In this episode of Sacred Tension, I’m joined by gay activist, author, and Brookings Institute scholar Jonathan Rauch to discuss his recent article Uncanceling Ourselves. We discuss how a tiny minority of activists have an outsized chilling effect on necessary discourse, and steps we can take to free ourselves from a fearful mindset.
Continue reading “Sacred Tension: Uncanceling Ourselves | Jonathan Rauch”
I remain connected to the Christian world, even though I’m not a Christian. This is because I value friendship, and I don’t want to cut ties with people who are very dear to me. While having conversations about faith with Christians, though, I’ve noticed a trend that annoys me.
Christians will often make strong, extraordinary, and hard-to-defend claims about the world. But when pressed on these claims, they often retreat to more philosophical, vague, and easier-to-defend claims. This tactic is called the Motte and Bailey. When the Bailey is under attack, they retreat to the Motte.
Continue reading “The Motte and Bailey of Christian Belief”
In this episode of Sacred Tension, I’m joined by Brookings Institute scholar Richard Reeves to discuss his new book Of Boys and Men. We discuss the unique challenges facing boys and men, how intersectionality is a valuable tool, the crisis of meaning among some men, whether porn is a negative force in society, and much more.
Continue reading “Sacred Tension: Of Boys and Men | Richard Reeves”
In this episode of Sacred Tension, I’m joined by podcaster David Rutledge of ABC’s The Philosopher’s Zone to talk about his religious upbringing, his interest in Satanism, his loss of religious faith, and his objections to public intellectuals who take an over-simplified and divisive approach to “postmodernism.”
Continue reading “Sacred Tension: Derrida, The Exorcist, and Losing Faith | David Rutledge of The Philosopher’s Zone”
For the past few weeks on the blog, I’ve been discussing the importance of reading challenging texts. “Challenging” covers a broad range of books — it can mean books you hate, books you don’t enjoy, books that you are ideologically opposed to, or books that are worth reading but hard to get through.
Continue reading “Mitch Horowitz on Reading Great Occult Texts”
Last week I explored why I believe reading challenging and controversial books is a beneficial practice — a skill I’m calling resilient reading. After publishing that post, though, I realized it might be worth exploring some disciplines that make resilient reading tenable.
Continue reading “The Art of Resilient Reading”
In this episode of Sacred Tension, I am joined by Dr. Zoe Alderton to explore the Snapewives: a short-lived new religious movement that declared Professor Snape from the Harry Potter books their master and husband.
Continue reading “Sacred Tension: Snapewives | Dr. Zoe Alderton”
I’ve been reading J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith), and it’s ignited some reflections on one of my long-standing obsessions: reading literature deemed harmful, problematic, or dangerous. In my circles, reading anything by J.K. Rowling is fraught. In the aftermath of her public stances on trans people, a generation of readers are now re-examining her books and legacy. Mentioning that I’m reading J.K. Rowling inevitably generates exasperated sighs, eye rolls, or outright hostility.
Continue reading “J.K. Rowling and Resilient Reading”The past couple of weeks have been challenging. My grandfather died, and the ensuing family chaos and celebrations of a life well lived distracted me from my work. I hope to get back to a regular schedule soon.
Continue reading “Sunday Curiosities: Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Offend”
In this episode of Sacred Tension, I’m joined once more by gun advocate, youtuber, Minister of Satan, and good friend Karl Kasarda to have a raw conversation about the ethics of gun rights. We discuss the high rates of suicide by gun, the prevalence of gun violence in the United States, and why minorities need the right to bear arms.
Find Kasarda’s youtube channel InRangeTV here.
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Music for the show is by Eleventyseven and The Jellyrox.
Stephen Bradford Long 