sits down with David Gornoski to examine the historical and mythological narratives through […]
David Gornoski explores the anthropological origins of the recent attempts to quarantine guilt onto the back of President Trump, China, and other entities for the coronavirus pandemic emergency. Sir James Frazer’s classic book “The Golden Bough” is explored to see how primitive societies used rainmakers, chiefs in charge of good weather to blame when bad […]
How did Christianity change the world? Can we trace a path towards a less violent world due to the impact of the story of Jesus’s death on humanity’s sense-making? David Gornoski talks with acclaimed historian Tom Holland on his new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World and how his study of history […]
David Gornoski explores how our forms of collective violence increasingly fail to deter violence because of our lack of appetite for publicly sanctioned brutality. This phenomenon, a product of the Gospel’s influence in the West, will continue to render state coercion impotent in foreign nation building campaigns and domestic wars on nonviolent choices. Media ecology […]
Where did political correctness come from? Why is it unique to the West? What force provides the context by which this contagious complex of victim-posturing for power arose? David Gornoski explores how our gradual demystification of historical texts acts as a blame-the-messenger self-obsession with attacking Western institutions and traditions.
David Gornoski explores why politics is failing to contain our violence and animosity increasingly in AD 2020. We examine the anthropological forces at play as division grows in politics the longer cultures steep in the story and values of the crucified one.
In this episode, David Gornoski analyzes the Apollonius of Tyana mythologically-intermediate story of a miracle in Ephesus. The pagan miracle worker is often favorably compared with Jesus of Nazareth by moderns anxious to posture rebellion towards their parents’ Christian affinity. We then use this demystification process to deconstruct a modern news report on a pharmaceutical […]
David Gornoski explores how the story of Jonah, Susanna’s persecution, and Daniel’s imprisonment serve as evidence of early Christianity’s deeply anti-sacrificial meaning and aesthetic. These stories deal with averted sacrifice and mercy for the weak, misfits, and outsiders.