I'm not a podcast guy. Folks sometimes asks me what podcasts I listen to. I only reliably listen to one: Slate Political Gabfest. I like their weekly progressive news summary. I've tried a bunch of others, but I haven't attached. I listened to (and loved) Krista Tippet for 5 or 6 years, only stopping my weekly listening a year or two ago.
Instead I've had a reading renaissance. I'm reading more books and essays than I have in the last decade (I blame fatherhood for the lapse). Reading (and writing) may be dying, but it's still the way I want to engage ideas.
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I really appreciated Richard Reeves' Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It. Reeves makes the case that American men are in crisis. Anecdotally, I see and feel this all around me--mostly, in social justice spaces, which are dominated by women. It suggests to me that men are increasingly disengaged from moral engagement (and perhaps moral reflection). Men seem to me to be either a) trying to make it/succeed/hold on in the traditional role of breadwinner in the hetero-capitalist patriarchy; b) giving up on that role and giving their manhood over to violent reactionary ideologies; or c) playing lots of video games.
Reeves makes a strong case for a renewed social focus on the role of men in society, in education, work, and family life. I have strong opinions of what makes a "good man," but I welcome all efforts--from the right and the left--to dignify male identity.
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I loved Tom Ord's new book, The Death of Omnipotence. In general, I've not loved theology as a discipline. Theology reifies the theologian's interior life (see Feuerbach) so much so that they ought to be filed under autobiography. I've loved a few books of theology (Moltmann, Cone), but disliked more theologians than I like (esp. Calvin, Barth). Late in seminary, we were introduced to process theology, and I always thought "that might be me." But no one seemed to understand it--which is what makes process theology both appealing and at the same time inaccessible as a means of engaging God.
I happened on Tripp Fuller's interview with Ord, and I found myself leaning in, so I bought the book. It's a really readable analysis on why omnipotence should NEVER have been associated with the Christian God in the first place. I'm 100% on board with this, so I found myself delighted to see the case against omnipotence (and the case FOR an all-loving God) made so directly.
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Another quick podcast reference. Although I'm not a reliable listener, the recent Code Switch episode by JC Howard on being a black man in a white evangelical church was tremendous. So many of us in the world today feel "out of place" within the religious tradition that we were born into or the one in which we were drawn to later in life. Many of us leave religion altogether, thinking "if I can't be at home, I won't be in it at all." Howard makes a beautiful defense of how religion requires the individual to engage its imperfection in order to discover its value. If you think of religion as needing to be a "great fit" for your life, you're treating it as a consumer treats a commodity. It's not that. If religion doesn't fit, don't back away. Go in further. Ask why. That's when religion will start kicking your ass (in a good way).
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