New Persuasive Words

"The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones." - Thornton Wilder

About the show

New Persuasive Words started as two guys talking about life with what we thought (hoped?) was wit and insight, on our good days anyway. Then...a podcast.

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Episodes

  • Episode 160: A Lasting Hope

    August 18th, 2017  |  34 mins 54 secs

    In this episode we consider where to find hope at a time that seems for many so dark in our country right now.

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    Episode 159: Anxiety and Hope

    August 15th, 2017  |  31 mins 41 secs

    Where do we go from here? That seems to be the question of the moment. We live in a tribal, angry, isolated culture. New York Times columnist David Brooks has some ideas that we like in his most recent column. So we decided to do a little riffing off of him. We even go from the 21st century to the 16th at the end.

  • Episode 158: Bullgeschichte: Horton hears a...?, with Nikki Kelley Kleinberg

    August 15th, 2017  |  47 mins 20 secs

    Our guest for this bullgeschichte episode is Nikki Kelley Kleinberg. She's a United Methodist pastor and a hospital chaplain. We talk about a wide range of things, including the theology of Dr. Seuss.

  • Episode 157: Charlottesville Reflection Roundtable, hosted by the Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast

    August 14th, 2017  |  1 hr 11 mins

    We were grateful to be invited to participate in a roundtable discussion about the recent events in Charlottesville and what they mean for our country and the church. It was hosted by our friends at the Crackers and Grape Juice podcast.

  • Episode 156: The Death of Ambition

    August 9th, 2017  |  28 mins 19 secs

    In this episode we discuss ambition, mortality and everything in between. Our conversation was inspired by Bill's recent article in The Mockingbird print magazine.

  • Episode 155: Bullgeschichte, Friday Night Lights & Law/Gospel, with Adam Morton

    August 4th, 2017  |  40 mins 25 secs

    |n this Bullgeschichte/Friday Night Lights episode we talk with the Prince of Lutherans (according to us), Adam Morton. He and Bill argue the finer points of Luther and Lutheranism. Scott cracks bad jokes.

  • Episode 154: T.S. Eliot on Revelation

    August 3rd, 2017  |  31 mins 18 secs

    In this episode we consider an essay T.S. Eliot wrote as an introduction on the topic of revelation in the modern world in a volume that listed among its contributors renowned theologians like Karl Barth and Gustav Aulen.

  • Episode 153: We Need Humanism

    July 31st, 2017  |  33 mins 3 secs

    We read a weird article. It looks like the atheist left is getting as crazy as the evangelical right. We're nervous.

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    Episode 152: The Hermeneutics Episode?

    July 28th, 2017  |  40 mins 5 secs

    We don't talk hermeneutics very often on this podcast. At least explicitly. But Jace Broadhurst got us talking about it. It's Bullgeschichte and Friday Night Lights rolled into one! God help us all.

  • Episode 151: The Lost Prophecy of Father Joseph Ratzinger

    July 26th, 2017  |  33 mins 16 secs

    In this episode we discuss a 1969 radio address about the future of the church in a secular age. It was delivered by a young priest known as Joseph Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI.

  • Episode 150: Happy Anniversary To Us!

    July 20th, 2017  |  34 mins 35 secs

    We celebrate the milestone of our 150th episode with listener and friend Josh Retterer. We reflect on where we've been and where we're going.

  • Episode 149: Friendship Revisited

    July 14th, 2017  |  42 mins 29 secs

    We revisit one of the themes of our earliest podcasts, friendship.

  • Episode 148: Judge Not...

    July 10th, 2017  |  30 mins 43 secs

    In this episode we talk about the powerful temptation to judge other people, which most of us give in to all the time.

  • Episode 147: Fight or Flight Revisited

    July 8th, 2017  |  33 mins 47 secs

    As we approach our 150th episode, we're revisiting some topics we did early on at the beginning of the podcast. This episode is about the human tendency to go into fight or flight mode in response to anxiety provoking realities.

  • Episode 146: Secular Modern Life?

    July 3rd, 2017  |  37 mins 33 secs

    In this episode we reflect on a 2008 article by the recently deceased Peter Berger which originally appeared in First Things.

  • Episode 145: Freedom then and Now

    June 30th, 2017  |  33 mins 24 secs

    In this episode, in light of the upcoming Fourth of July celebration, we reflect on the nature of freedom and life together in the United States.