In Season 2 (ish) Episode 6, Neil relates an encounter with an unhoused person in LA, Dan (or Danzilla), who offered a very unique take on one of our favorite films, The Big Lebowski.

We then take a deep dive into what Phil considers to be perhaps the most Big Lebowski story in the Old Testament, Judges 17-18, wherein Micah, a Levite, and the tribe of Dan very confidently get everything completely wrong.

We checked the "explicit material" box for this because there are a couple of F-bombs in honor of The Dude.

What we're drinking:

Phil: Sioux City Sarsaparilla
Neil: a White Russian

(What did you expect?)

We were determined to do another holiday special and this year we wanted it to be about the Magi/astrologers in Matthew 2, which is technically not Christmas but Epiphany. The season of Epiphany begins on January 6 and runs all the way to Ash Wednesday (which this year is also Valentine's Day, so Ash Valentine's Day!) so we are getting this baby in right under the wire!

In this Epiphany special we discuss the wise astrologers from the East, Herod and other tinpot despots, and weird divination practices that hang around in the Bible even though they're not strictly sanctioned. We'll also discuss the meaning of tarot cards, modern day astrology, and a little quantum mechanics and chaos theory.

What we're drinking in this episode
Neil: Los Angeles tap water (!)
Phil: Lemon Zinger

We wanted to do an episode on Critical Race Theory because it’s one of those phrases that has come to mean everything except what it is. We draw a careful (and we would argue obvious) distinction between discussing the history of race relations in the U.S. and Critical Race Theory as a discrete legal movement addressing racism in the American system of justice. Along the way we dive into controversies surrounding important Black Christian writers like Jemar Tisby and Esau McCaulley and critique some of the gratuitous attacks on their work.

So this one has been a long time coming. How long, you ask? So long ago Neil was attending a Dodgers/Pirates game in LA that very night. How long, you ask? So long ago running against “the woke mind virus” seemed like a winning strategy for Ron DeSantis. And yeah, the episode runs kinda long, but we hope it’s worth the wait for our regular listeners. If not, here are…

Three books that are better ways to spend your time than listening to this podcast:

Critical Race Theory: an Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley

What we’re drinking

Phil: Mighty Fortress Imperial IPA from Acrospire Brewing in Glenshaw, PA

Neil: whatever he got at the Dodgers/Pirates game later that night